AP News, September 3rd, 2007
The official code of conduct for South Korea's main spy agency was once "work in the shadows, aim for the light" _ meaning that missions should be carried out in secret in pursuit of the national interest.
So South Koreans were surprised when Kim Man-bok, the National Intelligence Service chief, turned up in Afghanistan late last month, saying he directed negotiations with Taliban militants to gain the release of 19 captive South Koreans.
Kim personally brought back the Christian aid volunteers after six weeks in grim conditions in the Afghan desert. Now, however, he is facing harsh criticism for allegedly performing his duties too much in the public eye.
"The life of an intelligence agency is confidential," the conservative mass circulation Chosun Ilbo newspaper said in an editorial Monday. "Kim's behavior is like that of an amateur. It is a double, even triple, blow to South Korea."
Kim, a career intelligence officer, has defended himself, saying he felt the need to command his junior officers on the spot as the hostage crisis, in which two South Koreans were shot to death in the early stages, showed little sign of progress.
"If our nationals are in danger again in the future, I will not hesitate to go there even if it is a place of death," Kim told an NIS meeting he presided over hours after he returned home Sunday with the former hostages, according to reports in major South Korean media.
The NIS refused to confirm the reports.
Since he flew to Afghanistan on Aug. 22, Kim was seen in television footage several times, sometimes directly talking to journalists and accepting requests for photos.
On the weekend flight from Dubai back to Seoul, TV footage even showed Kim talking to reporters about a South Korean man seated next to him, who had announced the deal with the Taliban on the release of the hostages.
"This man persuaded (the Taliban) very well," Kim told reporters, of the mysterious figure, dubbed "sunglass man" by media for his ubiquitous shades and believed to be an NIS operative. "This guy speaks English, Pashtun and Iranian well," Kim said. "I can say he is a custom-made negotiator."
"His (Kim's) behavior _ publicly speaking to the media, not to mention the fact the intelligence head himself went there, was very inappropriate," said Nam Ju-hong, an intelligence expert at Seoul's Kyunggi University. "It could form a bad precedent, given many kidnapping incidents are still taking place around the world."
Further creating a stir was a press release Kim's aides distributed to journalists aboard the Korean Air flight that carried the hostages home, parts of which praised Kim's role.
"All South Koreans already knew the efforts made by the NIS, even if it didn't boast of them," the liberal Hankyoreh newspaper said in an editorial. "They brought down their values by themselves with careless behavior. The NIS should be more mature."
South Korea's intelligence chiefs have generally avoided the media spotlight in a country that for decades has faced tensions with communist rival North Korea.
Kim, who took the top spy job in November, was not unknown to South Koreans before the hostage crisis. He held a news conference last month announcing that he arranged the second-ever inter-Korean summit talks following secret visits to the communist North.
The summit, originally scheduled for late August, has been postponed until early October.
Some critics are linking Kim's trip to Afghanistan to his reported intention to run in parliamentary elections next April, while others say Kim traveled to Afghanistan to deal with alleged Taliban demands for ransom.
"I believe the reason why Kim went to Afghanistan has something to do with ransom," Chung Hyung-keun, a member of the main opposition Grand National Party, told a party meeting Monday, according to an aide.
"The government has denied the allegations, but I'm moving toward a solid belief that the government paid more than $20 million of ransom, considering foreign media reports and other materials," Chung said, according to the aide, Park Ung-seo.
Chung served as a deputy intelligence chief in the mid-1990s.
Kim denies any ransom was paid.
"There was no such deal," he reiterated Sunday at the airport when the hostages returned.
The NIS has also denied that Kim has any intention to run for election.
"We've repeatedly denied that for a long time," said an NIS official who refused to give his name, citing agency policy.
Kim, though accused of grandstanding, also demonstrated a humble side in the aftermath of the hostage crisis.
"I am sorry for having failed to rescue all 23 kidnapped people," he said at the airport, referring to the two hostages who were killed.
