President-elect Park Geun-hye’s choice of members for her transition committee drew public attention as they included former political enemies, non-ethnic Korean and celebrity figures.

Park, through her spokesman, announced the first batch of the lineup for the transition committee on Thursday including Han Gwang-ok, former lawmaker and a close aide to former president Kim Dae-jung; John Linton, director of the Severance Hospital International Health Care Center; Kim Joong-tae, former president of SNU’s research body on nationalism and a former victim of the “Inhyeokdang” case; and Kolleen Park, popular music director and TV celebrity. 

Han, a former Democratic United Party leader and a chief-of-staff under the former Kim Dae-jung government, was named to head a sub-committee on people’s grand unity. He has a firm political base in opposition-strong South Jeolla Province but joined Park’s presidential campaign, to help her pursue reconciliation with the victims of the iron-fisted rule of her father and former democratic activists.

Kim Joong-tae, one of the victims of the 1964 espionage case, known as the first Inhyeokdang incident under the Park Chung-hee regime, was also tapped for one of the vice-chairs of the committee on unity.

Park also selected two foreign figures and this reflects her will to include more people with multicultural background in the country’s political arena, observers say.

John Linton is a medical doctor and descendent of Eugene Bell, one of the first generations of U.S. missionaries to Korea in the 19th century, was named to work on the committee on people’s unity.

Born in Jeonju and raised in Suncheon, South Jeolla Province, Linton helped establish the emergency medical system in the 90s.

Recently, he became the first foreign national to be given citizenship for his contribution to Korea. Stephen Linton, a U.S. humanitarian activist who leads Eugene Bell Foundation, a non-profit organization that helps North Korean tuberculosis patients, is his brother.

Along with Linton, the president-elect named another foreign figure, Kolleen Park, popular music director and TV celebrity, as a member to the committee on youth.

The half-Korean, half-Lithuanian U.S. showbiz figure shot to fame here after immaculately conducting an amateur choir on the KBS 2TV entertainment show “Qualifications of a Man” in 2011.

“Park’s choice of two foreign figures shows her openness to multicultural society, her will to increase (political) participation of people with multicultural backgrounds,” said political science professor Lee Jung-hee of Hankuk University of Foreign Studies.

“Even though the two won’t play crucial roles such as drafting new policies, they are more like symbolic figures that represent her will to better communicate with people from different cultures, regions and age groups,” he said.

By Cho Chung-un (christory@heraldcorp.com)