MPK leader cancels planned visit to ex-President Chun

Rep. Choo Mi-ae

By Kim Hyo-jin

Main opposition Minjoo Party of Korea (MPK) Chairwoman Choo Mi-ae cancelled a planned visit to former President Chun Doo-hwan following protests from senior party members, Thursday.

Earlier in the day, Choo said she would visit Chun, in an apparent bid to show a reconciliatory gesture to the conservative camp and to expand the party’s support base in the lead-up to next year’s presidential election.

But the plan faced strong criticism from party lawmakers who view a meeting with the controversial military strongman as inappropriate.

“Choo sought to meet Chun in a bid to promote national unity; however, respecting Supreme Council members’ opposition, she cancelled the plan,” Rep. Youn Kwan-suk, an MPK spokesman, told reporters after the party’s decision-making body meeting.

Chun, who was in power from 1980 to 1988, remains a controversial political leader for the liberal opposition bloc because he was involved in the bloody crackdown of the May 18 Democracy Movement in 1980.

Tens of thousands of citizens protested in Gwangju against the military junta led by Chun after he seized power following a coup in December 1979. Ten-day protests left about 200 people dead, according to the government, although some put the figure higher.

In 1996, Chun was sentenced to death for his part in the suppression of the uprising, but was pardoned by the liberal Kim Dae-jung administration in 1997.

All Supreme Council members and most lawmakers were unhappy with Choo’s plan, party officials said.

Lee Kai-ho, a lawmaker whose constituency is in South Jeolla Province, criticized Choo’s plan, saying, “If she considers public sentiment in the Jeolla region, she shouldn’t visit the main culprit of the massacre.”