'Insurrection obsession getting worse … an insurrection-dependent administration'

Lee said to be reviewing insurrection task force upon return

People Power Party lawmaker Na Kyung-won on Wednesday criticized the government's reported review of a special investigative unit for insurrection cases, calling it a tool to suppress political rivals. Na is seen questioning the government during a plenary session of the National Assembly on Sept. 9. [Yonhap]
People Power Party lawmaker Na Kyung-won on Wednesday criticized the government's reported review of a special investigative unit for insurrection cases, calling it a tool to suppress political rivals. Na is seen questioning the government during a plenary session of the National Assembly on Sept. 9. [Yonhap]

People Power Party lawmaker Na Kyung-won on Wednesday criticized the government's reported plan to establish a special investigative unit for insurrection cases, calling it a tool to suppress political rivals.

In a Facebook post Wednesday, Na said she had heard that President Lee Jae Myung's first words upon returning home would be the formation of a special insurrection investigation unit. "This administration's 'insurrection obsession' is getting worse by the day," she said.

She continued: "From before taking office, they have done nothing but harp on about insurrection, and now they are moving to set up a separate investigative body to wield power as they see fit. It is a nauseating insurrection broth that has been boiling endlessly — an 'insurrection-dependent administration' that cannot survive a single day without the insurrection frame."

Na also said the government had poured hundreds of billions of won of taxpayer money into three special prosecutors and a comprehensive special prosecutor. "Right after the administration launched, they ransacked the military, prosecutors, police and every ministry through a 'Constitution-respecting Government Innovation Task Force' — and now, still not satisfied, they want an insurrection task force," she said.

Na said a soldier had just lost a leg to a landmine suspected to have been planted by North Korea in the Demilitarized Zone, and that suspected foreign criminals had attacked citizens' vehicles with weapons on a road in Icheon, Gyeonggi Province. "The security that should be ironclad is crumbling, and everyday public safety has been breached," she said.

She also said that an endless real estate nightmare, a state-led ETF stock-trading fraud scheme, and suffocating high prices and high interest rates had piled layer upon layer of hardship on people's lives, deepening public anguish and despair.

Na particularly took aim at President Lee's speech at the UN General Assembly, saying he had flown to the UN stage and delivered a speech bowing to the North Korean regime and praising its system without a word of condemnation for its landmines. "What he brought back home was not national unity but an insurrection task force to suppress political rivals," she said. "Is it not the Lee Jae Myung administration itself — destroying the economy and security and keeping the public in fear — that is the real insurrection force?"

Na said those who had ruined the country by hiding behind the hollow specter of "insurrection" would inevitably face consequences. If a task force must be created, she said, it should start with units for the North Korean landmine case, the ETF fraud, the suspected foreign vehicle attack, and the allegations surrounding former Justice Ministry nominee Kim Seung-won.

Meanwhile, President Lee, who traveled to the United States for the UN General Assembly and made a state visit to Mexico, is reviewing the formation of a special insurrection investigation unit upon his return.


shindw@heraldcorp.com