 |
These are not the type of people to sit back and do nothing. Just as Kongmin, a character in the Chinese classic "The Romance of the Three Kingdoms," waits for a wind from the southeast, these oh-so-angry ones waited, with a vengeance, for the wind to start blowing from the North. Finally the "Northern wind" has come, as a nuclear storm, and now they have unleashed their fury. Their thoroughness was nothing less than that displayed by Kongming’s attack on Cao Cao’s forces. The fury unleashed started with a few individuals alleged to be spies and quickly cornered the president and Blue House that these "investigators" had been unable to avoid serving under. They turned civic groups and members of the 386-generation, which had long been an thorn in their side, into public enemies. In their charges of espionage, they included as things done on North Korea’s orders the disclosure of toxic dumping by U.S. forces in Seoul and the candlelight vigils for the middle school girls that were killed by a U.S. tank. The media and the politicians are always ready to come up with 10 things to talk about upon hearing about just one, and to draw the whole body upon only seeing the tail, so it was possible for the attack on these suspected individuals to quickly become an all-out war. They are not, however, what they used to be. Or, on the other hand, they are exactly what they used to be, since they still use the same rusty tactics of 20 to 30 years ago. For starters, they still rely mostly on lists of phone numbers from suspects’ pockets. Most of what they have on the accused are the names and notes the suspects have made in their pocket phone books. Which is why, no matter how they try, the best the media could relay about these alleged spies’ exploits were lines like this: "The public security authorities are noting that these 386-generation individuals, as members of the student movement and later as adult members of society, had frequent contact with certain politicians and civic groups and, therefore, are focusing on whether others were involved." In other words, if your name was in their phone books or if they had your name card, you are either one among them or someone they were trying to bring to their side. Close to 10 politicians and government workers and officials from no less than five civic groups have been identified. What they have, then, is an investigation with a very clear direction and yet little in the way of evidence to prove the charges. These are people who live by the rule of secrecy, and yet their top man stands center stage and declares to the country that this is a spy ring case and talks as if some of the alleged bad guys were even active in one of the country’s intelligence agencies. His subordinates are reaching out to the media and calling the case "earth-shaking" and "nuclear-class" in an effort to spin things to their advantage. Their self-imposed gag rule is all talk. Might it be because they are nervous about how the tables might turn if they told what they really know? The picture they’re presenting looks more like a social club. Their predecessors are probably not impressed. Some things remain effective even when old. The media and national politics are abuzz with "security profiteers" and the streets are full of blind fear and hatred. Even worse, these are people whose conscience about their allegations go only as far as, "Who cares if we are wrong?" They have nothing to fear. Beware of your pocketbooks, your telephones, and your friends. You-know-who is on the move again.
