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How will Korean military get out of sexual crimes and corruption scandals?

How will Korean military get out of sexual crimes and corruption scandals?

Posted January. 29, 2015 07:24,   

한국어

A series of sexual crimes and defense industry corruption scandals are recently revealed, sparking anger from the public. A Korean colonel identified only by A, 47-year-old incumbent brigade commander, was arrested by the Central Investigative Agency of the Army for allegedly raping his female subordinate, a 21-year-old staff sergeant who was serving in the unit under the colonel’s charge. A former Navy rear admiral jumped off to the Han River while he was under investigation as a witness for graft allegation in the defense industry. Unless the military establishes and implements a special countermeasure, the armed forces with such lax discipline and loose morals cannot protect precious lives and safety of the public in Korea.

Colonel A graduated from the Korea Military Academy and served as an aide-de-camp for former Defense Minister Kim Jang-soo. When the former minister was the senior presidential secretary on national security, A was dispatched to the presidential office Cheong Wa Dae and worked as an aide for Kim. With such impressive career backgrounds, the colonel called a female staff sergeant, who is about the age of his daughter, to his residence and raped her in the brigade that he was in charge of after having been promoted to the colonel. Minister of National Defense Han Min-koo took seriously the issue of sex-related crimes in the military and declared in October 2014, saying, “As sexual crime is an act profiting the enemy and erode our nation’s security, any sex offender in the military will be strictly punished regardless of the person’s ranking.” However, this serious proclamation did not take effect even to a commander of a brigade.

The military has tried to probe sex offences committed in its camps. The 17 division commander who sexually molested two lower-ranking female soldiers was sentenced to six months in prison in December 2014. An army lieutenant colonel was demoted to a lieutenant for the first time in the military history on charges of sexually harassing a female subordinate. However, this was not good enough. The defense ministry waged a war against sexual crimes in October 2014, and conducted a survey on the sex offense in the military of 9,228 female soldiers across the whole army forces. But there have been only three reports on the sex crimes so far. Since sexual crime victims are told to submit objective evidences including identities of the perpetrator and the victim, recording, e-mail or a witness, they couldn’t report being concerned the secondary damage. Sex offense in the military would not be eradicated by such a one-time-event-like countermeasure, which does not consider closed and top-down culture in the organization.

The former Navy rear admiral who plunged off to the river worked for the Navy`s shipbuilding division at Defense Acquisition Program Administration, and was investigated twice by the government’s joint investigation team on defense industry corruption. Apart from this incident, the joint investigation team arrested the oldest son of former Navy Chief of Staff Jeong Ok-geun and former Navy Commander Yoon Yeon for alleged receiving bribes from STX Group. They received bribes for PR expenses of the yacht competition, which was a side event for the International Fleet Review hosted by the Navy in 2008. The joint investigation team is suspicious whether the kickback targeted former Chief of Staff Jeong, who was incumbent at that time. Depending on the investigation results, the military may make an apology to the public once again.

The defense minister and major commanders must be held responsible for corruption in the military. If the leadership in the armed force is not capable of transforming the poorly disciplined military organization, the leaders must give up their positions to take responsibility.