[Editorial] Look at Lee's Finger With Balanced View

Uri Party member of the National Assembly lee Kwang Jae has issued statement on his homepage in answer to the controversy over the fact he received an exemption from military service because the index finger on his right hand was too short. Having been involved in the student movement he concluded he would not be able to live with himself were he to tell torturers in the military the names of his comrades, so he cut off the tip of his finger himself in order to fight the fear that he would betray them. In a roundabout way he essentially said that one goal was not going to the military.

The formal logic of it does mean that it was intentional draft dodging. Though the statue of limitations has expired he clearly violated the law. But it would be difficult to judge the case purely by existing laws. Officially the "Nokhwa Project" ended in 1984, but it was still a time when the military was engaged in a brutal operation against conscripts involved in the student movement. You cannot say it is the same thing when someone marked as a student activist avoids conscription and when someone from a privileged social class buys his way out with money. It would of course have been far nobler for him to have gone to the military and overcome even greater hardship. Lee has to accept all criticism that may come from men who did just that. But it is utterly unreasonable to have those who were quiet about rule by military dictatorship and those who served the dictatorships ignoring conditions at the time and announcing that it was "draft evasion."

It is a painful scar on modern Korean history that some young men injured themselves to avoid going to the military during military dictatorship. It is something that is hard to praise and hard to criticize. However, it was wrong for Lee to have once lied and said he cut it in an accident while handling machinery. He may have told that story because he wanted to avoid having his intentions distorted, but the right way to go about it as a public figure is to let the people know the facts and to let them be the judge. Lee needs to apologize for not doing so.

The Hankyoreh, 21 May 2005.

[Translations by Seoul Selection (PMS)]