One-party rule in South Korea shocks U.S. congressman

FPI / December 16, 2020

Democrats in January will have a chance to take control of the U.S. Senate with victories in two runoff elections. Analysts say all signs point to a repeat of the November election in which massive fraud and irregularities were alleged.

Democrat leaders have vowed to fundamentally change the country if they control the House and Senate and have what they see as an easily-manipulated Joe Biden in the White House.

Americans need only look at what is transpiring in South Korea to see what happens when one party rule is instituted following a disputed election, analysts say.

"The Democratic Party of Korea has been flaunting its super majority at the National Assembly by passing numerous bills that are damaging to human rights, freedom of speech, national security, and the economy of South Korea," Tara O noted in a Dec. 5 analysis for East Asia Research Center.

The party of leftist President Moon Jae-In gained that super majority in an April election that is still contested as fraudulent.

The ruling party prioritized 15 bills, the so called “15 Future Legislative Tasks,” and vowed to pass them by the end of 2020.

One of those priorities is a bill that will prevent mainly North Korean defectors and human rights activists from flying leaflets or other materials critical of the Kim Jong-Un regime over the border into North Korea.

The latest criticism of the proposed law came from U.S. Rep. Chris Smith, New Jersey Republican, who co-chairs the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission in the House of Representatives, a bipartisan congressional body that promotes, defends and advocates for human rights.

"I am troubled that legislators in an ostensibly vibrant democracy would contemplate criminalizing conduct aimed at promoting democracy and providing spiritual and humanitarian succor to people suffering under one of the cruelest communist dictatorships in the world," Smith said on his official website.

Saying the ruling South Korean party's move was in violation of the nation's Constitution and its obligations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, Smith added: "We see undue acquiescence not only to the communist Democratic People's Republic of Korea ― as evidenced by this inane legislation criminalizing humanitarian outreach to North Korea ― but also a diplomatic tilt towards communist China."

Smith said he will call upon the U.S. State Department to critically reevaluate South Korea's commitment to democratic values in its annual human rights report, as well as in its report on international religious freedom in the event of the bill being passed.

According to Rep. Ji Seong-Ho of South Korea's main opposition People Power Party, he had a State Department-organized meeting in Washington, D.C. this month which also included Sam Brownback, U.S. Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom; Morse Tan, U.S. Ambassador-at-Large for Global Criminal Justice; and senior officials from the State Department among the participants.

During the meeting, Ji, a North Korean defector-turned-politician, explained the unconstitutional factors of the bill to the Americans and they voiced concern over it, according to the lawmaker.

Earlier this month, New York-based Human Rights Watch also accused the anti-leaflet bill of violating South Koreans' rights to freedom of expression and making engaging in humanitarianism and human rights activism a criminal offense.

"The Moon Jae-In administration has been under fire for putting diplomacy and engagement with the North before human rights, thereby undermining the North Korea-focused human rights campaigns," the Korea Times noted in a Dec. 14 report.

Critics are denouncing the legislative measure as a "disgraceful submission" to Kim Yo-Jong, Kim Jong-Un's sister who strongly criticized the South Korean government over the propaganda leaflet campaigns in June.

(Tara O details some of what she considers the most egregious of the 15 bills here)

Free Press International