Korea: It's not the bomb, it's the funeral By Spencer H Kim
The latest North Korean nuclear test and missile launch continues to get
headlines, but it is only another chapter in an already ongoing saga. For the
United States, more important things happened on the Korean Peninsula last
week. The death and burial of former South Korean president Roh Moo-hyun are of
deep concern. It is important to America that the aftermath goes well.
That Roh was able to gain election to his five-year term in 2002 was a shock to
the South Korean "system". He came from poverty, never went to college and
passed the notoriously difficult bar exam through self study. As a lawyer he
represented pro-democracy students, dissidents and labor activists in courts
stacked in favor of successive military dictatorships.
When free elections began in 1987, he went into politics. The
feeling of pride among most South Koreans, even those who didn't vote for him,
that they had broken a political taboo by electing someone with modest means
from outside the entrenched establishment was palpable and can be compared to
the emotions most Americans felt over last year's election of President Barack
Obama.
As president, Roh embarked on a series of reforms and adjustments, including an
anti-corruption drive. Many led to major changes for the better in the society
and economy. Among them was an attack on the abuse and arbitrariness of the
powerful prosecutorial establishment, which still seemed to stack the deck
against the little guy and in favor of the elite. Some of his more quixotic
quests and an economic downturn led to a fall in the perception of Roh's
governing competence by the end of his term, but never to his image as the
champion of the underdog.
Among Roh's most vocal electoral supporters were those who proclaimed
themselves "anti-American" and claimed that the US-South Korean alliance
propped up an elite establishment that institutionalized inequality and
suppressed moves to unify Korea. Roh rejected those views, arguing that while
the alliance may need modernization, it was a bedrock of South Korean foreign
policy and trade with the US was key to the country's economic future. He sent
South Korean troops to Iraq and Afghanistan and personally initiated the
US-South Korea free-trade agreement which, if ratified, will open many of the
country's closed industries to American competition.
Roh's successor, President Lee Myung-bak, who took power in 2008, represents
South Korea's more conservative party, which has portrayed itself as "rescuing"
the alliance with the US from tensions resulting from the modernization Roh had
undertaken.
Worse than that, this year prosecutors began an intense investigation of Roh's
financial dealings and found that while he was in office his wife had persuaded
a rich longtime friend to underwrite their children's education in the US and
invest in their son's business; in total about $6.4 million. There is no
indication the friend got anything in return. Roh was brought 280 miles from
his rural retirement village to Seoul and questioned for 13 hours straight. His
children and loyal staff were also questioned and his wife was scheduled for
the same grilling next week.
Roh took his own life last Saturday, perhaps partly out of shame that his
reform image had been tainted, but also, according to his suicide note, to
spare his wife, children and friends from further suffering. He knew from
experience that hounding, constant media leaks and perhaps jail would all be
forthcoming.
The South Korean people know that Roh was targeted, and treated without the
decorum due a former president, precisely because he had tried to reform
prosecutorial abuse and taken on the entrenched establishment. Huge crowds
attended Roh's funeral. There will be a strong, and probably lasting, reaction
among the public that will lead to changes in prosecutorial discretion and
greater scrutiny of future prosecutorial investigations.
Let us hope Lee Myung-bak's government treats Roh's legacy with true
"conservative" values - that it is careful, sober, respectful and does not
react in a way that reminds the public of past authoritarianism. If it
mishandles Roh's legacy, then its close public identification with the US will
play badly for the alliance and undermine much of the broadening of support for
the alliance that Roh had accomplished.
A California businessman, Spencer Kim (spencer@cbol.com) is a
member of the US-Korea Business Council and a founder of the Pacific Century
Institute. He represented the US on the APEC Business Advisory Council
2006-2008.
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