Dr Lee Jae Oh

Dr Lee Jae Oh's name deserves little household recognition outside of South Korea. Presently he is in the US on a visa which expires in May 2009 and holds the rank of senior visity scholar of the US Korea Institute at John Hopins University. Dr. Lee is the man who engineered the election of Mr. Lee Myung bak first as mayor of Seoul, and then as president of the Republic of Korea [ROK or South Korea]. Yet, Mr. Lee has not appointed Dr. Lee to any high post in his administration. Today [4 December 2008] New York's Korea Society rolled out the red carpet for Dr. Lee to talk of the role of president Lee Myung bak's administration. Which implies that Dr. Lee is in bad odour in Seoul since after the landslide election of president Lee, his campaign leader is sitting safely in Washington, DC. Dr. Lee faced a packed room of the South Korean press and the 'grattin' of Korea watchers in finance, the academy, business, the military and the diplomatic corps, and American Koreans. He approached his topic obliquely, talking of instituting a nation of 'the righteous', to eradicate corruption and open opportunities for all South Korea's to work hard to prove themselves as good, upright citizens. His call is right out of Korea's history of reformers, and with echoes of Jean Calvin's city of saints, Geneva. He then proceeded to talk of his trips to Peru, Brazil, among other countries in Latin America, but remained silent on his stay in Cuba. [There did he meet with North Koreans?] Furthermore, Dr. Oh is cut from the same wood as Confucianism, and his comments on the useless of a mountain in Rio which from the tope you see unfold before your eyes the splendour that is Rio de Janeiro. Yet, in the same vain, he doesn't see the ressemble with Mount Kumgang in North Korea to which South Koreans rush to visit. But that is his cultural blindness. His views on North Korea are firm the more especially since Pyongyang won't acknowledge the killing of a tourist in May at Mount Kumgang who strayed towards a military post. Nonetheless, he did go out of his way to stress that president Lee's approach towards Pyongyang is non threatening and peaceful. Dr. Lee said little about the US other than to reiterate that it is time for Washington to ratify the Korea FTA [which Mr. Obama and Mrs. Clinton expressed in the past little enthusiasm for a free trade agreement with the ROK]. But the import of Dr. Lee's talk was his sincerest apology to president Lee. Obviously, he wants to come back to South Korea, but his return remains unsure, the more especially since he is favourable towards Mme. Park Guen hae, former president Park Chung Hee's daughter who is president Lee's rival. Did Dr. Lee express full repentence to the Korean press who will deliver his message on Seoul's airways, it is too early to tell.