Roh Admits Ordering ’79 Korea Troop Move but Denies Mutiny or Coup

In a 2 1/2-hour grilling by Korean newsmen, Roh Tae Woo, the ruling party’s presidential nominee, admitted that he ordered troops into Seoul to oust the South Korean army’s chief of staff on Dec. 12, 1979, but denied that the incident was either a coup or a mutiny.

He also contended that a military takeover of May 17, 1980, which brought his fellow army general, Chun Doo Hwan, into power with his support, was not a coup.

The interrogation, carried out after a dinner at the Kwanhun Club, a fraternity of senior South Korean journalists, represented a major disruption of the ruling Democratic Justice Party’s campaign strategy of playing down the military career of its nominee and portraying him as a “common man.”

The marathon session, an unprecedented grilling of a ruling party leader, was dominated by questions about the 1979 ouster, the 1980 coup and military brutality that transformed demonstrations against Chun’s takeover into an insurrection in the city of Kwangju. Only a smattering of questions were asked about Roh’s policies and present issues.

Embarrassed by Questions

On the defensive for most of the evening, the former general who retired from the army in 1981 and served in a series of key posts in Chun’s authoritarian government was clearly embarrassed by repeated questions focusing on the Dec. 12, 1979 uprising. Finally he declared:

“Not to trust others may be one of our national characteristics. You’ve got to trust me.”

The 1979 action emerged this week as a major issue in the campaign for the Dec. 16 presidential election when its chief victim, then-Gen. Chung Seung Hwa, stunned the nation Monday by joining the opposition Reunification Democratic Party as an adviser to its presidential candidate, Kim Young Sam.

Roh conceded that Chung’s move surprised him. But he said the action he and five other generals, including President Chun, took in 1979 to oust Chung, the army chief of staff, was justified.

Gen. Chung, he said, was present near a Korean Central Intelligence Agency-run safe-house when President Park Chung Hee was assassinated by his KCIA chief on Oct. 26, 1979, “and was suspected of having been involved in the assassination.”

“How could such a commander be respected?” Roh asked.

He added that Chung, the army’s No. 1 general and martial-law commander, was asked to present himself for interrogation at the office of then-President Choi Kyu Hah but refused. Roh, Chun and the other four generals, who eventually sent in troops to oust Chung, had been prepared to “let him retire with honor, but he refused to cooperate,” Roh added.

He insisted that the arrest of Gen. Chung was not a power grab.

“Some people say it was a mutiny, and some say it was a coup,” Roh said. “But common sense dictates that a group staging a coup would take over total power. We did not. We let the politicians continue to direct political developments.”

Roh said nothing about the fact that the group obtained President Choi’s approval for the move against Gen. Chung only after the army chief of staff was ousted--a fact that Yoo Hak Seong, a former general and now a ruling party National Assemblyman, acknowledged Tuesday.

But Roh contradicted a contention by Yoo, who was one of the six generals, that it was not Roh but Yoo, as an assistant defense minister in charge of logistics, who gave troops under Roh’s command the order to move against the army chief of staff.

“It was I who ordered the troop movement,” Roh said.

He insisted, however, that “after taking all the necessary precautions, I left the major part of my 9th Infantry Division at the front and mobilized only reserve troops near Seoul.”

U.S. Commander Protested

The move against the army chief of staff also brought vociferous protests from the American commander of U.S. and Korean forces, who controlled Roh’s 9th Division as part of the forces deployed against possible aggression by Communist North Korea.

Roh also denied that the mutiny was aimed at forestalling a plan by the army chief to oust Chun.

“We didn’t know that at the time,” he said. “We found out about that later.”

Asked why, if the incident was not a power grab, all six of the generals, including President Chun, who ousted the army chief of staff wound up with prominent posts in the Chun government, Roh replied, “Politics can lead you to places to which you do not seek or plan to go.”

The Democratic Justice Party leader branded as a “coup” the 1961 military takeover masterminded by his conservative presidential opponent, Kim Jong Pil, a former prime minister. But without elaborating, he added that Chun’s May, 1980, takeover, which he supported, “was not a coup.”

(Technically, President Choi remained in office until late August, 1980, although Chun took over a military junta that, in fact, ran the government.)

Roh denied that the Chun government represented “military rule,” which the opposition has pledged to end by winning the December election. But he acknowledged that “there are quite a few former military men in many government organizations.”

He said that on June 29, he had proposed sweeping reforms to transform South Korea into a democracy “to correct this situation, and to give the people a chance to legally elect their leader directly.”

“If I am elected, military coloring will be eradicated from government,” he said.

In a slash at Kim Dae Jung, a second opposition presidential candidate known to be anathema to commanders of the 625,000-man armed forces, Roh declared, “Do you think that someone who might cause social trouble by taking power can reduce military influence?

“Only someone who can stabilize society can do that,” he said, adding that only he has that power.

Roh said that “frankly, I was worried that the military might object” when he made his June 29 reform proposals after 18 days of nationwide street protests against Chun’s plan to rubber-stamp a successor through an indirect election process.

“But as you can see,” he added, “the military is going along with my proposals.” Chun approved the proposals on July 1.

Open to TV Debate

Roh said for the first time that he is willing to take on all three major candidates running against him in a four-way debate on television. He also suggested that the four men issue a joint declaration against “regionalism,” a code word for discrimination against residents of the two southwest Cholla provinces, the home of Kim Dae Jung.

Chun’s handpicked nominee admitted that he had undergone a “complete turn-around” from advocating a cabinet system of government, with an indirect system of choosing the nation’s leader, to supporting a direct presidential election.

“I listened to the people . . . and realized that the people wanted direct election of a president. So I heeded that desire,” he said.

“As a boat sails with the wind, so does politics,” he added.

Roh admitted that the government has not yet implemented all of the reform program he promised June 29 but said, “If I am elected, I definitely will complete carrying out all of the eight points.”