The conservative youth organization Korea University Students Forum (KUSF), where graduate student A, who flew a drone to North Korea, served as president in 2018, has been confirmed to be on the white list that received illegal support from the Blue House during the Park Geun-hye administration.
In February 2016, when the Blue House was illegally supporting conservative groups, A was active as the head of academic affairs, one of the KUSF’s executive positions.
At that time, the Blue House delivered a white list containing the names of conservative right-wing groups and support amounts to the Federation of Korean Industries (FKI, predecessor of the Korea Enterprises Federation) to ensure funding for these groups.
According to News1′s investigation on Tuesday, KUSF received a total of 93.07 million KRW (62,890 USD) through the FKI over nine occasions from May 2014 to February 2016.
KUSF, along with groups like Korea Parent Federation, engaged in activities supporting former President Park and maintained close ties with political circles. In November 2012, when Park was a presidential candidate, KUSF even hosted a talk concert with her as a guest.
After Park’s election, the Blue House seemed to have paid close attention to KUSF. When an employee from the FKI’s social contribution team didn’t answer a few calls from KUSF, Heo Hyun-joon, a former Blue House administrative officer, reported to his superiors that the FKI staff was being too strict with KUSF, causing dissatisfaction. This led to personnel action against the employee.
A column featuring A’s name with the title KUSF Academic Affairs Director was published on January 25, 2016. Prior to this, he had been active as the academic affairs director of the Seoul-Gyeonggi University Students Forum under KUSF.
In 2018, when A became president, he denied allegations of being on the white list. In an interview with a university press, he claimed that one of the media’s assertions was that he received several hundred million KRW from the FKI. He believes that people who have endured for 10 years and are looking forward to the next 10 years have never been so unethical. If there was any wrongdoing, it would be revealed in court.
However, the white list case was eventually confirmed in court. In February 2020, the Supreme Court ruled that former Presidential Chief of Staff Kim Ki-choon’s act of pressuring the FKI to support conservative groups constituted an abuse of power, ultimately sentencing him to one year in prison.
It has been found that many individuals who were active in KUSF while receiving support from the Park Geun-hye administration later worked in President Yoon Suk Yeol’s office and the People Power Party. A was also confirmed to have worked as a news monitoring agent in the presidential office during the Yoon administration.
There is also evidence that A received at least 13 million KRW (about 8,800 USD) from the Defense Security Command, a military intelligence agency, during the Yoon administration to operate NK Monitor and Global Insight, front companies for military operations.
On January 16, the joint military-police investigation task force (TF) summoned and questioned B, the representative of the manufacturing company, on charges of producing drones for North Korea. A, who established the drone manufacturing company with B, stated in an interview with Channel A on the same day that they had sent drones three times since last September.
