이석기 사태 ‘신속’ 보도…정권 연루 ‘기정사실화’
뉴욕타임스(NYT)가 이석기 통합진보당 의원 사태에 대해 “박근혜 정권이 국정원이 연루된 스캔들로부터 국민의 관심을 돌리고자 마녀사냥이라는 패를 내놓았다고 말했다”고 보도했다.
28일(현지시각) NYT는 이석기 의원 사태가 터진 후 이를 신속하게 보도했다.
NYT는 “이번 내란예비 음모죄가 극히 이례적인 돌발적 압수수색”이라고 진단하며 “대통령의 보수정부가 국정원이 연루된 최근의 스캔들로부터 국민의 관심을 돌리고자 마녀사냥이라는 패를 내놓았다”는 이정희 통합진보당 대표의 발언을 그대로 인용하기도 했다. (☞기사 원문 보러가기)
또한, “내란죄 적용은 그렇지 않아도 세력이 막강한 국가정보기관에 의한 정치개입 혐의로 시끄러웠던 정국을 다시 한 번 뒤흔들어 놓았다”고 분석했다.
전날 청와대 이정현 홍보수석은 이번 사태에 대해 언론 보도를 보고 알았다며 사전 인지 여부를 부인했지만 NYT는 ‘정권 연루’를 기정사실화해 보도했다. 기사 말미에는 박근혜 대통령의 아버지 박정희 전 대통령을 언급하며 당시 국가정보기관을 이용해 반체제 인사들을 숙청했던 탄압 사례를 소개하기도 했다.
NYT는 이날 ‘국가 내란죄 혐의를 받는 진보 성향 지도자들’이라는 제하의 기사를 통해 “검찰도 국정원도 야당 정치인들이 저질렀다는 내란죄에 대한 상세 사항을 밝히지 않았다”며 “연합뉴스는 이름을 알리지 않은 국정원 직원들의 말을 인용하며 이들이 한국 정부를 전복하기 위한 계획의 한 부분으로 통신설비, 정유시설 그리고 다른 국가시설 파괴를 기도한 반국가적 음모죄로 기소되었다고 보도했으나 통합진보당은 그 혐의가 터무니 없다고 일축했다”고 보도했다.
또한 “반역죄는 한국의 전 군부 독재자들이 반체제 인사들을 구속할 때 종종 사용됐으나 1996년 민주화 이후에는 상황이 정반대로 바뀌었다”며 “두 전 대통령 전두환·노태우는 1979년의 군사쿠데타와 1980년 수백명을 사망하게 했던 광주 민주화 운동의 무력진압에 대한 반란-반역죄로 형을 받았다”고 전했다.
NYT는 “통합진보당은 ‘이번 압수수색은 박정희가 독재를 했던 유신시대를 기억나게 한다’고 말했다”며 “박정희 재임중에 반체제 인사들은 고문을 당하고 지금 이석기 의원이 받는 정도의 혐의가 있는 사람은 적절한 재판도 없이 사형을 당하기도 했다”고 전하기도 했다.
또한 “국정원은 독재자들의 정적들을 종북주의자로 몰아붙이는 도구로 즐겨 사용되었다”며 “이후 정부들은 정보기관을 개혁하고 국내 정치에 관여하지 못하게 하겠다고 맹세했다”고 보도했다.
| 다음은 정상추 네트워크 의 ‘뉴욕타임스’의 기사전문 번역 전문이다. 번역: 정상추 네트워크 소속 Og Lim Leftist Leaders Accused of Trying to Overthrow South Korean Government By CHOE SANG-HUN SEOUL, South Korea — Agents from South Korea’s National Intelligence Service raided the homes and offices of an opposition lawmaker and other members of a far-left opposition party on Wednesday, detaining three of them on charges of plotting to overthrow the government. The highly unusual raids and charges of treason touched off a political storm in a country already rocked by accusations of meddling in domestic politics by the country’s powerful intelligence agency. Opposition politicians said the conservative government of President Park Geun-hye was resorting to a witch hunt to divert attention from a scandal involving the agency. A spokesman for the intelligence agency said it worked with state prosecutors in conducting the raid. South Korean media showed intelligence agents hauling away boxes filled with doc-uments from the National Assembly office of Lee Seok-ki, one of the six lawmakers affiliated with the far-left party, the United Progressive Party. Officials of the party vehemently protested the raid, shouting slogans condemning what they called political oppression. “Faced with an unprecedented crisis, the presidential office and the National Intelligence Service are concocting a Communist witch hunt in the 21st century,” Lee Jung-hee, the head of the party, said in a statement. “Just as they attacked opposition supporters as pro-North Korean followers during the last presidential election, they are now strangling democratic forces with treason charges.” Ms. Lee was referring to the indictment of Won Sei-hoon, a former head of the spy agency, on charges of ordering a team of intelligence agents to start an online smear campaign last year against government critics, including candidates who ran against Ms. Park in the presidential election in December. Prosecutors in that case said the agents often derided the candidates and their parties as sympathetic to North Korea. But the prosecutors did not establish whether the smears affected the outcome of the election. The country’s political parties have been squabbling over whether to appoint a special prosecutor for a new investigation. Those detained for questioning on Wednesday include three leaders of the progressive party, one of them a provincial vice chairman, Hong Soon-soek. Mr. Lee, the lawmaker whose office was searched, was not detained because members of the National Assembly are generally immune from arrest while it is in session. “If the charges are true, this is shocking beyond word,” said the president’s chief spokesman, Lee Jung-hyun, whose office denied that the investigation was politically motivated. Neither prosecutors nor the intelligence service revealed details of the treason charges against the opposition politicians. Like many other members of his party, Mr. Lee, the lawmaker, is a former student activist who was prosecuted under the country’s anti-Communist national security laws. He served a prison sentence for participating in an underground political party that was manipulated by the North Korean government during the 1990s. Since he and other progressives won seats in the National Assembly in 2012, some conservative South Koreans have attacked them as “jongbuk,” or blind followers of North Korea. The progressive party’s platform calls for “rectifying our nation’s shameful history tainted by imperialist invasions, the national divide, military dictatorship, the tyranny and plunder of transnational monopoly capital and chaebol,” the latter referring to South Korea’s giant family-controlled business conglomerates. The party wants to end the American military presence, dismantle South Korea’s “subordinate alliance with the United States” and unify the North and the South. In a television interview last year, Mr. Lee said that “a problem far bigger than jongbuk” was blindly following the United States, or “jongmi.” 그와 다른 진보주의자들이 2012년 국회에서 의석을 얻은 이후, 몇몇 한국 보수주의자들은 그들을 종북 또는 북한의 맹목적 추종자라고 공격을 했다. 통진당의 정견은 "제국주의자의 침략, 국가의 분단, 군부 독재, 다국적기업의 독점 자본과 재벌의 압제와 약탈에 의해 더렵혀진 국가의 부끄러운 역사를 바로잡는 것"을 요구한다. 여기서 재벌은 가족경영의 대기업을 의미한다. 통진당은 미군 주둔을 종식하고, "미국에 종속된 연합관계"를 한국이 깨뜨리고 나올 것, 그리고 북한과 남한이 통일이루기를 원한다. 작년 TV 인터뷰에서 이 의원은 "종북보다 훨씬 큰 문제"는 미국을 맹목적으로 추종하는 것 또는 "종미" 라고 말했다. Conservatives have often accused progressives here of being too quick to question their country’s alliance with Washington but too reluctant to say a harsh word about North Korea over human rights abuses and the pursuit of nuclear weapons. Before she was elected president, Ms. Park once proposed a parliamentary vote to force Mr. Lee from the legislature, calling his ideology “questionable.” Treason charges were sometimes used by South Korea’s former military dictators to arrest dissidents, but after the country was democratized in 1996, the tables were turned: two former presidents, Chun Doo-hwan and Roh Tae-woo, were convicted of mutiny and treason for their roles in a 1979 military coup and 1980 crackdowns on a pro-democracy uprising in the southern city of Kwangju that left hundreds killed. On Wednesday, the United Progressive party said that the raid was reminiscent of the Yushin, or “revitalization,” era, when Ms. Park’s father, Park Chung-hee, ruled the country with an iron fist. He came to power in a military coup in 1961 and ruled for 18 years; during his tenure, dissidents were tortured and sometimes executed without a proper trial on the same kinds of accusations now leveled at Mr. Lee. The National Intelligence Service, once known as KCIA, was a favorite tool in campaigns to frame the dictators’ political opponents as North Korea sympathizers; successive governments since then have vowed to reform the agency and keep it out of domestic politics. |
