By Kim Rahn
A free lease contract for a city-owned building currently used for guarding the former President Chun Doo-hwan’s residence has not been extended.
The city government sent police an official notification Monday that the contract expires on April 30 and the building cannot be occupied for free anymore, urging police to find an alternative.
The decision came about a week after Mayor Park Won-soon ordered a review of the building usage following a proposal for the closure of the building from one of his Twitter followers.
“The building was originally designed as a studio for artists. As we want it to be used for its original purpose, we sent the notification to police,” a city official said.
The two-story building, located next to Chun’s residence in Yeonhui-dong, northwestern Seoul, is one of five buildings in Yeonhui artists’ village, which the city established in April 2009. The buildings were previously used by the city history compilation committee until 2003.
“Police said they’ve used the building since 1990. When the city decided to form the art village there, police said they needed one among the five buildings because the building was very close to the residence. So the police and the city government officially made the three-year contract for free use in 2009,” he said.
According to the Law on Courtesy for Former Presidents, the Presidential Security Service is in charge of guarding former presidents for 10 years after retirement.
After 10 years, police are in charge and pay the necessary expenses, the city official said.
“We haven’t decided whether we’ll allow paid use of the building. The notice went out as the contract expires soon. We asked police to decide what to do. After police assess the situation, they will give us an official response and then we will review that,” he said.
Police say they need the building, saying citizens’ free access to the building, from which the inside of the residence can be viewed, will obstruct the ability to guard the former president.
“We’ve used the building for more than 20 years and it is not reasonable to suddenly tell us we are no longer able to do so. We’ll consider paying rent or other measures,” a police official said.
According to the city, Chun has failed to pay 38 million won in taxes since 2010.
He has also not paid 167 billion won in fines for having slush funds, while police spent some 850 million won annually for the last five years guarding Chun, according to Rep. Kim Jae-kyun of the Democratic United Party.
Feedback from Internet users was generally positive toward the city government’s action.
“It is unacceptable to spend hundreds of millions of won in taxpayers’ money for Chun, who doesn’t even feel ashamed for his wrongdoings,” a blogger, sanjini, said.