Foundation Corners Park Geun-hye
By Kim Tae-jong
Staff Reporter
The government plans to take measures to seize the property of the Jeongsu Scholarship Foundation on the grounds that it was established with the money extorted from businessmen during the 1960s.
The move comes after a May 5 Cabinet meeting in which President Roh Moo-hyun ordered a thorough examination of legal issues related to the seizure with the cooperation with the Ministry of Education & Human Resources Development.
Once it is confirmed that the foundation collected the establishment fund illegally, the government will be able to cancel the approval of the foundation and seize its property. The government plans to return it to the original owners’ remaining family members.
The foundation was established by former President Park Chung-hee in 1962 to commemorate his May 16 military coup in 1961, and it is now headed by the former president’s daughter Rep. Park Geun-hye, one of the presidential hopefuls of the main opposition GNP, which has been inviting criticism from her rival politicians.
But the major controversy arises over whether the president extorted money from businessmen, including the late Kim Ji-tae, an influential Busan native businessman and journalist, who ran the former body of the foundation, the Buil Scholarship Foundation.
Kim originally owned television broadcaster MBC as well as the Busan Ilbo, a large-circulation daily in the port city, and headed the Buil Scholarship Foundation. Kim’s family have claimed that he was forced to donate most of his money and give up ownership of the two news media and the foundation to the nation saying the money was spent for the establishment of May 16 Scholarship Foundation, which later changed its name to the Jeongsu Scholarship Foundation.
The government plans to return the 129,000 square meters of land in Busan to Kim’s family, which Kim had to give up and the Ministry of Defense now occupies, if the family members take legal measures.
The government cannot give away the land without a request from the original owners or their family members through a legal filing.