Democracy at stake, Economy in crisis, Security at risk

Joseph H. Chung, Ph.D (정희수) Professor of economics, Quebec University in Quebec (UQAM)

(지난 호에 이어)

Fourth, to expand and strengthen the corruption community, they intensified the violation of citizens' right of freedom and their right to decent living. They imposed unfair wage and oppressed labour union. They embezzle public funds; they gave illegal grants to the members of the corruption community; the bribe money was a lucrative source of their income.

Fifth, these three presidents were devoted pro-Japan leaders. There were logical reasons for this. Rhee Syngman survived as president for 12 years owing to the supporters who had collaborated with Japan (traitors).

General Park Chung-hee was a Japanese army officer who wrote allegiance to the emperor of Japan with his own blood so that he could be admitted to the Japanese military academy in Manchuria. He killed Korean patriots for Japan.

He established the pro-Japan Republican Party with $66 million given in 1965 by Kishi Nobuske who was the worst racist and the most brutal oppressor of Chinese and Korans in Manchuria. He was known as "Showa demon".

General Chun Doo-hwan was a faithful subordinate to his boss, General Park. After the assassination of his boss in 1979, he stole the power by coup-d'etat in 1980. Chun was the most brutal dictator and he was ready to do anything as long as he can stay in power.

In fact, he killed thousands of innocent Gwangjoo citizens in order to prevent the opposite force from challenging his power. He tried to become eternal president as his boss had wanted, but failed.

The three presidents of the PJCF ruled Korea with brutal police and military force. In order to keep power; they massacred hundreds of thousands of citizens who were suspected to be against the regime of dictatorship. They arrested, incarcerated, tortured and killed tens of thousands of college students to prevent anti-regime demonstrations and uprisings.

.

But the PLNF was organized and fought against the dictators. The core of the PLNF was filled by students. The students organized huge street demonstrations four times during this period:

• The Student Revolution of April 19, 1960

• The BUMA Protest on October 16, 1979

• The Kwangju Democratic Movement on May 18, 1980

• The Democratic Movement of June 1987

The PLNF had important victory through these uprisings. The three presidents ended their presidency in a tragic way.

Rhee Syngman was chased by the students and fled Korea, in 1960, on an American CIA plane.

General Park Chung-hee failed to become permanent president, because he was assassinated in 1979 by his CIA director.

General Chun Doo-hwan was sentenced to death in 1996 for his crime of killing Kwangju citizens. He was also a most corrupted leader and the worst abuser of power.

To be sure, this was a significant victory of the PLNF over the PJCF. But, the corruption culture of the PJCF remained in tact.

?1987-1993: Period of PJCF government of Rho-Tae-woo (1987-1993)

This was the period of the birth of a new constitution allowing the regime of direct election of the president made possible by the huge June Democratic Uprising in 1987.

The president was General Rho Tae-woo who was relatively peaceful compared to his violent friend, Generals Chun Doo-hwan. Rho Tae-woo avoided confrontation with PLNF, but he was accused for corruption.

As far as the PJCF-PLNF fight was concerned, no major change took place under Rho Tae-woo.

?1993-1998: Period of the coalition government of PJCF-PLNF. under Kim Yong-sam (1993-1998)

Despite the coalition between the two political forces, this period brought a major victory of PLNF. President, Kim Yong-sam of PLNF was successful in bringing General Chun Doo-hwan and General Rho Tae-woo to the court. General Chun was given death penalty for his crime of Kwangju massacre. General Rho got the prison term for corruption.

?1998-2008: Period of PLNF government under Kim Dae-jung (1998-2003) and Rho Moo-hyun (2003-2008)

This period was one of major victory of PLNF over PJCF. In fact, during this period, there was major change in economic policy more in favour of the ordinary people and new basis for the North-South dialogue.

In 1998, the foreign-reserve crisis hit Korea hard. Countless small and medium businesses had to close the shop; several Chaebols went bankrupt and an army of jobless went hungry. Millions of poor Koreans gave their gold wedding rings, necklaces and golden objects to pay the debt to IMF.

But, above all, President, Kim Dae-jung who took over the power in 1998 imposed bold reform of Chaebols, which weakened considerably the strength of the corruption culture of PJCF.

Moreover, he undertook several reforms designed to make the income distribution more equal such as the regime of minimum income, the promotion of labour union, increase of corporate taxes, the incentives given to SMEs and measures.

President Rho Moo-hyun gave another big blow to PJCF. To begin with, he made substantial social and industrial reforms leading to a more equal distribution of income. Another major reform undertaken by President, Rho was the de-bureaucratization of the Korean rigid and unproductive bureaucracy leading to the weakening of the corruption culture developed by the PJCF.

The measures taken by the two presidents of the PLNF could have slowed down the flow of public money toward the PJCF.

There was another event which took place in this period, namely, the "Sunshine policy" which could have damaged the PJCF's interests.

The North-South tensions had been a useful tool of winning major election of the PJCF and promoting the close ties between the PJCF and Japan. The sunshine policy has surely hurt such tie.

Thus, the two presidents of the PLNF were relatively successful in improving income distribution and reducing the North-South tension meaning a meaningful victory of the PLNF over the PJCF. (다음 호에 계속)

<저작권자(c) Budongsancanada.com 부동산캐나다 한인뉴스, 무단 전재-재배포 금지 >