By Park Si-soo
Staff Reporter
A renowned professor here has raised suspicions that there are some behind-the-scenes forces instigating recent Buddhist protests against what they call the administration's discrimination against their religion for political purposes.
He called on authorities to thoroughly investigate the case to prevent the situation from evolving into a religious dispute between Buddhism and Christianity.
Buddhist organizations said his comments were not even worth discussing.
Kim Dong-gil, a professor emeritus at Yonsei University, posted an article titled ``The Government Should Find String Pullers,'' Tuesday, on his homepage (www.kimdonggill.com).
``I've never witnessed the Lee Myung-bak government engage in policies suppressing Buddhism,'' the 80-yer-old scholar said in the article. Noting that such collective moves may be caused by ``illusion,'' or ``misunderstanding,'' he said ``the government should endeavor to resolve ongoing miscommunication.''
On the heels of it, he added ``what's more important is that the government team up with investigation and information agencies to verify whether some anti-government figures instigated the demonstrations.''
He added it cannot be ruled out that ongoing protests could develop into an unprecedented religious dispute between Buddhism and Christianity.
Kim, born in 1928, is a Christian. He graduated from Yonsei University's English department in 1951 and earned his doctorate degree in philosophy from Boston University. He was vice president of Yonsei University in 1980 and a lawmaker between 1992 and 1996.