Collapse of security

Nation’s military and police is like Swiss cheese

If we compare countries to humans, today’s South Korea is like a blind person with a hole in its heart.

The story of a North Korean soldier who defected to the South earlier this month is closer to a dark comedy. The young man climbed over three barbed-wire fences without being detected by either CCTV or border guards until he reached the South, and even had to knock on the barrack doors not once but twice to make his presence known. All through his 10-minue escape, the South’s security eyes remained wide shut.

Two weeks later, a depressed 60-something incapacitated another “triple defense cordon” of security guards, metal detectors and electronic checks to enter the Government Office Complex in downtown Seoul, the heart of the nation’s executive branch, and set fire to it.

In the case of the “rat-tat defector” scandal, or “knock for surrender” fiasco, even more outrageous than the shockingly lax security were the attempts to conceal the incident and lie about it later, at no other place than the National Assembly by no other persons than the top military leaders ― the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and defense minister.

For the astonished and disappointed public, this adds insult to injury.

This cannot be wrapped up by an apology by Defense Minister Kim Kwan-jin for the security failure and poor reporting system. It is a most egregious failure of command in what is supposed to be the nation’s most disciplined organization. President Lee Myung-bak should order a thorough investigation into what happened from beginning to end and hold the two men responsible if they are found to have committed acts unbefitting of senior-ranking commanding officers.

Based on the results, the commander-in-chief may have to apologize to the people for the total failure of the security system by the military and the police at both the national border and in the heart of the capital.

What’s really astonishing and incomprehensible is that these fiascos occurred under an administration that has maintained a more rigid and hawkish stance against North Korea than most of its predecessors. Like Swiss cheese, the Lee administration appears hard on the surface but has many large holes inside in security readiness. And this is why we think Defense Minister Kim’s proposed solution, largely focusing on enhancing fences and electronic guard systems, is wide of the mark. What’s more important than hardware or equipment is software and humans.

One of the reasons for the organs responsible for national defense and public security forgetting their duty is they are being told to locate targets not in front of but behind them. The defense ministry recently included pro-North Korean elements as enemies in troop information and educational programs. Such Cold War-like ideological and politicized training may have distracted soldiers from the fact that they are “technically at war” with North Korea. The police are also more bent on tracking unionists and other anti-government, or more strictly, anti-Lee, elements rather than ferreting out public enemies.

Let the military and the police focus on their primary tasks first, and demand they perform properly. <The Korea Times>

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