[Opinion] Traitors

If asked to pick the most egregious traitor in Korean history, most Koreans would choose Lee Wan-Yong who served as education minister and prime minister at the end of the Joseon Dynasty. He is one of the “Five Eulsa Traitors” denounced for selling the nation to Japan. Lee sought to curry favor with Ito Hirobumi, who controlled Korea as Resident-General since the Eulsa Treaty of 1905, calling him “mentor.” Lee’s sucking up to Hirobumi earned him the titles of count and marquis. In return for betraying the nation, he was given huge rewards, leading him to be the nation’s second richest man after Korean Emperor Gojong. Lee’s property at the time was twice the size of Yeouido.

Lee was not born a traitor, however. As one of the founding members of the Independence Association established in 1896, he was once committed to the nation’s independence when Korea was being squeezed by rivalry between superpowers. The writing on the tablet hung at the Independence Gate in central Seoul was written by Lee. Having served as a Korean minister in the United States, he was a pro-America politician. But he reportedly became pro-Japan after he met Ito Hirobumi. In 1919 when the 3.1 Independence Movement broke out, he devised a measure to crack down on the movement and took the lead in rooting out patriotic soldiers who fought for the nation’s independence by issuing warnings to them a maximum of three times. When he died in 1926, the Japanese held his funeral so magnificently that many said it was comparable to a state funeral.

A traitor refers to someone who betrays his or her country’s sovereignty or national interests for the sake of personal interests. Lee tried to vindicate his act saying that he signed the Japan-Korea Annexation Treaty for the nation as well as the royal family, and that Japan’s rise was a trend that couldn’t be reversed, but it’s evident that he did so for swelling his wealth and staying in power. He even brazenly wrote a poem with Hirobumi that celebrates Korea’s annexation to Japan. The poem goes, “Spring has come when Japan and Korea have come under the same roof.” He didn’t feel any pang of conscience at all.

The forces who stick to the renegotiation of the beef deal with the United States have picked as the “Five Mad Cow Disease Traitors” President Lee Myung-bak, Agricultural Minister Chung Woon-chun, Assistant Agriculture Minister Min Dong-seok, three conservative dailies, and Rev. Cho Yong-gi, pastor of Yoido Full Gospel Church. They are being denounced as traitors who have sold the nation to the United States. Those against U.S. beef imports have even designated the day when the sanitary guidelines were published in the government gazette as “national humiliation day.” Assistant Agriculture Minister Min, who spearheaded the import! deal, said he would let history judge when he offered his resignation. However, it is violent demonstrators who should really be fearful for being criticized as traitors by the future generation, because they caused the nation’s economy and people’s livelihood to further deteriorate by spreading mad cow scare stories and instigating illegal protests and strikes.

Editorial Writer Yuk Jeong-soo (sooya@donga.com)