Global Research

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name (only available in desktop version).

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Click the share button above to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

New Year Donation Drive: Global Research Is Committed to the “Unspoken Truth”

***

On the second day of 2024, in Busan city, Korea, a terrorist called Kim (the murderer) tried to assassinate  with double-edged dagger Lee Jae-myung, the leader of the opposition party, the Democratic Party of Korea (DPK). 

The assassin disguised as an admirer of the opposition leader approached Lee, asked Lee’s autograph and jumped forward with his dagger and hit Lee’s left side neck and pierced Lee’s vein but fortunately not the artery. 

By miracle, the victim survived after a difficult operation in Seoul National University hospital.

The question which begs for an answer is this: had he himself planned to kill the opposition party leader, or was he ordered to do so by some hidden political forces? 

This criminal and dangerous incident could have a profound impact on the legislative election in April and the future of Korea. 

This paper discusses all relevant aspects of the incident including the possibility of a trilateral conspiracy (ROK-Japan-U.S.) which may be directly or indirectly responsible for the tragic attempted murder of the opposition leader.

As pointed out by the Western media, the incident is caused by an internal conflict within South Korea. This is the correct assessment. But, we need to know the nature of this internal conflict. 

The conflict has a long history of 113 years (1910-2023). It is the conflict between two opposing forces. 

One is the Anti-Korea Force (AKF) composed of those Koreans who collaborated with Japan during the Japanese colonial era (1910-1945) and their descendents. 

The AKF regards the Koreans as rival even as enemy. Therefore, they pursue their own interests at the expense of the interests of the Korean people. 

On the other hand, the opposing force is Pro-Korea Force (PKF). This force includes patriots who fought against the Japanese oppression and flagrant violation of human rights and patriots’ descendents who have been fighting the corruption and the abuse of power of the AKF ever since 1945.

The PKF pursues the promotion of all Koreans’ interests, while the AKF is interested in assuring its own wealth and privileges.  

The AKF-PKF conflict has been difficult to settle partly because of the intervention of Japan and the U.S. to support the AKF.

In other words, this conflict has lasted so long partly due to the conspiracy among AKF of South Korea, Japan and the U.S, which is best designated as a “trilateral conspiracy.”

This paper discusses the following issues.

• Nature of the trilateral conspiracy 
• Evolution of the AKF-PKF fight
• Anti-AKF policy of Moon Jae-in
• AKF’s reaction to Moon Jae-in Policy
• Election of Yoon Suk-yeol as President
• Mission of Yoon Suk-yeol 
• Facts pertaining to the attempted Murder

Nature of the Trilateral Conspiracy

In this section, I will be focussing on the role of AKF, Washington and Tokyo in creating a problematic social and political climate conducive to the failed attempt to assassinate Lee Jae-myung.

The conspiracy is possible because all the three entities have something in common. 

The AKF of South Korea lacks legitimacy, because it is composed of the traitors’ descendents. Therefore, it regards the PKF and the Korean people as enemies. Hence, its priority is given to the maintenance of its power, the creation of its wealth and the continuation of its privileges.

To attain these objectives, the AKF has to silence the opposition voice of the PKF on the one hand, and on the other, it needs protection of Japan and the U.S.

Now, Washington also needs to protect the AKF and demonize the PKF.

The AKF is very pro-Washington and it is ready to compromise Korea’s interest for the promotion of Washington’s interests.

For these reasons, Washington has been cooperating with AKF on the one hand, and on the other, it has been participating in the demonization of the PKF.

Japan also has reasons to support the AKF and antagonize the PKF. The AKF supports Japan’s argument that the Japanese colonialism was good for Korea and that crime of Comfort Women, Labour Slavery and other war crimes were not real. Such unpatriotic behaviour of the AKF is more than welcome for Japan, for it may justify the Japanese colonialism 2.0.

Japan wants to demonize the PKF because it is not pro-Japan and because it wants Korea’s sovereignty. 

There are other reasons for the three entities to side with the AKF and go against the PKF.

First, all three do not want peaceful reunification of Korea for different reasons.

For Washington, the peaceful reunification of Korea means the withdrawal of the US military from Korea.

For Japan, the peaceful reunification means threats to Japan and increasing difficulty in re-colonizing Korea. For the AKF and Yoon, the peaceful unification of Korea means alienation of the AKF and the end of its privilege.

Second, all three entities do not like the strength of the middle class represented by the PKF.

For Washington, strong PKF means increasing difficulty in using South Korea for the promotion of its own interests.

For Tokyo, a strong middle class (PKF) makes it difficult to justify its colonialism. For Yoon and the AKF, it becomes more difficult to destroy it so that Yoon and the AKF keep their wealth and privilege.

It is to be remembered that in 2008 President Lee Myung-bak (2008-2013) could not import rotten American beef due to the PKF’s mass protests. Lee Myung-bak wanted to please Washington. 

In 2019, Japan imposed trade sanctions on South Korea in connection with the labour slavery of Korean workers. But, the PKF fought back through the “Do not buy Japanese goods” campaign ended up by total failure of the Japanese trade sanction. So, Japan does not like the PKF.

Yoon Suk-yeol and the AKF know too well the power of the masses (PKF) which forced all the six AKF to terminate their presidency in a tragic way.

The following shows how Washington, Tokyo and Yoon’s AKF have played their respective role to destroy the PKF.

Washington’s Role

In 1905, Washington took side with AKF through the Taft-Katsura Agreement by virtue of which Japan could have Korea, while the U.S. could conquer the Philippines. This resulted in the annexation of Korea to Japan which was made possible by the treason of Lee Wan-yong who sold Korea to Japan free of charge. 

This created a situation where the traitors and Korean patriots started to fight. This fight is going on now between the descendents of the two forces. 

During 15 years since 1945, the American military government (1945-1948) and the government of Rhee Syngman (1948-1960) (image right), the traitors were hired to run the two governments and the traitors massacred several hundreds of thousands of South Korea civilians to silence the voice of objection to these governments. 

In this way, Washington was responsible for the survival and the expansion of the AKF on the one hand and, on the other, the massive destruction of the PKF.

During the pro-US military dictatorship of Generals Park Chung-hee (1962-1979) and Chun Doo-hwan (1980-1987) Washington supported these two dictators despite their cruel and violent violations of all human rights of the PKF. There is no doubt that Washington has abundantly contributed to the AKF-PKF fight for AKFs advantage.

Now, under the government of Lee Myung-bak (2008-2013) and that of Park Geun-hye (2013-2017) (image Left), Washington would have intervened for the presidential election through various means including the creation of fearful social climate by intensifying anti-North Korea military propaganda and military threat.

Such social climate has often led to electoral victory of the AKF.

There was another way of Washington’s interference in the South Korean presidential elections. For example, two leaders of South Korean minor political parties were suspected to have contributed, in 2022, to the slim victory of Yoon Suk-yeol. These individuals are suspected to be collaborators of American intelligence agencies.

Washington has been showing to Koreans that the AKF’s diplomacy with Washington is better than that of PKF’s. This tactic of Washington is motivated to alienate the PKF and to support the AKF. 

Tokyo’s Role

Tokyo has surely contributed to the interests of the AKF at the expense of those of the PKF.

It is true that Japan lost the Pacific War. But, its ambition of ruling Asia again never died. To rule Asia again, Japan had to conquer again Korea. To do so, it was necessary to colonize Korea again. To colonize Korea, Japan needed the collaboration of the pro-Japan conservative force, that is, the AKF.

It was Japan who funded the first political party of the AKF led by General Park Chung-hee who received USD 66 million in 1963 from Kishi Nonuske, the virtual leader of Japan. 

General Park created with this money the Republican Party. The current party of the AKF, the People Power Party (PPP), is the linear offspring of Park’s Republican Party.

Another strategy of re-colonizing Korea was the negation of Japanese war crimes against the Korean race. The “New Right” movement in South Korea was created to convince the Korean people that the Japanese colonialism was good for Korea and that the PKF’s unfriendly attitude toward Japan is wrong.

One of the ways of supporting the AKF and punishing the PKF was its diplomacy with South Korea. When the AKF is in power the Japan-ROK relations were smooth and constructive. But, when the PKF is in power, Tokyo chose hostile relations with South Korea to argue that the PKF is unable to conduct good diplomacy.

Thus, both Washington and Tokyo have conspired to help the AKF and penalizing the PKF for the promotion of their respective interests.

Role of Yoon and AKF

Image: Yoon takes the presidential oath of office outside the National Assembly, 10 May 2022 (Licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0)

The role of Yoon Suk-yeol and the AKF is to subordinate Korea’s interests to those of Japan and the U.S. in return of their protection provided by Washington and Tokyo.

Yoon justified and glorified Japanese colonialism. This concession increases Japan’s ambition to colonize Korea again.

As for the U.S., Yoon accepted the trilateral military alliance. This concession forces the ROK army to fight the China-U.S. proxy war and it will mean the end of Korea.

In short, Japan and the U.S. have conspired with the AKF in its fight against the PKF. In return, Yoon has promoted the interests of Tokyo and Washington even at the expense of Korea’s interests. 

This is the essence of the trilateral conspiracy.

Evolution of the AKF-PKF Fight

Creation of the AKF’s wealth 

In the evolution of the AKF-PKF fight, money has played the vital role. Money has allowed AKF to take and keep power and control the PKF.

In total, the AKF has ruled Korea for 35 years (1910-1945) during the Japanese colonial period and governed South Korea for 55 years since 1945.

The AKF has accumulated enormous wealth during 90 years. During the Japanese colonial period, it became rich by stealing land, houses, factories, money and other assets belonging to Korean patriot families.

During the post-war period, the AKF became extremely rich by the following methods: appropriation of assets of Japanese who left Korea, business-politics collusion allowing the AKF to take a good part of GDP growth, infinite kinds of bribes, kickbacks, illegal land speculation, forced change of land zoning code, fees for the deployment of 300,000 South Korean soldiers to Vietnam, the 4-River construction project, the Natural Resource diplomacy and outright embezzlement of public funds.

Nobody knows about the wealth of the AKF. But it surely amounts to several trillions of dollars. Much of this wealth is invested in real estate at home and abroad.

The AKF had to protect its wealth at all costs. To protect the wealth, it must keep power. To keep power, it must eliminate those who criticise or those who are suspected to criticise the AKF government; it has been imposing police dictatorship, military dictatorship, prosecutor dictatorship even media dictatorship.

Through such criminal regimes, the AKF has massacred more than 600,000 South Koreans; perhaps more than 30% of South Korean families have been the target of police harassment; a great number of young people were barred from public service; many were expelled from Korea; countless young people were tortured by the police for their street demonstration.

Counter-offensive of Citizens

The PKF has not remained idle. It fought back in two ways. One way was the popular uprising by all citizens, especially by the students. The other was counter-offensive by PKF governments.

• The Student Revolution (April 19, 1960) leading to the dismissal of President Rhee Syngman who escaped to Hawaii on American CIA plane. 
• The BUMA Protests (October 16, 1979) leading to the assassination of General Park Chung-hee by his CIAK director.
• The Kwangjoo Democratic Movement (May 18, 1980) allowing the imprisonment of General Chun Doo-hwan and General Rho Tae-woo for corruption
• The Democratic Movement of June 1987: Amendment of constitution allowing direct election of president by the people.
• The Candle Light Revolution (2016-2017) by 17,000,000 citizens of all ages leading to the impeachment of President Park Geun-hye and the formation of the PKF’s government of Moon-Jae-in

Counter-offensive by the PKF’s Governments

The government of Kim Daejung (1998-2003), the government of Rho Moo-hyun (2003-2008) and the government of Moon Jae-in (2017-2022) have fought back against the AKF.

The 15-year PKF governments have fought against the AKF through political, economic, media and judicial reforms.

The three presidents of the PKF have certainly harmed the privileges of the AKF. 

However, it was the government of Moon Jae-in which has harmed the most the AKF.

Anti-AKF Policy of Moon Jae-in 

Image: Moon at his first press conference as president in 2017 (Licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0)

Armed with the spirit of the Candle Light Revolution, Moon Jae-in took power in 2017. This change of power meant a great threat for the AKF which had lost its force despite the desperate efforts by Lee Myung-bak and Park Geun-hye to restore it.

The measures adopted by Moon Jae-in included the following: the destruction of the bribe culture, increase in government spending for the improvement of the well being of the ordinary people, increase in minimum wage, increase in the coverage of medical care insurance, increase in corporate tax, increase in capital gains tax, restriction of the coverage of the security law, increase in the negotiation power of labour unions and many other measures which drastically reduced the source of income of the AKF.

Election of Yoon Suk-yeol as President

The AKF was alarmed by Moon’s policies. The AKF decided to find someone who could destroy the PKF. Well, the someone was Yoon Suk-yeol. 

The AKF knew that Yoon had no experience in politics or administration except arresting and imprisoning people.

But this was, precisely, the quality sought by the AKF which wanted a butcher who would kill the PKF.

During the campaign, Yoon showed his ignorance, his stupidity and his Shamanism. He showed, during a the debate, the sign of king “王” on his hand. His wife, notorious criminal, was known to be the disciple of Shaman called “Cheon -Gong”

Mission of Yoon Suk-yeol

Yoon seems to have these missions. 

• Maximum creation of wealth for Yoon and the AKF
• Prevention of citizens’ mass protests against Yoon’s government and the AKF
• Imposition of Prosecutor dictatorship
• Demonization of the PKF and its party, Democratic Party of Korea (DPK)
• Elimination of future leaders of the PKF
• Elimination of Lee Jae-myung

Maximum Creation of Wealth for Yoon and the AKF

In addition to the usual way of accumulating the wealth of the AKF, Yoon has been trying to stack up money for himself and his friends of the AKF.

• First, increase of the allocation of resources to large corporations through subsidies and grants and decrease of corporate taxes so that the bribe money can flow in the pockets of Yoon and the AKF.
• Second, non-bidding contracts for the reparation of new presidential office, moving expenses and a host of other government projects allowing the illegal sharing of the contract funds with the contractors.
• Third, the appointment of AKF people at key government positions for bribes.
• Fourth, possible appropriation of travel expenses of frequent presidential overseas visits.
• Fifth, outright embezzlement of public funds.
• Sixth, cut of spending on people’s wellbeing. To create more wealth for the AKF, Yoon did cut expenses needed for the promotion of people’s well being, decreased old age pension, cut subsidies to schools, decreased subsidies to SMEs, decreased medical care coverage, increased income tax, cut subsidies for R&D and many other measures to impoverish the ordinary people and compromise Korea’s potential economic growth.

Prevention of Citizens Mass Protests Against Yoon’s Government and the AKF

The best way of preventing the citizens’ mass protests against Yoon’s government and the AKF is to make the people so poor that they feel powerless to fight against the Yoon’s prosecutor dictatorship.

To do that, Yoon has decided to destroy the source of income of ordinary Koreans. This requires the demolition of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) which create 90% of jobs on the one hand, and on the other, promote the interests of large corporations which provide most of the bribes.

Moreover, Yoon has decided to cut considerably the funding of R&D. This policy will bring long-run stagnation of the economy. Thus, the poverty of South Koreans will continue.

Imposition of Prosecutor Dictatorship

In order to better control the voice of objection and protest against his regime, Yoon started, right after he took power in 2022, the dictatorship regime of prosecutors.

First he has appointed prosecutors to run key government and government-funded institutions. These prosecutors have no knowledge about the functions they are supposed to perform. 

Their real function is to find any wrong doings committed by those who had worked for the previous government of Moon Jae-in. The purpose was to wipe out the trace of Moon’s reforms which have threatened the existence of the AKF.

Another objective was to eliminate those civil servants who may feel closer to the PKF people. In fact, many former ministers and deputy ministers of Moon Jae-in government are in prison with no evidence justifying their imprisonment.

Second, opinion makers including artists, politicians, academics, journalists and others who criticize or may do so are object of prosecutors’ numerous house search, indictment, harassing and even imprisonment with no supporting evidence. 

This has created a social climate of fear and uncertainty harming any productive activities needed for the development of the society.

The whole purpose of prosecutor dictatorship is the maintenance of the power which is, for Yoon and the AKF, more important than social and economic development of Korea and the Koreans’ well being. 

Demonization of the PKF and Its Party, the Democratic Party of Korea (DPK)

Right from the debut of Yoon’s government two years ago, the DPK has been demonized by Yoon, PPP and the AKF.

The AKF mobilized countless pro-AKF social media, on line media and speeches and conferences to qualify DPK as communists, corrupted gangster and responsible for the artificial peace promoted y the three DPK presidents, Kim Dae-jung (1990-2003)- Rho Moo-hyun (2003-2008) and Moon Jae-in (2017-2022).

Yoon has refused to meet Lee Jae-myung president of the DPK, because the DPK is a criminal organization. The hidden purpose was to blame the DPK for Yoon’s failure of national policies.

Elimination of Future PKF Leaders 

Yoon has adopted the tactic of “judiciary trap” to eliminate future leaders of the PKF. It involves the following steps:

• First, the prosecutor, pro-AKF media and pro-AKF NGOs fabricate evidence of wrong doings of PKF leaders.
• Second, the prosecutor’s office gives the fabricated evidence to pro-AKF media. By the way, more than 90% of Korea median is pro-AKF.
• Third, influenced by the media, the people believe that the target person of the AKF is guilty.
• Fourth, some individuals or some organizations indict the target person. In fact, there is an AKF NGO specialized in indicting PKF members. It inducts each week several individual or organizations of the PKF.
• Fifth, the court trial can last for years in some cases. And the target person has to pay mounting lawyer fee and becomes the public enemy.
• Sixth, usually, the court declares “not guilty”. But the target person is socially, professionally and politically assassinated.

The AKF picks, as target, those leaders who could become presidential candidate for the PKF. 

The manufactured evidence of target person’s wrong doings is sex abuse and bribes scandals.

There were four prominent PKF persons who could be presidential candidate. Two of them killed themselves, although there was no proof of the crimes. They could not allow the suffering of their families. The other two are no longer eligible for presidential candidates 

The disappearance of four PKF leaders has hurt badly the leadership of the PKF.

The troubling fact is that it is quasi impossible to stop the judiciary trap, because the Korean prosecutor office is the most powerful organization in the world. There is no power which cam punish prosecutor up to now. 

Fortunately, in 2023 the National Assembly adopted a law allowing the impeachment of prosecutors. But it has very limited authority. So, the judiciary trap continues.

Elimination of Lee Jae-myung

Lee Jae-myung goes much further than Moon Jae-in in uprooting the social, political and financial infrastructure of the corrupted AKF. 

Lee cannot be bought with bribes. Hence, he must be eliminated by other means. There are two ways of eliminating Lee. One is the judicial trap killing, while the other is political assassination.

Lee Jae-myung is trapped in the judiciary trap. 

First, he is accused of corruption. One is the use of the value added tax income from large private housing development for the project of low rent rental dwelling construction project while Lee was the mayor of Sungnam city. The prosecutor’s office argues that, some of the value added tax is embezzled by Lee. There is no proof.

Second, the other case is this. Lee used empty public land for local soccer team. Lee obtained some funds from local business community. The prosecutor’s office accuses Lee of putting a part of this donation funds in his pocket. There is no proof.

The prosecutor’s office has conducted 367 house searches in two years at Lee’s house, his offices and even homes of his remote relatives.

But it has failed to find any evidence of Lee’s corruption. What is more inhuman is that Lee has to go the police three times a week for investigation. 

What make the people disgusted is the fact that he was summoned one day after Lee’s 25-day fasting. Lee could hardly walk then. Yoon might have hoped that Lee would die on the way to the police station.

Third, there was another land scandal used to connect Lee to corruption scandal. It is the land scandal of Dae-jang-dong. 

Lee was originally accused by one of senior members of the DPK out of jealousy. This person lost his presidential candidacy to Lee Jae-myung at the 2022 presidential election.

The irony is that the people deeply involved who pocketed millions of dollars are members of Yoon’s party, PPP. The case is now the object of a  Parliament’s Special Investigation.

As for the abuse of power, while Lee Jae-myung was the governor of Kyunggi province, Lee’s wife asked one of the secretarial staff of Lee to run an errand of buying beef for $7.0. This accusation is just ridiculous,

What is alarming is that the Western media copy what the corrupted Korean media say about fabricated story of corruption and abuse of power of Lee without investigation the reliability of these stories.

Moreover, the Western media do not mention the criminal activities of the wife of Yoon and ministers and vice-ministers of the Yoon’s government. 

The criminal activities of Mrs. Yoon, Kim Keun-hee is so extensive that the National Assembly adopted a law of Special Parliament Investigation of her crimes. 

But Yoon exercised his presidential veto power to refuse the law. Just imagine how mad man Yoon is. He has imprisoned so many innocent people, but he tries to hide his wife’s crimes.

Facts pertaining to Assassination Attempt

As we saw above, the judicial trap of “assassinating” Lee Jae-myung failed. Therefore, the actual assassination of Lee was the solution. The killer is called Kim of 60s. The following is what has been known so far.

First, he was member of PPP (AKF) for some time.

Second, he joined DPK and trained professionally. Especially, he practiced often how to jump forward and pierce the neck of the target person with a double-edged dagger.

Third, he followed Lee Jae-myung for some time with a view to kill him. Once he was seen trying to attack Lee in front of a car before Lee entered the car.

Day before the murder attempt, he was seen descending from an expensive car in front of a hotel. This suggests the possibility of conspiracy involving people who hate Lee, possibly someone from the AKF.

Fourth, at the police station in Busan, the attacker declared with almost pride that his intention was to kill Lee Jae-myung. This shows that he knew  that he would go to prison, that somebody would look after him and his family and that he would have presidential pardon, if the AKF keeps the power.

Fifth, the online and off line pro-AKF media are trying desperately to convince people that the murder attempt was motivated entirely by the attacker’s personal grudge against Lee Jae-myung. 

Sixth, the government of Yoon is eager to show that the attempted assassination is minor incident. For instance, the Prime Minister’s office declared,  even before the police investigation, that the injury of Lee Jae-myung was very minor.

Seventh, the pro-AKF media are silent; they do not mention the incident. 

Eighth, the police declared that it will not make public briefing about the incidence without explaining why.

Ninth, the possibility of conspiracy on the part of Yoon Suk-yeol and the AKF to eliminate Lee Jae-myung is high. 

The attempt to murder Lee has failed this time by the will of God. It was a miracle that Lee has survived. But, there will be more attempts to kill him.

Did Yoon conspire with Kishida and Biden to produce a social climate of fear until the April general election. The tactic would include the following:

image right: Joe Biden,  Fumio Kishida and Yoon Suk Yeol prior to trilateral meeting, August, 2023, at  Camp David, Maryland. (Official White House Photo by Erin Scott)

• —First, Kishida and Biden will intensify the demonization of North Korea. This will help the re-election of Biden in the U.S. in November and the improvement of Kishida’s approval rate in Japan. This will also help Yoon at the coming legislative election in Korea in April. At least, they hope so.
• —Second, this is important. Yoon will provoke localized armed conflict with North Korea. If North Korea reacts militarily, Yoon may declare the “Marshal Law”, kill Lee Jae-myung and PKF leaders and he may try to rule Korea forever like Park chung-hee and Chun Doo-hwan. 

This is what I call the “Marshall Law Trap” which was planned to be used in 2016 during the Candle Light Revolution. The person who plotted the Marshall Law escaped to the U.S. Now he is back.

However, if North Korea does not react militarily, the Marshall Law trap will fail. I sincerely hope that Chairman Kim Jung-un would not react at all at least until the April election in South Korea.  

If Lee Jae-myung is assassinated, no one has the will or means to fight the insane prosecutor dictatorship. Nobody knows what will happen to South Korea. May God protect Korea!

*

Note to readers: Please click the share button above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Dr. Joseph H. Chung is professor of economics at Quebec University in Montreal (UQAM). He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG).

Featured image is licensed under KOGL Type 1