Roh Vows to Reform Korea Ruling Party

Roh Tae Woo was elected Wednesday as president of the ruling Democratic Justice Party, and he promised to “democratize” the party and carry out the “most free and fair election” in South Korea’s history to choose the nation’s next president.

Roh, the party’s candidate, told an audience of 1,400 party officials that “the people want the Democratic Justice Party to change” and promised to make the party “an arena for discussion and decision.”

“We Democratic Justice Party members should undergo a great change in our way of thinking to meet the expectations of the people. . . . If we pursue progressive, democratic reforms, the people’s support for us will not perish. Rather, they will entrust us with a historic mission” of achieving “democracy, justice and welfare,” he said.

Roh, who was named chairman of the party in 1985, was unanimously elected by the party’s 640-member steering committee to the No. 1 post vacated July 10 by President Chun Doo Hwan, who said he would remove himself from politics to ensure a fair election for the president who will succeed him next Feb. 25.

Chun, who created the ruling party after abolishing all established political parties in a 1980 coup, was named honorary president of the party, while the post of chairman was abolished. New vice presidents’ posts, which Roh was expected to fill soon, also were created.

Roh, a 54-year-old former general who is Chun’s handpicked nominee, said the ruling party will accept opposition demands for revisions in a Presidential Election Law to ensure the “most free and fair election” in South Korea’s history. The election, which is expected to be held in December or early January, will be the first direct election for president since 1971.

Roh pledged to carry out reforms guaranteeing basic labor rights, freedom of the press, independence of the courts, local self-government and autonomy in decision-making in education and “every social field.”

“I can confidently say that our party is opening a new era in which there will be no restrictions on freedom of the press,” he declared.

He also reiterated the pledges to transform South Korea into a full-fledged democracy that he made in a speech June 29. That speech stunned the nation by its conciliatory tone and took the steam out of the violent street protests that had racked the nation for 18 days.

In an unrelated, potentially significant development, South Korean newspapers reported that the Ministry of Home Affairs said that the government’s Board of Audit and Inspection had begun an investigation July 28 of the accounts of a major government organization headed until last year by Chun’s brother, Chun Kyung Hwan. An inspection of the headquarters office of the organization, Saemaul (New Community) Movement, is to begin today, the reports said.

They did not mention Chun’s brother by name, however.

Auditors were reported investigating rent that the Saemaul headquarters pays to a foundation, both of which were headed by Chun’s brother, who resigned as director of the headquarters last year. Also being examined were reports that the Saemaul headquarters had been involved in real estate dealings and profit-making businesses in violation of its original charter as a nonprofit foundation dedicated to renewal projects in both rural and urban areas.

After the initially private “movement,” financed entirely by donations, was reorganized under President Chun into a civilian organization subject to the direction of the Ministry of Home Affairs, it received financial assistance of more than $200 million a year from the national budget.