Welcome to BASE21

The newly elected government of Korea, under the leadership of president Kim Dae-Jung appeared to be ready to make changes earlier in his term. Among the changes he promised was a total change in the role that the National Security Agency would play in his government. Along with the change in name(National Security Agency to National Intelligence Agency) he promised a total escape from the previous role of terrorizing progressive and anti-government activists into submission and silence, and sometimes death. The National Intelligence Agency would concentrate on gathering information in the interests of the nation. He explained that this new role was what the change in times, the information age, called for. The people of Korea have long had a strong distrust bordering on resentment for the former National Security Agency, with good reason. In the dictatorship era, hundreds and thousands of students, professors, workers, and anti-government activists were sent to the basements of the National Securiy Agency builidings to be tortured for information on their peers, organization and their activities. They often disappeared, and sometimes did not return. The Families Council for Democratic Practices, always at the forefront in the movement to free political prisoners and the struggle to claim the rights of political activists, reports of over 100 questionable deaths/disappearances throughtout our modern history. All were activists that strongly disagreed with the government, some of the bodies were found mutilated washed up on shore or on riverbeds, and some have never been seen again. Although the National Security Agency adamantly denies any involvement it is suspected that it played a big role in the deaths. In short, in a very dark period in our history, the National Security Council represented all that was wrong in our government and our society. President Kim himself, back when he was a dissident to the military dictatorship, was subjected to torture by the Agency and this fact lent that much more crediblility to his promise of reform. However, just a few days ago a brave young man made a declaration that puts into doubt whether the Kim regime has any thoughts at refroming the former National Security Agency. Kang Sung-Suk, a senior majoring in Physical Education at Seoul Natinal University, recently held a press conference and announced that for some time now he had been victim to threats and extortion by a member of the National Intelligence Agency. Kang had been involved in the student movement and it's criticism of the government, but as a senior now he has been preparing for his job as a physical education teacher at a local high school. The National Intelligence Agency repeatedly came into contact with Kang and threatened that his job would be in jeopardy and that his request for admittance into officer school for his mandatory service in the Army would be denied if he did not cooperate. They requested that he gather information on fellow students who were still involved in the student movement. They bribed him with money and when Kang refused, saying that his beliefs and conscience did not allow him to cooperate, they threatened to take away everything that had any meaning to Kang : his hopes and dreams. It is our belief that exortion and mental torture does not signify a 'change' or step up from the former practices of physical torture used by the National Intelligence Agency. A brave young man's statement, made at the risk of everything, clearly shows as that nothing has changed with the basic ideas and practices of the Nastional Intelligence Agency. A superficial change in name won't do the job. The recent incident is a gross violation of human rights and goes against the image of President Kim as 'the human rights president!' Immediately conduct a total reevaluation of the NIA's ideals and practices. Stop human rights violations.