South Korean Foreign Minister Tells North Korean-leaning Youngsters To Go Live In North Korea

From The Marmot's Hole:

Yu Myungwhan tells the youngsters to go live in North Korea


by yuna on July 26, 2010



in South Korea



I can understand the frustration that the South Korean foreign minister has been feeling lately.



Even though I may have shown a general disdain against 2MB – both his policies and the person, I thought that Yu Myungwhan had been doing generally an OK job as the foreign minister utilizing his background as a career diplomat well to effectively represent the government’s foreign policy concerning North Korea in particular. I also have met him several times when I was still at school as there was a time he was a work colleague of my father’s. I wasn’t aware of his views in politics back then but then I was not really interested in the world affairs/Korean politics and most career diplomats are politically colourless anyway.



Perhaps for the first time since becoming the Foreign Minister, he’s gone and vented his frustration (which happens to coincide with what a lot of people want to tell me on this blog I guess), and this has landed him in a bit of a tight spot. I guess he’s mostly frustrated at those who do not believe the results of the investigation. At the Asean Regional Forum in Hanoi, he told the press:



유 장관은 24일 베트남 하노이에서 열린 아세안지역포럼(ARF)에서 취재진에게 “친북성향의 젊은이들은 차라리 북한에 가서 살라”는 취지의 발언을 한 것으로 알려졌다.



유 장관은 “젊은이들이 전쟁이냐 평화냐고 해서 한나라당을 찍으면 전쟁이고 민주당을 찍으면 평화라고 해서 다 넘어가고…”라며 “그렇게 좋으면 김정일 밑에 가서 어버이 수령하고 살아야지”라고 말한 것으로 전해졌다.



something along the lines of telling the young people with pro-North Korean tendecies to just go live in North Korea. Apparently he said “The young people were duped into a choice between war and peace and they fell for the idea that voting for Hanara would equate war and Minju would equate peace… He added that “if they liked it(North Korea) that much they should just go live under Kim Jungil “Dear Leader”-ing him (a literal translation as he made it into a verb himself) The ministry has since added that there was no political intent in his remarks of branding the voters of Minju as North Korean supporters and telling them to go live in North Korea.



However, I hope it blows over, and he doesn’t have to leave his job now, only because at least they have someone with a face and a name to represent and deal with the outside world, and it is futile and pointless to deal with the official who “resigned last week” which happens often at all levels of Korean workplace.