ad info




Asiaweek
 home
 intelligence
 web features
 magazine archive
 technology
 newsmap
 customer service
 subscribe
 TIMEASIA.COM
 CNN.COM
  east asia
  southeast asia
  south asia
  central asia
  australasia
 BUSINESS
 SPORTS
 SHOWBIZ
 ASIA WEATHER
 ASIA TRAVEL


Web-only Exclusives
November 30, 2000

From Our Correspondent: Hirohito and the War
A conversation with biographer Herbert Bix

From Our Correspondent: A Rough Road Ahead
Bad news for the Philippines - and some others

From Our Correspondent: Making Enemies
Indonesia needs friends. So why is it picking fights?

Asiaweek Time Asia Now Asiaweek story

SOUTH KOREA

Unfinished Business

President Kim Digs Into the Dark Recesses of the Nation's Soul

By Assif Shameen/Seoul


THE NEW PROSECUTORS OFFICE building in southern Seoul looks like a fortress under siege. Policemen in anti-riot garb surround it to protect the two men most South Koreans now love to hate: former president Roh Tae Woo and his predecessor, military academy classmate and best friend, Chun Doo Hwan. Spectators crane their necks to catch a glimpse of Roh in his prison garb -- white padded tunic and rubber-soled shoes but, in one gesture befitting his status, no rope around his hands. He emerges from the bus that regularly brings him from the detention center for interrogation. Occasionally people splatter the vehicle with eggs. Chun has not been seen in public even for a brief glimpse. Ever since his arrest on Dec. 3, he has been on a hunger strike, refusing all solid food and drinking only tea and water.

Recently, the National Assembly passed a special law lifting the 15-year statute of limitations on offenses relating to the Dec. 12, 1979, coup that brought Chun to power. That enabled prosecutors to charge the two ex-presidents with murder and sedition. Roh is accused of playing a "key role," having provided the troops that tipped the balance in Chun's favor. In a separate case, Roh is charged with accepting $369 million in bribes from businessmen during his 1988-1993 term, part of a $650 million political fund that he admits having amassed, although he denies granting favors in return. Prosecutors believe that Chun also took bribes and kickbacks totaling more than $500 million.

The latest indictments may finally allow Koreans to put to rest the trauma of Kwangju. Nearly 16 years after those bloody days in May 1980, when a still insecure Chun sent troops to crush a civilian revolt in the southwestern city, mothers still pour on to the streets of Seoul or other cities every few weeks to weep over the victims, officially estimated at around 200, unofficially in the thousands. "All Kwangju people want is a thorough investigation into what happened, who was involved and how many people were really killed," says veteran opposition leader and Kwangju champion Kim Dae Jung. "They want the world to hear the truth and to have their honor restored."

As recently as last September, President Kim Young Sam maintained that there was no reason to move against Chun and Roh and no purpose served by digging up the nasty history of their roles in the coup or the Kwangju massacre. That was before Roh stunned the nation on Oct. 27 by going on television and tearfully admitting collecting a massive political war chest. President Kim abruptly switched gears and decided he would mount a full investigation not only into the allegations that Roh had wrongfully received hundreds of millions of dollars in illegal donations but all of the events that brought him and Chun to power, exposing all of the dark recesses of recent Korean history. In essence, he decided to go for broke.

WHY KIM MOVED NOW

On June 27 South Koreans voted for local and provincial leaders for the first time since the beginning of the Park Chung Hee dictatorship 30 years previously. The election was a disaster for Kim Young Sam's Democratic Liberal Party (which recently changed its name to New Korea Party, or NKP). Its candidates won only five of the top 15 posts. After this electoral humiliation, goes one theory, Kim was desperate to get back the political advantage and decided to try to win votes by going for the jugular and jailing Chun and Roh. After an opposition assemblyman came out with evidence of wrongdoing against Roh, the president, who was losing popularity fast as his reputation as a reformer receded, felt he had had no choice but to distance himself from the two men and put them on trial.

Park Jin, the president's urbane press secretary, puts a somewhat different spin on the events. He notes that the president is constitutionally barred from running for a second term and thus has nothing to gain personally from any rise in the opinion polls. "The cases against Chun and Roh have reached this far, because the [anti-corruption] reforms initiated by the president have acquired their own momentum," he said. "People thought the military still has influence, but the trials prove that it no longer has any voice in the management of national affairs." This argument, however, ignores the prospect of the National Assembly elections in April, which Kim's party had been tipped to lose even before the scandals broke. Under a worst-case scenario, the opposition might win enough votes to impeach the president and remove him from office.

The ex-presidents on trial have their supporters, however, who maintain that President Kim's actions will only discredit and weaken the establishment. Assemblyman Kim Sang Koo, a distant relative of Chun, says, "the nation gains nothing from political stunts and dragging its national heroes into old controversies." Former prime minister Roh Jai Bong (1990-1991), who is not related to the ex-president, says the 1980 coup must be seen in perspective: "Park Chung Hee had just been assassinated; there was political uncertainty in the country." The military governments from Park through Roh may have been authoritarian, but they transformed South Korea from a basket case to an economic powerhouse, he maintains. "We are better placed now to worry about luxuries such as democracy and human rights."

Korean society has changed in the nearly ten years since students poured into the streets of Seoul demanding democracy. As Chun's hand-picked successor, Roh was forced to run in a free election and only just managed to eke out a victory over four other contenders, including the present incumbent. But while Korean society has changed, political institutions, have not kept pace. "Our democratic revolution wasn't completed in 1987, and since then, nothing has happened," says Lee Jong Chan, an assemblyman once allied with Roh. Believing that a true opposition candidate was necessary to shake up the establishment, he is now vice-president of Kim Dae Jung's party, the New Congress for Democracy.

Park Kwon Sang is a former editor-in-chief of Dong-A Ilbo, a leading newspaper in the capital, and now a syndicated newspaper columnist. He suggests another political handicap: "In our presidential system of government we have a zero-sum game or winner-takes-all. Whoever is head of the government can afford to ignore everyone else. It used to be they could ignore everyone as long as they liked. Now, under democracy, there is a five-year limit." Political parties are formed to serve a handful of men, not the masses." Each of the strongmen -- Park, Chun, Roh -- had his party. Even oppositionist Kim Dae Jung has had several. "Every time he comes back, he brings a new party," says Park.

South Korea is still strongly colored by regionalism. The poor Cholla region in the south supports its perennial champion Kim Dae Jung, while Kim Young Sam gets most of his votes from South Kyongsang and its metropolis Pusan. North Kyongsang, with Taegu as its capital, still honors favorite sons Roh and Chun. The other main opposition leader, Kim Jong Pil, has his own regional base in Taejon city. Despite moving against Chun and Roh, the president has taken care to soothe wounded local feelings. The new prime minister, Lee Soo Sung, who was appointed in a recent cabinet reshuffle, hails from North Kyongsang. "The president is doing everything to keep the people from that region happy," says NKP assemblyman Sohn Hak Kyu.

THE CURSE OF MONEY

By some estimates, the two presidents took in nearly $2 billion in political donations -- and, allegedly, bribes and kickbacks -- over 13 years. That's not counting the money ministers or top civil servants had to collect and give. One cabinet minister, a naive Western-trained academic who gave President Roh a cashmere sweater (instead of a cash-stuffed envelope), learned weeks later that he was fired after a few months in office. Former presidents not only received loads of cash, they disbursed quite a lot of it too. One ex-cabinet minister recalls how a retiring colleague was given an envelope full of won by Park Chung Hee. The minister looked at his boss stunned. Thinking that the official was unhappy with just one envelope, Park offered another.

SPREADING IT AROUND

"Our elections are the most expensive in the world," says former premier Roh. "The Korean system is really a mixture of ancient feudalism and modern democracy. To mobilize people, you have to gather a lot of money and spread it around. One or two billion dollars in the Western system sounds a lot of money, but in Korea it's not." Independent assemblyman and commentator Hong Sa Duk says he wasn't surprised at the amount of money that Roh and Chun received, only that they had saved a lot of it for themselves. The ruling party had a budget that ran into the tens of millions every month. "If you could read their monthly payroll, you'd be shocked," says Hong. "They had thousands of people in their employment, all very well paid."

But why did the two extremely well-off retired presidents still need to save hundreds of millions of dollars? "You can look at the sum and wonder whether anyone needs that much money just for living expenses," says former prime minister Roh Jai Bong. "No, this money was saved to fulfill some political ambition or political agenda." Many now believe that Roh and Chun and their associates used some of the money to defeat Kim Young Sam in June local elections. Others believe Roh set aside a huge reserve for his son Roh Jae Hyun's political ambitions. Still others think associates of Roh and Chun were planning to launch a political party funded by the money the two men had saved.

President Kim is not entirely untainted by money politics either, although he specifically denies that he "personally and physically," received any money from Chun or Roh. "After his 1987 defeat, Kim Young Sam was totally a product of Roh Tae Woo," retorts columnist Park. "He got there with all the money he could gather from Chun, from Roh, from chaebol (conglomerate) leaders, from anyone else who was willing to give him any," he says. "Now he says we must change the rules because they are bad. Well, the first thing he could do is to admit how much money he, his friends and his party got from the chaebol, the military dictators or any other corrupt people who have robbed the country." Others point to the controversial financial role of "crown prince" Kim Hyun Chul, the president's son and the chief fund-raiser for the ruling party.

Opposition leader Kim Dae Jung, who early on admitted taking $2.5 million from Roh, frankly calls the president a liar. "He is charging Roh Tae Woo with corruption, but he doesn't want to reveal how much he took himself." But assemblyman Hong, who was in Kim Dae Jung's camp in 1992, remembers things differently. He recalls being surprised that the ruling party wasn't spending very much and heard rumors that it had cash problems. "Later, it seemed that chaebol started to fund Kim's campaign when they realized he was going to win. Probably Roh Tae Woo reluctantly gave him money too as an insurance policy."

Eight leaders of some of South Korea's largest business conglomerates have also been indicted for giving money to Roh or laundering it for him. They include the chairmen of Daewoo, Samsung and Hanbo. For them, the donations amounted to a quasi-tax on their business operations -- the money just went to the politicians and regulators instead of the tax man. By some estimates, these coerced donations amounted to 40% to 50% of the total tax bill only a few years ago, now a lower but still hefty 20% to 25%. Small to medium-sized businesses paid even higher percentages. Some think that the scandal may, in the long term, strengthen the conglomerates since money that went to pay off politicians can now be directed toward research and development and new investments to make them more globally competitive.

Choi Woo Sock, president of Samsung Economic Research Institute, says the scandal may hurt the economy in the short run but lead to stronger companies in the longer term. "Before the slush fund scandal, we expected that the Korean economy would slow to 7.4% in 1996 [from 9.6% in 1995], but we've revised that dramatically downward to just 6% because the scandal will slow down new facilities investments, delay projects and expansion as the chaebol adjust to the new political climate."

For Kim Young Sam, the anti-corruption crackdown seems to have rejuvenated his faltering presidency -- for the moment anyway. Within months of taking office in 1993, his approval rating had soared to 90%, the highest ever recorded by a South Korean president. But half-way through his five-year term, the public turned against Kim. His reform initiatives seemed more cosmetic than real, corruption as deeply rooted as ever. Earlier this year, his popularity sank into the 30% range, and the disastrous June local election was, in Kim Dae Jung's words, the people's verdict on "two-and-one-half years of misrule and blunders." Now things seem to be turning better for the president. A recent poll in the newspaper Chosun Ilbo indicated that 58% of the public thought he was doing a good job.

Once an opposition politician who was held under house arrest by military dictators, Kim Young Sam has long played the popular reformer. He has described the latest campaign against the ex-presidents as a "glorious revolution" -- a continuation of the one that began in 1987 and, in his view, picked up steam after he was elected president in December 1992. His press aide, Park Jin, says, "we started looking at the distorted history of the past and tried to right the wrongs resulting from military authoritarian rule. During that time, the government wielded enormous power, suppressed human rights and restricted freedom of expression; corruption spread on unprecedented scale. Now we think it's time to right the wrongs."

But while the president may have renewed the process, much unfinished business remains. "There is still the National Security Law and draconian measures that are used to suppress labor and students," says Kim Dae Jung. Park Jin argues that the president has addressed some of these issues, but "the National Security Law is [still] needed to counter the threat from North Korea. This law is not being used to suppress people but to protect our freedom and our way of life." He adds that the incumbent administration has forced government officials to declare their wealth and ended vote-buying. "If we can go after two former presidents, we can go after any official." As for electoral reforms, "even opposition leaders now admit that the June elections were for the first time in 30 years very clean."

There are some who want to see more from the president before they can believe he is a born-again reformer. Says Kim Dae Jung: "First, how much money did Kim Young Sam take from Roh? There is evidence he took more than $450 million during the 1992 election campaign alone. Second, why did he align himself with perpetrators of the Kwangju massacre and the 1979 coup by merging his party with theirs? Third, why did he not punish Roh and Chun during the first two and half years of his regime and why was it that until three months ago he and his prosecutors were adamant that there was no reason to put Chun and Roh on trial?" He thinks the National Assembly should appoint an independent special prosecutor, as the U.S. did during the Watergate scandal of the 1970s, one who is free from government ties and could broaden the investigation to Kim Young Sam himself. "If he is really innocent, the president shouldn't fear a special prosecutor."

WANTED: NEW LEADERS

There is a palpable yearning in South Korea for some fresh leaders who can end the perpetual political minuet of the three Kims. The president, of course, cannot under the constitution succeed himself in 1998, so there will be a new standard bearer for the New Korea Party. Kim is known to want a younger person to succeed him. The other two candidates, however, are well known, perhaps too well known. Kim Dae Jung, mockingly calls himself a "three-time loser," accentuating the fact that he has been around long enough to have run for president three times. Some analysts think he may have been fatally damaged by revelations that he took money from Roh; others say he protected himself by revealing this fact early.

The other major candidate will likely be Kim Jong Pil, formerly chairman of the ruling party, who quit last January to form his own conservative grouping. As the founder of the notorious Korean Central Intelligence Agency, Kim also carries a lot of historical baggage, but he has wooed conservatives by criticizing the way the investigations have been handled and claiming there is no need to dig up the ghosts of Kwangju. "The three Kims still exercise a great deal of power because Koreans can't tear themselves away from regional loyalties," says MP Hong Sa Duk. He says that the Chun-Roh scandal may actually have encouraged regionalism. "Whenever there is a crisis, Koreans fall back on their roots."

According to his press secretary, Kim Young Sam believes that Korea must choose what values it holds dearest. Says Park Jin: "We have to decide whether we want a society that is growing fast economically but compromises on civil liberties and human rights, or do we want a society that is free from all political suppression but is growing slowly, possibly is even less stable." Then he makes his own position clear: "Koreans want to move toward a freer society now that they have achieved economic success. We can't be a first-class country economically if we don't value political freedom. We must also move toward a democratic business culture, where companies do not have to run to the government to approve everything, and the government doesn't demand money each time someone comes for approval."

The president's policy over the last two years of his term is to continue deregulating and cutting down the size of the government. If the center has less power and there are fewer regulations, a businessman doesn't need to go to the government for anything. Park Jin concedes that the deregulation program hasn't gone far enough. "We are just about at the mid-point. Within the next 12 months, as the process gathers momentum, people will start to feel the difference." Several years of deregulation and simplification of procedures have not been enough because there are still very stringent regulations on land use, the environment and so on. Moreover, the banks still take their orders from the Finance Ministry or the Bank of Korea. But if you ask the government it will say these are not regulations but essential tools which any government must have.

The political commentator and independent assemblyman Hong says "I don't think President Kim Young Sam started this process realizing where it will lead to, but we have come this far and we have a chance to change things and move forward and create a new social order." But it could easily backfire on the president. In politics many things are possible. With just two years of his five-year term left, a huge agenda of reforms to complete, no majority in the National Assembly and defeat anticipated in April national elections, many people think there is a question whether Kim Young Sam can pull it off. "It's going to be an eventful two years, more interesting than our first three in office," says Park Jin. "But already we are grappling with the most difficult part of our reform agenda. When this is over in a few months the rest will be easy."

Kim Dae Jung counters: "Korea still has a long way to go before it becomes a truly democratic society. The media is not free from meddling from the Blue House [the presidential palace], the tax laws are still used to investigate anyone who steps out of line, businessmen are given orders, labor is suppressed." In Korea, says Hong, "our New Year's resolution is to change our attitude and bring about a new social order in the country. Korea is ready for such a change just as it was ready for a democratic election in 1987." What is needed, he maintains, is a catalyst, a spark. "It could be ignited by anything. The three Kims are all old men, and no one knows what might happen to them. The death of any one of them will dramatically transform the political power structure."

Meanwhile, what will happen to Chun and Roh? Hong says, "The Korean people are generous and forgiving by nature. Once Chun and Roh have been tried and [presumably] found guilty, feelings will change." The courts too may not impose maximum sentences because these are old men and former presidents who have been humiliated before the whole nation. But whether they are sentenced to ten or 15 years may be irrelevant. Hong believes President Kim may commute the sentences, possibly as early as Korean Independence Movement Day, March 1, 1997. They could go free within 15 months -- well before Korea's own march to freedom ends.


This edition's table of contents | Asiaweek home

AsiaNow


   LATEST HEADLINES:

WASHINGTON
U.S. secretary of state says China should be 'tolerant'

MANILA
Philippine government denies Estrada's claim to presidency

ALLAHABAD
Faith, madness, magic mix at sacred Hindu festival

COLOMBO
Land mine explosion kills 11 Sri Lankan soldiers

TOKYO
Japan claims StarLink found in U.S. corn sample

BANGKOK
Thai party announces first coalition partner



TIME:

COVER: President Joseph Estrada gives in to the chanting crowds on the streets of Manila and agrees to make room for his Vice President

THAILAND: Twin teenage warriors turn themselves in to Bangkok officials

CHINA: Despite official vilification, hip Chinese dig Lamaist culture

PHOTO ESSAY: Estrada Calls Snap Election

WEB-ONLY INTERVIEW: Jimmy Lai on feeling lucky -- and why he's committed to the island state



ASIAWEEK:

COVER: The DoCoMo generation - Japan's leading mobile phone company goes global

Bandwidth Boom: Racing to wire - how underseas cable systems may yet fall short

TAIWAN: Party intrigues add to Chen Shui-bian's woes

JAPAN: Japan's ruling party crushes a rebel ì at a cost

SINGAPORE: Singaporeans need to have more babies. But success breeds selfishness


Launch CNN's Desktop Ticker and get the latest news, delivered right on your desktop!

Today on CNN
 Search

Back to the top   © 2000 Asiaweek. All Rights Reserved.
Terms under which this service is provided to you.
Read our privacy guidelines.

ÿ