SOUTH-KOREA: Chun Doo Hwan Sentenced to Death, Roh Gets 22 Years

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Magda Kowalczuk

TOKYO, Aug 26 1996 (IPS) - South Korea’s former dictator Chun Doo Hwan was Monday sentenced to death for plotting a 1979 military coup, but analysts say that for reasons of political expediency, a presidential pardon may be on the cards.

A three-judge-panel in the Seoul District Criminal Court found the 65-year-old Chun guilty of plotting the coup that led to his take-over, of complicity in a 1980 massacre in the southern city of Kwangju, as well as using bribes to amass hundreds of millions of dollars in secret political slush funds.

His presidential successor Roh Tae Woo, 64, was sentenced to 22.5 years in prison after being convicted of similar charges of treason, mutiny and corruption. Prosecutors had sought the death penalty for Chun and a life sentence for Roh. Both are expected to appeal the convictions.

Jail terms ranging from four to 13 years were handed down on top businessmen including Lee Kun He of the Samsung Group, Kim Woo Choong of Daewoo and Choi Won Suk of Dong-A group, who were convicted of buying favours from the former strongmen.

To the anger of residents of the Kwangju district, the judges found both Chun and Roh not guilty of murder charges in the military crackdown that saw the killing of more than 200 pro- democracy protesters.

Then army generals Chun Doo Hwan and Roh Tae Woo rose to power after the successful military coup of Dec. 12 1979 that followed the assassination President Park Chung Hee in October that year. Chun served as a president from 1980 to 1987. His successor held the reins of power till 1993.

Soon after the 1979 coup, the new junta imposed martial law and arrested hundreds of Park supporters and pro-democracy campaigners. Then opposition leader Kim Dae Jung was also arrested.

“Whatever the verdict is, the government of president Kim Young Sam is expected to pardon the generals,” the ‘Asahi Shinbun’, a Japanese daily quoted a political commentator saying before Monday’s verdict and sentencing in Seoul. “They still have very strong support in their home provinces”.

One Korean government official, who asked not to be identified, had also been quoted Sunday saying that “both men would receive moderate prison sentences from the judges”. He added that “they would all be released from prison anyway after serving a few months”.

Political analysts in Tokyo and Seoul argue that Kim Young Sam, who is due to step down from the presidency next year, would gain political capital by showing clemency as he prepares to select a presidential successor from within the ranks of his New Korea Party.

With tension now running high in South Korea following the mass arrest of student demonstrators that are calling for the reunification of the Koreas, the authorities will have to carefully weigh up the mood of the public.

In Kwangju for example, Korean television stations showed a public seeking ultimate revenge for the bloody crackdown of 1980.

“Justice will be served only when Chun and Roh would have been sentenced to death,” said one Kwangju resident.

“I cannot understand why the judges acquitted the defendants of murder charges in connection with the brutal suppression of the pro-democracy uprising,” another said.

The decision comes one week after police stormed the Yongsei University in western Seoul and arrested more than 3,000 student demonstrators staging outlawed unification rallies in celebration of National Liberation Day on Aug 15.

Under the National Security Law, South Koreans are not allowed to hold rallies in support of North Korean positions, make contact with North Koreans or visit the North without prior official permission.

But more than 5,000 students belonging to the National Federation of Student Councils, defied the ban and police attempts to break up their protest rally by barricading themselves behind the main university gate. They kept police at bay for nine days by hurling gasoline bombs and stones.

The stand-off finally ended in bloodshed last Tuesday when police stormed the university. One journalist and one policeman are reported to have died during the incident.

Many of the arrested remain in police custody with authorities refusing to bow to demands for their release by two defiant South Korean students who have been on hunger strike in Panmunjom village, near the border with the North, for the past five days.

“(I) will never forgive violent, radical students subscribing to communism and will punish resolutely all anachronistic pro North Korean forces to the last,” the president told 300 university presidents after the incident.

Noted South Korean political comentator Park Kwong Sang says the “government was able to take the harsh steps because it knew there was virtually no public support for the student protests” since the over-riding feeling in the South now is that Seoul must not appear divided against an increasingly restless North.

More than once earlier this year, North Korean troops have made brief but provocative border incursions across the demilitarised zone that has provided a buffer between the two nations ever since the 1950-53 Korean War.

Isolated and facing serious food shortages, North Korea’s communist authorities may yet consider war an option should the international community not respond adequately to its food needs.

As such, the South Korean public has generally frowned on the student action which sought to put pressure on the Seoul government on the issue of reunification.

That has not always been the case. Indeed, the student movement has in the past been at the forefront of change in South Korea starting from the time of Japanese occupation from 1910 to 1945 when the student body kept an active underground network.

In 1960, student-led demonstrations forced the resignation of then President Syungman Rhee, a rebel under Japanese rule who led South Korea from 1948. His draconian measures and jailing of political dissidents saw him lose favour with the Korean public.

In 1979 and 1980, it was also the student body, which describes itself as the “conscience of the nation”, that first rose up against the Chun Doo Hwan. Many paid with their lives during the 1980 military crackdown.

Six years later, students joined with hundreds of thousands of workers in pro-democracy and pro-union protests that forced Chun to resign.

Then in 1991, the prime minister in Roh Tae Woo’s administration, Roh Jai Bong, was also forced to hand in his resignation at the demand of the student movement then enraged by the killing of a colleague by anti-terrorist police.