By Geoffrey Cain
PRI’s The World
Mar 15, 2013
SEOUL, South Korea — Last week, the administration of the South Korean president, Park Geun-hye, fired a spokesman after a Korean American intern called the police on him.
During the president’s visit to Washington, DC, the unnamed victim accused the official, Yoon Chang-jung, of grabbing her buttocks and, later that night, answering his hotel door for her wearing only underwear.
The official, Yoon Chang-jung, quickly escaped on a flight to Seoul.
On Friday, the North Korean state news agency, KCNA, published a version of the events using its own acerbic vocabulary.
“Upset by this scandal, the puppet group sent him back to south Korea [sic] next day. It kicked up much fuss replacing the spokesman and making an apology to the people and the ‘president’ on behalf of the senior secretary for publicity of Chongwadae.”
Notice that the government mouthpiece accused the “puppet group” — a reference to the South Korean presidential delegation visiting the United States — of deliberately sending Yoon home after they learned of this allegation.
The Blue House has not said this is the case.
Also see that “south Korea” is errant on capitalization. The writer left the word “south” hanging on purpose, because North Korea, at least on paper, doesn’t see “South Korea” as a true country.
The government in Pyongyang recognizes itself as the sole legitimate sovereign over the entire Korean Peninsula, a sphere that includes all of South Korea. (South Korea has laid the same legal claim over the North.)
“The opposition Democratic Party of south Korea said this conduct had been expected as Yun was appointed to the post though he had no qualifications.”
Critics have called Yun, the spokesman, a far-right conservative known for his acerbic and at times obscene use of language in his newspaper column. Among the political spectrum in Seoul, the North Korean government could especially abhor him as an ideological enemy.
But is North Korea even justified in complaining about the sexual peccadilloes of South Korean public servants? Kim Jong Il, the deceased father of the current leader, was fond of his, um, “pleasure squad” of attractive young women.
The article was originally published in PRI’s The World