- WSJ.com Roh Impeachment Shows Broad South Korean Rift March 15, 2004 PAGE ONE Roh Impeachment Shows Broad South Korean Rift By GORDON FAIRCLOUGH Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL SEOUL, South Korea -- The impeachment of South Korea's president, Roh Moo Hyun, reveals a deep political schism here that promises continued instability in a country that has long been a key U.S. ally. Mr. Roh was barred from exercising his executive powers Friday when the National Assembly, controlled by the conservative opposition, passed South Korea's first bill of impeachment, charging the president with a relatively minor violation of election law and castigating him for corruption scandals and for the country's slow economic growth. The president's defeat in the bitterly partisan struggle came after security men forcibly ejected from the assembly chamber lawmakers allied with him -- who had been staging a sit-in to physically block the impeachment vote. Both sides have been clawing for advantage ahead of national parliamentary elections scheduled for April 15. Mr. Roh's case now goes before the country's Constitutional Court, which must decide whether to oust him after he has served slightly more than one year of a five-year term. The court has as many as 180 days to rule, but the chief judge said it would try to act swiftly. The court is set to convene Thursday, though experts said it is unlikely to announce a decision before the legislative polls. In the meantime, the country's prime minister, Goh Kun, was named acting president. Mr. Goh pledged continuity in government policy on the economy, defense and foreign affairs. DOW JONES REPRINTS This copy is for your personal, non-commercial use only. To order presentation-ready copies for distribution to your colleagues, clients or customers, use the Order Reprints tool at the bottom of any article or visit: www.djreprints.com. See a sample reprint in PDF format Order a reprint of this article now. Even so, a prolonged period of uncertainty is likely to hurt an already-fragile economy by damping foreign and domestic business investment. It also could slow efforts to resolve the standoff with North Korea over Pyongyang's nuclear-weapons program. To break the impasse between Washington and Pyongyang, Seoul has offered to compensate North Korea for a nuclear freeze. Whatever the fate of Mr. Roh, a wide rift in the South Korean electorate is likely to endure for some time, analysts said, as the country, split along ideological lines -- as well as by age, class and geography -reacts to drastic economic and political change and a shifting view of North Korea, once a mortal enemy and now the target of a government policy of engagement and reconciliation. "Koreans' views are so polarized. I don't think the impeachment is going
to change that much," says Mo Jong Ryn, a professor of political science at Yonsei University in Seoul. "Korea is divided fifty-fifty. There's nobody in the middle." After Friday's impeachment vote, Mr. Roh said: "My expectation is that the court will reach a conclusion in accordance with law, which will be different from the political judgments" of the legislature. He sought to portray his impeachment as a consequence of his efforts to change the country. "Society is inflicted with severe pain when reformed," Mr. Roh said. Aides said the president spent much of the weekend reading at home in his official residence in Seoul, the Blue House, named after the blue tiles on its roof. But his backers took to the streets in protest marches and candlelight demonstrations across the country. Opinion polls have shown that about 70% of South Koreans disapprove of the impeachment. On Saturday night in Seoul, about 50,000 people -- ranging from college students to parents with small children to retirees -- jammed a downtown street to decry Friday's vote, singing protest songs dating from the struggle against authoritarian government during the 1980s and waving candles in unison while chanting, "The impeachment is invalid." Opposition politicians "say this is for the Korean people. But this isn't what the people want," said 38-year-old Ahn Kyoung Jin, a Seoul office worker. Mr. Ahn said he hadn't participated in a protest since 1987, when he took to the streets in opposition to authoritarian rule. "A lot of people have suffered so we can have democracy here and the opposition is trying to turn back the clock." Mr. Roh is in many ways an outsider scorned by the political establishment as dangerously left-leaning, inexperienced and indecisive. He won a narrow victory -- with 49% of the popular vote -- over the conservative candidate in the 2002 presidential election, after pledging to clean up politics, make the economy more equitable and turn Seoul into a more equal partner in its alliance with Washington. His backers relied on the Internet, widely used by younger South Koreans, to galvanize support. Mr. Roh's base of support tends to be among younger people less concerned about the threat posed by North Korea, more skeptical of Seoul's ties to Washington, and more liberal generally than their elders. The Grand National Party, the main opposition group, tends to draw support from older, more conservative South Koreans and the country's business establishment. It favors stronger ties with the U.S. Some of the differences between Mr. Roh's camp and the opposition appear to be more matters of degree than a sharp divergence in strategy. Both sides, for example, agree on the need to make the country's giant, family-controlled business conglomerates more open and accountable to shareholders. They also agree on a policy of engagement with North Korea, although the conservatives say they would demand more reciprocity. In cases where conservatives are leaning one direction and liberals in the other, Mr. Roh often ends up in the center. South Korea is preparing to send 3,000 troops to Iraq to support U.S. efforts to rebuild the country. Mr. Roh also has taken a fairly hard line with Pyongyang on its nuclear programs, and he has expressed support for the continued presence of U.S. soldiers in South Korea. Stilll, Mr. Roh clearly is trying to take on the establishment in other ways. The son of poor farmers, he never attended college. He taught himself to be a lawyer and spent much of his career on labor and human-rights cases. He likes to compare himself with U.S. President Andrew Jackson, who tried to wrest political power away from American elites in the 1830s. And he has surrounded himself with young aides active in the South Korean democracy movement of the 1980s. At a December rally of his supporters, Mr. Roh said, "the people's
revolution is still in process and will continue" and called on his backers to "step forward once again" and continue the fight. That kind of rhetoric is profoundly unsettling for some in a country that until recently has defined itself as an anti-Communist bulwark against North Korea. Even more unsettling for politicians has been an investigation of campaign fund-raising practices by government prosecutors. Prosecutors allege that the Grand National Party received tens of millions of dollars in illegal campaign contributions from big businesses during the previous presidential election. Mr. Roh's campaign also received illicit donations, prosecutors say, but in smaller amounts. It is hard to tell how the Constitutional Court will rule. Chang Young Soo, a professor of constitutional law at Korea University in Seoul, said that he believes the severity of the crimes with which Mr. Roh is charged doesn't rise to the level of impeachment. The most specific complaint against the president alleges that he made improper, partisan comments that could unduly influence the outcome of the April elections. The National Election Commission, which already considered the case, said it is difficult to determine whether the president violated the law. Instead of recommending any sanction, the commission urged the president to be mindful of his obligation to remain neutral. Mr. Mo, the Yonsei University political scientist, said the Constitutional Court's decision is "not going to be black and white. The reality is that they will have to make a political decision and they will be watching to see how public opinion reacts." ---- Seah Park contributed to this article. Write to Gordon at Fairclough [e-mail]1 URL for this article: http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB107930189396954818,00.html Hyperlinks in this Article: (1) mailto:[e-mail] Updated March 15, 2004 Copyright 2004 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved This copy is for your personal, non-commercial use only. Distribution and use of this material are governed by our Subscriber Agreement and by copyright law. For non-personal use or to order multiple copies, please contact Dow Jones Reprints at 1-800-843-0008 or visit www.djreprints.com.
March 15, 2004 COMMENTARY
DOW JONES REPRINTS This copy is for your personal, non-commercial use only. To order presentationready copies for distribution to your colleagues, clients or customers, use the
Order Reprints tool at the bottom of any article or visit: www.djreprints.com. See a sample reprint in PDF format. Order a reprint of this article now. Roh Overlooked Power Bases By DONALD KIRK March 15, 2004 SEOUL -- The demise of Roh Moo Hyun as the president of South Korea exemplifies the fragility of democracy in a country and society traditionally ruled by dictators with the power to suppress dissent by force. Mr. Roh, elected president by a small but decisive 2.3% majority in December 2002 over a lackluster conservative, campaigned as a left-leaning reformer but began soon after his inauguration to shift to the middle. But while swearing fidelity to the alliance with the U.S., he failed to forge compromises needed to win over proponents of an unlikely alliance of conservative and regional foes. They voted overwhelmingly to impeach him on seemingly trivial grounds. The immediate motivation behind the vote was clearly a desire for vengeance. The urge to destroy him intensified amid non-stop prosecution of bribery and illegal funding that has penetrated all the parties, none more so than the two that forced his ouster. Any scorecard of those indicted or under investigation would show Mr. Roh's opponents far ahead of his supporters in terms of the charges against them and the amounts that changed hands. Thus Mr. Roh's foes leapt with glee on a National Election Commission's admonition, prompted by a careless remark that he made in a television interview when he said that he wanted his supporters to do well in next month's National Assembly elections. South Korean presidents are by law supposed to be impartial. The reasons for rage against Mr. Roh, however, go far beyond the scandals that dominate the headlines here to the exclusion of the much more portentous issue of North Korea's nuclear program. Mr. Roh, as an upstart with a background as a human rights lawyer in labor disputes, alarmed members of the Grand National Party, who represent the interests that ruled South Korea until the 1997 election of the populist Kim Dae Jung. They see Mr. Roh as a menace to the chaebol, or conglomerates, that form the bulwark of Korean economic strength. Mr. Roh compounded this problem by completely alienating the Millennium Democratic Party, which had thrown its support behind him in the 2002 campaign with Mr. Kim's blessing. The base of the Millennium Democrats is the historically poor southwestern Cholla region, Mr. Kim's native turf, while Mr. Roh comes from the industrialized southeast, historically blessed by favors from Seoul. The overwhelming support that Mr. Roh extracted from Cholla leaders in 2002 evaporated when he deserted the Millennium and identified with the newly formed Uri Yeolin Party. The name, Our Open Party, suggests a break from old-style politics, but the party lacks the regional base that is essential to success in Korea. Mr. Roh's strategy lay in a gamble that he could win commanding support for Uri candidates in the National Assembly elections. His impeachment does not necessarily mean that he has entirely lost. A constitutional court could yet reverse the decision, and thousands of Koreans, spurred by leftist nongovernmental groups, are protesting his impeachment in demonstrations that are certain to deepen the fissures in Korean society. The protests may grow during the Spring riot season when university students here are wont to join such outpourings. Nor is it out of the question that Uri candidates next month will
increase their numbers in the Assembly, where a diehard Uri minority fought unsuccessfully to stop his impeachment by physically blockading the vote. The real worry, though, is the likely impact of all the politicking, the infighting, the bickering, the prosecutions and the desire for revenge on all sides. The Korean peninsula since it was artificially divided by the victorious powers at the end of World War has moved from one shock after another. This year seems particularly important as North and South Korean negotiators talk about reconciliation while the United States, almost alone at times, presses the North to abandon a nuclear weapons program that threatens the peace of the region. The negotiations over the North come in a critical period economically as the South recovers fitfully from the doldrum...