Suicide a Free Pass for Corrupt Politicos?

By Todd Brendan Fahey

It is a shock that could have been predicted: former South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun's opting to avoid prosecutors' questions by ending his life Saturday off a rock edge near his southern village home.

His friends and supporters are left grieving, and the public will grant commensurate pity to his memory ― as is humane and to be expected.

A self-taught attorney, specializing in human rights and public sympathy, he doubtless passed bearing one last, sad smile ― knowing the Ministry of Justice will now close the case of his family's bribery; he was crafty to the end. And citizens of South Korea are the poorer for their misplaced Confucian ideals.

Roh took, as President, around $6 million in unreported monies, some of which he disbursed to his daughter (to buy a Manhattan apartment) and a million or so to his wife, to ends never explained, and even more to his son-in-law, also a mystery.

(Korean court reports state that the donor was Taekwang CEO Park Yeon-cha ― ostensibly of a ``shoemaking empire.'') What kind of ``side-work'' did he do, as President, to earn such largesse?

And by whom and for what reasons were those monies given? A nation's president takes charge of the country's military and economic secrets; a crooked president can sell out his own country for cash, if he is of a mind to.

Former President Roh's death reeks of a similar case, now also conveniently closed and shrouded in suicide, and which earned another previous South Korean leader a Nobel Prize for Peace ― paid for through a sophisticated skunk works of banking connections and straight into the lap of North Korean dictator Kim Jong-il.

The apparent suicide of Chung Mong-hun, a top executive of South Korea's Hyundai conglomerate in charge of ``inter-Korean relations'' between the communist North and the capitalist South, has shone again a spotlight on treason in high places in South Korea.

Chung was an instrumental figure in the cash-for-summit payments to North Korea, preceding ex-President Kim Dae-jung's ``historic'' visit to North Korea in 2000; he had been under indictment by a South Korean court for falsifying Hyundai's records surrounding the controversial summit meeting.

A son of the late monopolist founder of the Hyundai empire, Chung Mong-hun was directly in charge of developing projects in North Korea, including ``tourism'' into the Mt. Geumgang region and developing a railway line which, if successful, will link South and North Korea for the first time since the shaky armistice between the two nations.

An intricate private/public relationship is enjoyed by several families in South Korea; known as ``chaebol,'' a handful of monopolies were granted unprecedented economic and political power in the Republic of Korea during the reign of former strongman Park Chung-hee.

The families and their monopolies are, in the Western model, akin to the Rockefeller, Morgan, Carnegie, Mellon banking, railway and industrial monopolies of the early 1900s. Criticized for inefficiency, monopolistic practices and personal slush fund benefits, South Korean chaebol were briefly attacked by ex-President Kim Dae-jung, but were allowed to continue, unhindered, during the latter half of Kim's presidency and during the troubled reign of his successor, the recently-departed Roh.

At root of the previous scandal were revelations that nearly $400 million (U.S. equivalent) was paid to North Korean dictator Kim Jong-il by the Hyundai empire, funneled through Hyundai Securities Co. and Hyundai Merchant Bank and laundered through a Chinese businessman, based in Macao who was, himself, exposed last year as a North Korean agent.

The certificates of deposit were issued by ex-South Korean presidential chief of staff Park Jie-won and authorized, by his own admission in a court of law, by South Korea's ex-spymaster and former National Intelligence Service chief.

The NIS chief, in turn, reported with much reluctance that his orders for transference of funds came directly from ex-President Kim Dae-jung, who has admitted to the deed.

For a time, Kim Dae-jung feigned ``poor health'' and no serious attempts to hold him accountable for his complicity were pursued. South Korea's then-new President Roh vetoed a special prosecutorial inquiry into the entire affair ― the first-ever presidential veto in South Korean history over legislation issued by the National Assembly.

Now that Roh has shed the mortal coil, having absconded not only with an estimated $6 million but with records siphoned illegally from his then-office and stored behind guard at his family residence, the treasonous epoch looms as a black hole.

Kim Dae-jung ``won'' the Nobel Prize for Peace in 2002, following the ``historic summit'' with North Korea's Kim Jong-il ― an event which has, in fact and deed, been judged to have arisen from a massive transfer of funds to the North, at the direction of the former President-cum-Nobel Prize-winner.

The pro-establishment Time magazine found the actions impossible to defend, stating:

``After a three-month investigation, the Board of Audit and Inspection of Korea declared that, just a week before the summit, $332 million was transferred from the state-run Korea Development Bank into Hyundai Merchant Marine, a subsidiary of the Hyundai conglomerate, which has connections to the North.''

It said, ``The business kept $146 million for itself, while $186 million was paid directly to North Korea. President Kim, entering his final month in office, could only offer rationalizations. `The unique circumstances of South and North Korean relations have been demanding me, the head of the state, to make numerous difficult resolutions,' [Kim] said."

But with Roh having stonewalled investigative efforts into the treason and with the absence of serious media scrutiny into the scam, two well-worn adages were again proven true: that ``crime pays'' and ``the scum rises to the top.''

And now, six years hence and having left office with a fattened wallet, former President Roh has slipped the bill.

When South Korea's prosecutors and courts say, simply, ``Well, now he's dead … we don't want to trouble the family further … let's close the case,'' they close the door on the public's memory. A page is turned, and certain politicians with unclean agendas are free to continue their damage to the most free and democratic of all Asian nations.

While a delay must be granted in the Roh Moo-hyun (family) bribery affair, out of basic humane respect, the case must also go forward.

``Who, what, where, when, why, how?" all must be given a strong dose of sunshine and the public ― those who voted for or against the late President, and who are the foundation of this democracy ― must be given clear answers as to the late President's actions while in control of the nation's most sensitive data and trust.

Todd Brendan Fahey, a strategic writer stationed in South Korea, has served as aide to Central Intelligence Agency agent Theodore L. ``Ted" Humes, Division of Slavic Languages, and to the late-Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) chief Lt. General Daniel O. Graham; to former Arizona Governor Evan Mecham, former Congressman John Conlan and others. The views expressed in the above article are those of the author and do no necessarily reflect the editorial policy of The Korea Times.