By Park Song-wu
Staff Reporter


The ruling Uri Party on Thursday denounced the Grand National Party (GNP) as a redbaiter, saying the opposition party fabricated an ``espionage case’’ in the National Assembly by labeling Rep. Lee Chul-woo as a member of North Korea’s Workers’ Party.

``I can’t remain silent and just overlook this case,’’ Lee Bu-young, Uri Party chairman, said at a rally in front of the Assembly building in which more than 300 ruling party members attended. ``The GNP still has good old memories of keeping the military regime by making up spy cases.’’

Rep. Chun Jung-bae, floor leader of the ruling party, demanded Rep. Park Geun-hye, GNP chairwoman, make an official apology and urged Rep. Joo Sung-young and his two colleagues to voluntarily resign. ``If they don’t accept our request, we will use every possible way to expel the three lawmakers from parliament,’’ Chun said.

A day earlier, Lee was accused by the GNP members, led by Joo, of joining the North Korean ruling party in 1992 and serving for the Pyongyang regime as a spy until now. Lee immediately denied it but the plenary chamber turned into a battleground of high-pitched shouts.

The conservative party’s bombshell came as the Uri Party is trying to annul the anti-communist National Security Law.

``Lee’s case precisely showed us the reason to keep the law alive,’’ Park said. ``It seems the ruling camp’s attempt to scrap the law is related to this issue.’’

South Korea still has many conservatives who have knee-jerk reactions toward leftist ideologies.

Calling it a revival of Korean-style McCarthyism, Kang Won-taek, politics professor at Soongsil University in Seoul, however, said in a telephone interview that he thinks the GNP has chosen the wrong tactics.

``If the GNP really wanted to keep the security law intact, they should negotiate or campaign publicly to let people know the law’s validity,’’ Kang said. ``Instead they resort to labeling Lee as a spy. If the accusation turns out to be false, it will provide logical grounds for abolishing the law.’’

Joo and his colleagues quoted an article in the weekly magazine, named ``Mirae Hankuk’’ (Future of Korea), as saying that Lee has worked for the communist regime under the code name ``Daedunsan 820.’’

But Kang questioned the reliability of the article too. ``Using their privilege of exemption from liability, those lawmakers raised the suspicion by quoting an unreliable article written from a biased viewpoint,’’ he said.

A former deputy spokesman of the GNP is currently working as managing editor of the weekly run by former Seoul City Mayor Kim Sang-chul, who is considered a right-wing figure.

``Lawmakers should maintain basic etiquette toward each other,’’ Yoon Young-o, formerly a GNP member and currently politics professor at Kookmin University, also said in another telephone interview. ``They should not raise suspicions of other lawmakers in that way. If they really had proof, they should have given it to the National Intelligence Service or other relevant authorities, and asked for an official investigation.’’

In 1992, the prosecution demanded a 12-year prison term for Lee who was accused of organizing a pro-Pyongyang political party in Chunchon, Kangwon Province. But, he actually received a four-year prison term. The court didn’t recognize the prosecution’s argument that Lee was a member of the Workers’ Party, Uri Party officials said.

im@koreatimes.co.kr