군 사이버사 압수수색, 전 세계 35개 외신이 타전
미국의 유력 일간지 뉴욕타임즈가 대선개입 의혹을 받고 있는 국군 사이버사령부에 대한 압수수색에 대해 상세히 보도하자 AFP를 비롯한 전 세계 통신사 및 외신들이 이를 긴급 뉴스로 타전하는 등 한국의 대선 스캔들이 전 세계의 이목을 집중시키고 있다.
뉴욕타임즈는 22일 최상훈 기자가 작성한 “점점 심각해지는 선거개입 스캔들에 따른 한국 군 사이버사령본부의 압수수색”이란 제목의 기사에서 군 사이버사의 압수수색 소식을 전하며 군 사이버 사령부는 “점점 더 심각해지는 선거개입 스캔들에 가장 최근에 연루된 국가기관”이라고 보도했다.
뉴욕타임즈는 해당 기사에서 ‣ 국정원과 군 사이버 부대 등 국가기관의 부정선거개입 주장 ‣ 선거 전 경찰의 수사결과 조작발표 ‣ 비방작전 개입을 지시한 원세훈 전 국정원장과 수사축소은폐를 지시한 김용판 전 서울경찰청장의 기소 소식 등을 전하면서 “박근혜 대통령의 취임 후, 국정원 스캔들로 한국정치가 마비 됐다”고 평가했다.
이 기사는 이어 이석기 의원 사건을 언급하며 이 사건은 “국내와 해외에 거주하는 많은 사람들이 보기에 국정원이 불법 대선 개입 혐의에 대한 조사를 피하고 자신들이 가진 권력을 정당화하기 위해서 대중의 관심을 돌리는 수단으로 이용한 것으로 보인다”는 200여명의 해외 한국학자들의 공동 성명서를 인용, 이 사건에 대한 정치적 음모 가능성을 내비쳤다.
뉴욕타임즈는 국정감사에서 외압을 폭로한 국정원 사건 특별수사팀장 윤석열 여주지청장의 사건을 언급하기도 했다.
해당기사는 윤 지청장이 규정을 어기고 국정원 직원들의 구류를 사관들과 사전에 논의하지 않았기 때문에 수사팀에서 배제되었다는 조영곤 서울지검장의 말을 소개했다. (☞ 뉴욕타임즈 기사원문 보러가기)
국정원 사건에 대한 외신들의 반응과 동향을 꾸준히 알려오고 있는 ‘정의와 상식을 추구하는 시민네트워크’는 23일 이같은 내용을 담은 주요 외신들의 보도가 35개에 이르렀다고 밝혔다.
정상추는 이같은 소식을 전하면서 “이번 뉴욕타임즈의 기사는 박근혜 대통령이 국정원과 경찰, 군부대까지 동원된 총체적인 부정선거로 당선되었다는 시각을 강하게 견지하고 있어 국제사회에 만만찮은 파장을 일으킬 것”이라면서 “따라서 박근혜정부와 여당에게 큰 부담이 될 것으로 보인다”고 분석했다.
| 다음은 정상추가 번역한 뉴욕타임즈 기사 번역 전문 South Korean Military Agency’s Headquarters Raided in Growing Scandal SEOUL — Military investigators raided South Korea’s Cyber Warfare Command on Tuesday after four of its officials were found to have posted political messages online last year, in what opposition lawmakers have called a smear campaign against President Park Geun-hye’s opponents before her election in December. Ms. Park defeated her main opposition rival, Moon Jae-in, by roughly a million votes in the election and took office in February. But in a snowballing scandal, prosecutors have since said that during the presidential campaign, agents of the National Intelligence Service posted thousands of Internet messages supporting Ms. Park and her governing Saenuri Party or berating government critics, including opposition presidential candidates, as shills for North Korea. Last week, opposition lawmakers alleged in the National Assembly that the military’s secretive Cyber Warfare Command had carried out a similar online campaign, separately or in coordination with the spy agency, to help sway public opinion in favor of Ms. Park before the Dec. 19 election. On Tuesday, the Defense Ministry confirmed that four cyber-warfare officials had posted political messages. But it quoted them as saying that they had acted on their own. Still, “the ministry will investigate whether there was command-level involvement,” said the ministry’s spokesman, Kim Min-seok, explaining the raid on the command headquarters. The cyber-warfare command, created in 2010 to guard South Korea against hacking threats from North Korea, is only the latest state agency to have been touched by the growing scandal. The political opposition first raised the charge of illegal electioneering during the presidential campaign last year. Three days before the voting, however, the police announced that they had investigated and found no evidence to support the accusations. But in June, prosecutors indicted Won Sei-hoon, the intelligence agency’s former director, for allegedly supervising an online smear campaign against Ms. Park’s political opponents. They also indicted Kim Yang-pan, the former chief of the Seoul Metropolitan Police, saying he had whitewashed an investigation into the matter by junior officers. Mr. Won and the spy agency insisted that the online messages were posted as part of normal psychological warfare operations against North Korea and did not amount to meddling in an election. Ms. Park has denied using the spy agency for her campaign. Since Ms. Park’s inauguration, South Korean politics have been paralyzed by scandals, including the one surrounding the spy agency. Rival political rallies have rocked downtown Seoul in recent weeks. Student activists demanded reform within the intelligence agency to prevent it from meddling in domestic politics. But older, conservative Koreans have encouraged the agency, known by its acronym N.I.S., to “wipe out North Korea followers” from the National Assembly and cyberspace. Last month, the spy agency arrested a far-left nationalist opposition lawmaker on charges of plotting an armed rebellion against the South Korean government in the event of war with North Korea. “To many in Korea and abroad, it appears that the N.I.S. is using a crude distraction in order to avoid scrutiny of its own alleged illegal activities, and to justify its existing powers,” more than 200 scholars on Korea living aboard said in a joint statement released on Tuesday. But the scandal has kept growing. Last month, a Seoul court ordered the prosecution of two more senior intelligence officials for involvement in the alleged online campaign. On Monday, during a National Assembly hearing, Yoon Seok-ryeol, a senior prosecutor who had led the investigation of the scandal until recently, said his team had been under “external pressure.” Mr. Yoon was removed from the investigation last week after his team detained three intelligence agents and searched their homes. He said his team had collected more evidence of the spy agency’s online campaign: 55,700 messages, tweeted or retweeted by intelligence agents, that praised Ms. Park or disparaged her opposition rivals ahead of the December election. One of them called Mr. Moon, the main opposition candidate, a “servant” of North Korea and Ahn Cheol-soo, an independent who supported Mr. Moon, “a woman in men’s clothes.” Cho Yong-gon, head of the Seoul District Prosecutor’s Office, who supervised Mr. Yoon, denied putting political pressure on Mr. Yoon’s team. He said Mr. Yoon was removed from the investigation because he had not discussed the spy agents’ detentions in advance with his superiors, as regulations require. |
