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Buddhist monk Ji Gwan, head of the largest faction of Korean Buddism, held a baby at the Holy Family Child Adoption Center in Seoul in April of this year, while Cardinal Cheong Jin suk smiled beside him.
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Charity caught in middle of debate dating back to military regime
The wife of Kim Hyung-wook, former chief of the Korean Central Intelligence Agency (KCIA), now the National Intelligence Service (NIS), has won a lawsuit demanding the return of land confiscated by the government. But in the process, the facilities of a social welfare organization have been threatened with removal.
In an appeal trial, the Seoul High Court yesterday supported the ruling made at the first trial, which said that Caritas Seoul should remove its building and return the land to Kim’s wife, known only by her surname Sin. On the land in question, the charity runs an orphanage called Holy Family Child Adoption Center, belonging to Archdiocese of Seoul. About 30 children are now living at the orphanage. When it began in 1994, the adoption center was the first of its kind established for domestic rather than overseas adoptions.
Kim served as KCIA chief under the late Park Chung-hee regime. In the process of a power struggle, Kim went into exile in the United States and waged anti-Park campaigns from there. In October 1979, he died under mysterious circumstances, and a Seoul criminal district court posthumously sentenced him to seven years in prison and confiscated his land in Seongbuk-gu, northern Seoul. The charge was that he violated a special treason act for anti-government activists. The Constitutional Court, however, ruled that the special law was unconstitutional and Sin would be able to regain the land.
Caritas Seoul now finds itself embroiled in a power struggle dating from the military regimes of the past. When the charity handed over 370,000 ㎡ of land in Pyeongchang, Gangwon Province, to the government in December 1991, the nation in return gave it the land in Seongbuk-gu. The Ministry of Culture and Tourism has since developed the land in Pyeongchang.
With the court ruling to return the land, Archdiocese of Seoul filed a lawsuit in July against the government. The court in that case ruled that the government should give W6.9 billion ($US7.1 million) in compensation to the organization. Caritas Seoul said, "We are looking for another place to move, but land prices in Seoul are too expensive. We can only repurchase the land from Sin or sign a contract to rent the land. We are going to appeal to the court in order to prevent forced removal of the building. We will do our best to prevent a situation in which the children have no place to go," added the group.
