Ruling and opposition parties intensified their war of words Tuesday over an alleged disavowal of the de facto sea border between the two Koreas by late President Roh Moo-hyun and a controversial scholarship foundation created by the military in 1962.
The ruling Saenuri Party and the main opposition Democratic United Party (DUP) used the two issues to attack their rival presidential candidates, an indication they plan to exploit the weaknesses of the other side to win votes ahead of the Dec. 19 polls.
Saenuri said there is a need to check if Roh verbally compromised the legitimacy of the Northern Limit Line (NLL) when speaking to North Korean leader Kim Jong-il during a 2007 inter-Korean summit, which could have fueled tensions along the sea demarcation line between the two Koreans in the past few years.
Kim Moo-sung, the head of Saenuri's election strategy office, citing a media report, claimed Roh ordered the destruction of files and an inventory of records he was obliged to turn over to the next administration at a meeting of his senior aides. Such a move could be interpreted as an attempt to withold damaging information about activities carried out during his administration.
"The public wants to know what Roh wanted to hide and since DUP's presidential candidate Moon Jae-in was present at the meeting, as chief of staff, there is a pressing need to discover the truth," Kim said.
The former lawmaker stressed that the issue is important because Moon needs to clarify his views directly related to sovereignty and national security.
The conservative party also called on the opposition to accept a special parliamentary inquiry on this matter and to convene a meeting of the assembly's national defense, unification and foreign affairs committees to discuss what actions must be taken to get to the truth.
Saenuri has persistently called on the DUP to allow the scrutiny of the files that are locked up, but the opposition has refused.
By law, materials classified as "sealed" by a president can only be opened with two-thirds approval of all lawmakers or when a warrant is issued by a high court judge.
The DUP has countered that there are no files on the purported secret dialogue between Roh and Kim and said such accusations are nothing more than mud-slinging.
"If what Saenuri is saying is true, changing the NLL would have been mentioned in the joint communique following the 2007 summit, but it was not," said Lee Jong-seok, a member of Moon's election team and former unification minister during the Roh administration.
The opposition party, in turn fueled debate on the Jeongsu issue that has generated negative publicity for Park with less than 60 days remaining until the critical election.
The party has said the foundation created by Park's father is "stolen property" and should be returned to the relatives of the original owner or turned over to the state. Kim Ji-tae, a Busan-based businessman, was forced to surrender stakes in two media companies and land that formed part of the initial funds to create Jeongsu.
Park headed the scholarship foundation from 1994 through 2005 and defended its creation in a news conference held on Sunday, although she mistakenly said there was no coercion used to force Kim to give up his property.
She later corrected her statement, but the opposition has used her slip to attack the candidate by pointing out that a local court clearly ruled in February that the military threatened the businessmen to give up his property or go to jail.
"Park's distorted views on history have been made clear to everyone through her latest views on the foundation," said DUP floor leader Park Jie-won.
He said the Saenuri contender has shut her eyes and ears to what the public is saying and this raised doubts about her overall capability to lead the country.
The liberal party, in addition, said if Saenuri wants to make an issue out of Kim's possible collaboration with Japanese colonial authorities, it will ask what the conservative party's candidate has to say about her father, who graduated from Japan's military academy and served as an officer in the Manchukuo Army, which defended the puppet regime for the Japanese.
Political pundits said that both the scholarship foundation and the NLL issue could affect the outcome of the election, which most believe will be a very close race. (Yonhap)