 Two former Presidents Chun Doo-hwan, right, and Roh Tae-woo hold hands in a court in this Aug. 26, 1996 file photo, where they were tried for their 1979 coup d’etat and the massacre of protesters in Gwangju in 1980. / Korea Times file |
By Michael BreenWhen an opposition politician in 1995 claimed that the former President, Roh Tae-woo, had amassed a large fund for political use, the revelation
sparked a chain of events that led to what was billed as the trial of the century. Roh stunned the nation a week later by appearing on television and admitting to having fundraised the equivalent of $667 million while in office. Two-thirds had been given to the party but $227 million remained, he said. His predecessor Chun Doo-hwan was later alleged to have an even larger fund.
The development was a huge dilemma for the incumbent president, Kim Young-sam, a long-time opposition leader who had earlier joined forces with Roh’s ruling party and become its presidential candidate. Kim had rejected calls for investigation into Chun and Roh, who were the protagonists in the 1979-80 military takeover in the wake of the murder of strongman Park Chung-hee.
Everyone had known that his predecessors had been given large amounts of money by the chaebol for political use, but the figures were so staggering that Kim Young-sam could no longer protect them. He had argued that his predecessors should be off limits to prosecutors because political stability called for the office of the presidency to be respected.
Kim’s had earlier declared that he would not take a penny of political money while in the Blue House and then launched an anti-corruption drive on others. It was but a short step to the appreciation that Kim was given himself an amnesty for whatever he had done in the past and proposed letting Chun and Roh off for being bad boys in office.
The country was having none of it for a president now was simply the man in office for five years. He was no longer feared.
In democratic Korea, this version of democracy – a president deciding that the rules need not apply to certain people – could not hold up in the face of public pressure. Some 5,000 academics demanded the former presidents be brought to trial. A similar petition was signed by 120,000 Catholics. Students boycotted classes to protest.
The two former generals were arrested. In a dubiously undemocratic move in the name of democracy, the Assembly quickly laws to allow them to be prosecuted for their 1979 coup d’etat and the massacre by martial law troops of protesters in Gwangju in 1980, even though a court had earlier ruled that the statute of limitations had run out on these charges.
Several former generals and business tycoons were also tried. The imagery of the feared former dictator and his henchmen in short-sleeved prison garb standing before the three-panel judge stunned the nation.
During the trial, the defense argued that the funds were not bribes but were routine donations and for use in election campaigns. At least two business leaders however – Lee Jun-yong of Daelim Corporation and Chong Tae-soo of Hanbo Steel – said they gave Roh money in expectation of favors.
The two men were more evasive on their coup and the bloody martial law crackdown in Gwangju.
They claimed that the mutinous arrest of army chief-of-staff Chung Seung-hwa, the move that signaled the coup, had been necessary in order for Chun, who was leading the probe into Park Chung-hee’s assassination, to fully investigate the incident. They also argued that the extension of martial law, which led to the events in Gwangju, had been a necessary move against a North Korean threat. Neither man showed remorse.
Chun was sentenced to death and fined 283.8 billion won. In sentencing Roh, chief judge Kim Young-il took into account his contribution to democracy – Roh was country’s first democratically-elected president – and the fact that Chun was the lead figure in the coup. He got 22 and a half years and fined 220.5 billion won. These were commuted to life and seventeen years respectively on appeal and the reduced terms were upheld by the Supreme Court.
In all, nine business leaders, including the chairmen of the Samsung and Daewoo groups, and 21 former aides and military officers, were convicted on charges of corruption or assisting the coup. All received jail terms of at least three years, with the exception of the chairman of the Samsung group who received a two-year suspended sentence.
The trial was seen internationally as signifying the arrival of true democracy and justice in Korea. It certainly furthered the process, established under Roh’s rule, that former presidents could be held to account for wrong-doings. (Several of Chun’s family members and associates had been jailed on charges of corruption and abuse of power under Roh. Chun was not himself tried, but had returned his political funds (although not all, it turned out), and spent two years in internal exile in a Buddhist temple.
The story came to a quicker conclusion than expected when long-time oppositionist Kim Dae-jung won the presidential election two years later, in December 1997. As President-elect, he asked Kim Young-sam to pardon Chun, Roh and seventeen co-defendants.
Only Kim Dae-jung could have done this for he was their victim having been sentenced to death in 1980 in the wake of the Gwangju massacre on trumped-up charges. Kim Young-sam obliged and the former presidents and their co-defendants were amnestied in before the new year.
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