By Yong Kwon
More abuses of South Korean military conscripts highlight the urgent need for reforms.
Coming on the heels of the mass shooting at a guard post in June, and the suicides of two bullied soldiers in July, the recent arrest of five South Korean military conscripts charged with deadly assault has further eroded the public’s confidence in the conscription system. The arrests were the result of an investigation into the death of a draftee in April, initially announced as asphyxiation but later revealed to have been caused by a blow to the chest. Further fueling the public’s current mistrust of the military, it took investigators three months to disclose the conscript’s true cause of death, raising suspicions that the army had tried to cover up the incident. Attention is now focused on how the government will reform the country’s compulsory military service, where draftees are so clearly prone to abuse.
The response from the Blue House has been to punish officials responsible for both the safety of the conscripts and the investigation into the deadly assault. As a result, Army Chief of Staff Kwon Oh-seong and Chief Commissioner of the National Police Lee Seong-han have resigned from their posts. However, opposition party members have called for an investigation into whether Blue House National Security Office Chief Kim Kwan-jin knew of the details of the assault while he was still minister of defense in April. The new Saenuri party chairman Kim Moo-sung also spoke out and noted that the dismissals alone were not sufficient, given the nature of the crimes.
Read the full story at The Diplomat