Rep. Lee Cheol-woo of the ruling Saenuri Party. (Photos: Rep. Lee Cheol-woo's Office)

Rep. Lee Cheol-woo of the ruling Saenuri Party called on the government to take the road to integration and solve local rivalries and the gap between the Capital area and local regions during the parliamentary interpellation session of the administration on Nov. 19.

Showing the map of the Korean Peninsula at the time of the Aug. 15, 1945 National Liberation Day, the legislator warned that the global communization moves failed in South Korea, but right now, North Korea followers who failed in their communization of Korea have entered the National Assembly and are trying to conquer the Republic of Korea from within.

The lawmaker said, “We have probably not given enough education to our followers, while at the same time many conflicts among regions, generations, and economic brackets showed up during many elections we have held. Now we have to follow the road to integration for those who have gone before us who worked to not only defend the fatherland, but also boost its rank as a global leading nation.”

Rep. Lee said, “We have to solve the conflicts among regions, especially bad feelings toward each other.”

Rep. Lee is seen during a recent  tour of a plant as a member of the Land, 

Infrastructure and Transport Committee of the National Assembly.

Prime Minister Chung Hong-won replied that to Rep. Lee’s statements that he agreed with all that the lawmaker said and proposed, saying that a grand ‘people integration committee’ will be launched to take care of all kinds of conflicts among regions.

Both ruling and opposition sides argued during the parliamentary interpellation with the ruling side, blasting the opposition for their assertion of a possible connection to North Korea followers, while they also hit at the President Park government for breaking campaign pledges made during the presidential election and its lack of communication with the people.

Rep. Lee chimed in by pointing out the example set by former U.S. Presidential Candidate Al Gore who cleanly conceded his defeat against his Republican opponent George W. Bush in the 2000 U.S. presidential election, despite charges of alleged election fraud in some states like Florida.

Rep. Lee gives a speech at a parliamentary

 government interpellation session on Nov. 19.

Lee continued on to say that the number of investigations on North Korean spies and arrests made drastically dropped during the Kim and Roh administrations, allowing the North Korea followers to build a base for anti-South Korea activities. Rep. Kim Seong-tae followed by urging that the Ministry of Justice should conduct tight investigations on North Korea followers and those who trample the nation’s Constitution and root them out.

The parliamentary interpellation started around 2:15 p.m., 15 minutes later than scheduled. But the session broke down an hour later following the speeches on the proceedings on the session on the scuffle between Rep. Kang Ki-jong of the opposition Democratic Party and members of the Presidential guards the day before at the National Assembly and Rep. Lee Woo-hyun of the ruling Saenuri Party dragged on.

The session reopened at around 5 p.m. and the 19th National Assembly, which opened its formal session 27 days late, is still at war. The parliamentary interpellation showed the situation has remained the same. The conflicts surrounding the release of the records on Nov. 15 on the 2007 South-North Summit between the two opposing sides continued more seriously than expected. The ruling side claimed that the records were lost while the opposition insisted they were not.

President Park Geun-hye, on tour to Daegu, is greeted by Rep. Lee.

The ruling party claimed that the statement by the late former president Roh Mu-hyun to give up the NLL (Northern Limit Line) during the summit in Pyongyang with the late North Korean leader Kim Jong-il and the destruction of the records on dialogue between the former North and South Korean leaders have become evident, holding the then Presidential Chief Secretary Moon Jae-in responsible for the destruction of the records.

Rep. Lee said it is true that the records on the dialogue, especially late President Roh’s statement on the NLL, were not only deleted for security reasons but have also not been moved to the Presidential Record Office. The Prosecutors Office, he insisted, should also indict the former Presidential Chief Secretary Moon, not just indict Paik Jong-chon and Cho Myung-kun.

Rep. Lee also asked if Prime Minister Chung knew that around 30 percent of passengers who board planes at Incheon International Airport, or 2.3 million passengers, are from southern regions in Korea, making a long journey to board airplanes at Incheon. The prime minister said surveys are being made on a new airport in the southern regions which was given up during the Lee Myung-bak government after it was concluded that the project was economically unfeasible, but the new government will allow the new airport to be built on the excuse of balanced national development to go along with the expectations of the people in the Yongnam region. Rep. Lee said a KDI survey showed that Incheon airport would be too crowded by 2015.

 Rep. Lee also queried the government on the need to vitalize the local administrations by allowing them wider administrative rights by taking over some of them from the central government. He said the growth pattern in the Opening Age has reached its limit and the second option is to give local administrations more power to boost their competitiveness in order to lead the second growth of Korea. In order to give more independent administrative power to provincial administrations, the Constitution has to be revised. The reform of the Constitution should give the central government the power for diplomacy, defense, and state affairs and entrust other powers to local administrations in principle such as local tax and tax rates to ensure their independence in treasury matters.

Rep. Lee from the Kimchon district in North Gyeongsang Province won 83.5 percent of the total votes cast in the 19th General Election. He worked hard for balanced development of the country and to try to improve the lives of the economically dislocated people as a member of the National Assembly Culture, Sports, Tourism and Broadcasting Committee in the 18th National Assembly. Now, in the 19th National Assembly, he has switched his committee to the Land, Infrastructure and Transport Committee and has put in long hours to expand infrastructure in Kimchon.

Rep. Lee Cheol-woo explains a number of graphs during a meeting at the National Assembly.

Rep. Lee said his thoughts on his legislative activities are led by his determination to do his best to create a new political culture in the new session of the parliament, and to not repeat the mistakes he made before.

He said he would like to work on the matters related to the improvement of roads in North Gyeongsang Province, which have been said to be the worst in the country, making good use of his experience of having been the vice governor of the province. He said he will try to build the railroad connecting Kimchon and Cheonju, North Jeolla Province, as a symbol of regional harmony and the railroad connecting Gimchon and Geoje in the Central and Southern regions as a way to solve various logistical problems in the region one by one.

His political philosophy is “One should work like an owner wherever one works.” 

Rep. Lee, who is the chairman of the Gyeongsangbuk-do chapter of the Saenuri Party, now serves as the Chairman of the Kyungpook National University Alumni Association in Seoul and the Chairman of the Kyungpook National University Journalists’ Association.  

Publisher Elizabeth M. Oh