[Editorial] ‘Song’s Case Should Be Resolved in a Comprehensible Manner”

The National Intelligence Service (NIS) sent the case of German Sociologist, Song Du-yul to the prosecution, proposing to hold indictment yesterday of professor Song. Whether the case will be taken to the court or not is up to the prosecution, but the content revealed at the National Assembly’s Intelligence Committee audit by the NIS is disappointing to many who thought Professor Song was a well-respected advocate of democracy.

The NIS reported that Song was a core member of North Korea’s ruling Workers Party who ranked 23rd in power in North Korea. Professor Song visited North Korea 18 times between 1973 and March 2003, and received $20,000-30,000 each year for research. He sent dozens of hand-written letters to the North wishing good health for Kim Il-sung and his son. When Kim Il-sung passed away, he supposedly cried out loud holding Kim Jung-il’s hands.

Song’s defender has been explaining that during Song’s first entrance to North Korea, he filled out a Worker’s Party application thinking it was a part of a ‘courtesy procedure for entrance’, and although he did receive some financial help for plane tickets and such, he is not Kim Chul-soo, the 23rd in line of the Worker’s Party. But the NIS revealed that professor Song received a 2-week training in Pyongyang to join the Worker’s Party, and in May 1991 he was given a seat at the politics department.

More than anything, it is unacceptable that Song has completely disguised his identity for the past 30 years. The ‘inward approach theory’ advocated by Song – claiming himself to be the mediator between the North and the South -, which says North Korea should be studied with the North Korean logic, will lose ground.

Now, professor Song needs to confess the true ‘choices’ he made and ‘paths’ he took. The NIS and the prosecution also need to reveal the whole truth. Song’s home-coming should not be a ‘courtesy procedure’ that brings him acquittal. In the past, the reservation of arraignment that is being mentioned as a more likely option than legal procedure was only applied if upon breaching the National Security Law. The subject has proved to the public a definite turn in his beliefs and a sign of reflection of his past conducts. Song is no exception.