반부패의 표적
Roh Gets Taste of His Own Medicine
S. Korean Becomes Target of Anti-Graft Drive He Launched
By Anthony Faiola and Joohee Cho
Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, January 31, 2004; Page A18
SEOUL -- President Roh Moo Hyun came to power promising to break the silence surrounding the estimated hundreds of millions of dollars of illegal funds funneled into election campaigns by South Korea's powerful family-owned conglomerates. During his 12 months in office, legal scholars say, Roh has granted unprecedented autonomy to prosecutors to launch the broadest corruption probes in national history.
But Roh's efforts have led this new crop of reform-minded prosecutors straight to his own doorstep.
Over the past six months, the prosecutors -- now being hailed by corruption-weary South Koreans as national heroes, complete with their own online fan clubs -- have forced the arrests of 16 politicians, aides and businessmen accused of accepting or handing out illegal cash to fund Roh's successful 2002 presidential bid. They include four of Roh's top presidential aides, his former campaign director and his chauffeur.
Of the 273 lawmakers elected to the current 16th National Assembly, 33 have been indicted on corruption charges, according to the prosecutor's office. "President Roh ordered us to take no quarter, to be an independent force for justice, and that's just what prosecutors are doing," said one prosecutor involved in the investigations. He and other prosecutors interviewed declined to be named, citing the sensitive nature of the investigations and departmental policies. "We are finally free to do our jobs."
With the evidence mounting, Roh has conceded his campaign received illegal funds, but is now asking South Koreans to forgive him. He argues that he is not as dirty as the opposition Grand National Party, charged with accepting tens of millions of dollars more in illegal cash than Roh's campaign during the 2002 elections. Roh has vowed to give up his job if his campaign is found to have been even fractionally as corrupt as the GNP, which has long maintained close ties to the conglomerates, called chaebols.
"If the amount of our illegal funds is more than one-tenth of Grand National Party's, I will resign from my presidential post and retire from politics," Roh said last month.
In the meantime, the National Assembly, controlled by the GNP, has appointed a special prosecutor to investigate illegal campaign financing at the Blue House, South Korea's presidential palace. South Korean law prohibits prosecutors from indicting a sitting president, but GNP leaders have threatened impeachment proceedings -- an event that analysts say could precipitate a constitutional crisis at a time when neighboring North Korea is threatening to become the world's newest nuclear power.
The sweeping probes have shocked the nation in their scope, as politicians fled into hiding before turning themselves in and investigators raided Samsung, Hyundai Motors, SK Group, LG and the other corporate giants that have transformed South Korea into an industrialized nation over the past 30 years. The raids have come after decades of tight control of the prosecutor's office by the executive branch.
Roh, prosecutors and legal experts say, can claim much of the credit for the newly independent prosecutors. Last March, in a televised debate with a group of state prosecutors, Roh challenged them to restore the nation's trust in them. By his side was Kang Kum Sil, a crusading former judge and human rights lawyer newly appointed by Roh to be South Korea's first female justice minister. Under her guidance, the prosecutor's office was reshuffled and aggressive, younger lawyers in their thirties and forties were assigned to key posts in the political corruption division.
The interfering phone calls from the Blue House threatening crushed careers if certain probes continued have largely stopped, prosecutors say. "The veil of fear was lifted," said another prosecutor. "You no longer feel your career is on the line if you investigate people close to the president."
Kang said she has acted as a "shield" to protect prosecutors from political influence.
"I have tried to make sure the investigations are being carried out in a fair and straightforward way, without ulterior motives," Kang said last week. "It is important to prevent outside influence from interfering, and I think we're doing that. If the president wanted to cover this up, there would be no investigations. We are making a great leap forward in building our institutions."
Political prosecutions are hardly novel in South Korea. Former presidents Chun Doo Hwan and Roh Tae Woo, both former generals, were jailed on various charges after leaving office, and their trials unveiled a hint of the hundreds of millions of dollars in what the chaebols privately call their "insurance policies" with politicians. Former presidents Kim Young Sam and Kim Dae Jung, both former dissidents, have sons who were imprisoned on corruption charges.
But legal experts here say the extent of the current probes is unprecedented. Besides the 16 arrests linked to Roh's campaign, five sitting assemblymen of the GNP are now in jail.
This week Rep. Suh Chung Won, who led the GNP campaign team, was arraigned on charges of violating election fund laws. Prosecutors alleged that he took $850,000 from Hanwha Group and gave it to his son-in-law to help his business, which Suh denies. Sohn Gil Seung and Chey Tae Won, chairman and president of South Korea's third-largest chaebol, SK Group, are under arrest on tax fraud charges. Dozens of other political and business leaders are under investigation, facing possible indictment in the coming days and weeks.
"We are looking at a new crop of prosecutors who appear to be doing their job free from the strong political interference of the past," said Park Hyo Jong, professor of National Ethics at Seoul National University.
Public reaction to the almost daily headlines detailing illegal political campaign funds -- including one about a politician's associate who drove off in a 2.5-ton truck laden with $13 million in small bills for his boss -- has been one of satisfaction that the political system's widespread corruption is coming to light.
Thoroughly disillusioned with Roh, South Koreans have applauded the prosecutors. Average citizens have showered them with gifts -- which were mostly returned in accordance with national laws -- including ginseng-laden stamina medicines and warm blankets for those late nights examining literally truckloads of seized documents. Chung Sung Keun, a 41-year-old organic rice farmer, launched an online fan club for top prosecutors last October. In November, citizens sent the prosecutors oxygen masks so they could inhale clean air while breathing the polluted atmosphere of South Korea's politics.
"These investigation are necessary . . . politicians must be returned to the arms of the public," said Chung by telephone from his rural home hours south of Seoul. "It should no longer be an exclusive right for those dirty politicians. We have confidence in the prosecutors. They are crusaders but even the just need moral support."
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