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Ex-president Chun Doo-hwan when he was the commander of Defense Security Command in 1979.
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Focus on bill mounting after ex-president fails to appear in court
The question of whether bills to block the National Cemetery interment of Chun Doo-hwan will be passed in the National Assembly’s extraordinary session in February is drawing attention following a court’s issuance of an arrest writ for the ex-president on Jan. 7 after he failed to appear at his trial. Meanwhile, criticisms of the Liberty Korea Party (LKP) continue to mount over its failure to nominate members for a Gwangju Democratization Movement investigation committee for over three months. Results announced on Jan. 7 from a poll of 503 adults South Korean nationwide conducted on Jan. 4 by Real Meter at the request of CBS (95% confidence level, ±4.4 percentage point margin of error) showed 61.5% of respondents agreeing that Chun’s interment at the National Cemetery following his death “should be prevented, even if this entails amending the law.” Another 26.8% of respondents said Chun’s interment “should be allowed because he received a special pardon.” (For more details, visit the National Election Survey Deliberation Commission website.) The current Act on the Establishment and Management of National Cemeteries bars the interment of individuals who have received final sentence of imprisonment with or without forced labor on charges including insurrection. But no explicit rules exist for those who have received special pardons like Chun. In Apr. 1997, Chun was sentenced to life in prison by the Supreme Court on charges of high treason and rebellion. The following December, he received a special pardon. A Ministry of Patriots and Veterans’ Affairs review committee for National Cemetery interment candidates set a precedent in 2011 in deciding to allow the interment of Ahn Hyeon-tae – Chun’s former Presidential Security Service chief, who had been sentenced to prison time on bribery and other charges – on the grounds that he had been “reinstated.” Chun has been indicted without detention on charges of defaming a deceased person for remarks in his memoirs published in Apr. 2017, in which he described Father Cho Pius – who claimed to have witnessed helicopters firing on innocent civilians during the Gwangju Democracy Movement – as a “masked Satan” and “shameless liar.” In a Jan. 1 interview, Chun’s wife Lee Soon-ja continued to deny her husband’s responsibility for abuses and massacres by the state at the time of the uprising, insisting that he was a “father of [South Korean] democracy.” In response, many politicians are insisting the relevant laws need to be amended to prevent Chun from being buried at the National Cemetery after his death. Last year, Democratic Party lawmaker Kang Chang-il sponsored an amendment to the Act on the Establishment and Management of National Cemeteries excluding those guilty of high treason even in cases of pardons and rehabilitation. Party for Democracy and Peace lawmaker Chun Jung-bae presented a similar amendment to the Special Act on the May 18 Democratization Movement, etc. “It is preposterous that the chief culprit in the May 18 massacre and the ringleader of an insurrection as confirmed by the Supreme Court should be buried in the National Cemetery,” Chun Jung-bae said. “We will need to pass these amendments during the February session of the National Assembly,” he declared. Speaking on Chun Doo-hwan’s behalf in a Jan. 7 telephone interview with the Hankyoreh, former Blue House chief of staff Min Jeong-gi noted, “Former President Chun has already stated in his memoirs that he wants to be ‘buried on a hill on the front looking down on North Korea when I pass away. There I will watch as South and North are reunified.’” “[The question of Chun’s National Cemetery interment] is not a matter of interest for us,” he insisted. When asked if this meant Chun was rejecting a National Cemetery burial, Min said, “This is not a rejection; we are saying it is not a matter of interest.” LKP delays launch of investigation committee of Gwangju Democratization Movement Some observers are arguing that the ongoing unilateral claims from Chun are compounding the urgency of the investigation committee’s launch. The Special Act on the May 18 Democratization Movement, etc. went into effect on Sept. 14 of last year, but the committee’s launch has been delayed amid the LKP’s failure to nominate members. LKP floor leader Na Kyung-won announced on Jan. 4 that the party would “make efforts” to produce a list by Jan. 7. But when the day arrived, she once again announced a delay. “Since there are many National Assembly members raising the need to add additional members to the list submitted by the previous leadership, we have decided to do a bit more coordinating,” she said. Na and LKP National Defense Committee member Lee Jong-myeong previously met on Jan. 4 with far-right commentator Ji Man-won, whom some in the party are pushing to nominate as a committee member, but Na reportedly balked at Ji’s nomination. Ji plans to hold a demonstration in protest on Jan. 8 in front of Na’s office in her local constituency. By Song Gyung-hwa and Kim Mi-na, staff reporters Please direct comments or questions to [english@hani.co.kr]
