2 Ex-Generals in S. Korea Contradict Roh

Two generals ousted in a 1979 mutiny charged Tuesday that Roh Tae Woo, the government party’s nominee for president, is falsely portraying the incident as a patriotic attempt to investigate the assassination of President Park Chung Hee.

The Dec. 12, 1979, incident was “a thoroughly pre-planned, unsavory mutiny by junior officers against the army leadership that completely demolished the command structure” of the 625,000-member armed forces, former Brig. Gen. Kim Chin Ki, who was army provost marshal in 1979, said at a news conference.

Roh and President Chun Doo Hwan, both major generals at the time, have said they suspected that Gen. Chung Seung Hwa, then army chief of staff, was involved in the Park assassination and that investigators wanted to question him.

Not an ‘Accident’

“Those involved in the incident have been trying to justify it” as an “accident” that occurred in the course of investigating the murder of Park, who was shot Oct. 26, 1979, by the director of the Korean CIA, Kim said.

But he and former Lt. Gen. Chong Byong Ju, commander of special warfare forces in 1979, said Chun, Roh, and four other generals mobilized troops even before seeking to arrest the army chief of staff.

They also asserted that after the army chief of staff’s arrest, Chun and his rebel generals agreed that neither side would deploy troops to settle the dispute. They said that they initially upheld the promise but Chun and Roh broke it.

The two generals said in a joint statement that the army’s top commanders “resisted mobilization of troops to counter (the rebels) because they feared that a military revolt would invite an attack from North Korea.”

Battles between rebel troops, including forces of the 9th Infantry Division that Roh commanded, and forces loyal to the top commanders eventually broke out in streets near the Defense Ministry in Seoul.

Rolling up his suit coat and shirt sleeve, Chong showed reporters a bullet scar on the left arm that he said he suffered as he attempted to mobilize his troops. One of his aides was killed by the rebels, but he did not learn of the death until two months later, Chong added.

Chong said that three of the four brigades under his command joined Chun, Roh and the rebels to oust the army chief of staff and those loyal to him, including both himself and Kim.

The former three-star general also disclosed that President Chun, then head of the Defense Security Command and responsible for investigating the Park assassination, had invited him and Kim to a party on the night of Dec. 12, 1979.

“But Chun did not show up. It was a plot to lure us out,” Chong said.

If Roh wins the Dec. 16 election, “he will have difficulty in commanding the military because of the bad precedent he set in staging a military rebellion,” Kim added.

On Nov. 12, Roh admitted in a 2 1/2-hour question-and-answer session that he had mobilized his 9th Division troops to support the ouster of the army chief of staff. He said his action constituted neither a mutiny nor a coup but was designed only to investigate the army’s top general, who had been in a building adjacent to a South Korean CIA safehouse in which Park was shot to death.

Roh and the Democratic Justice Party have subsequently avoided mentioning the charges against the government party’s nominee.

The mutiny gave Chun control of the army, which he used six months later to take over the government.

The 1979 incident emerged as an election issue Nov. 9 when Chung, the ousted army chief of staff, joined the opposition Reunification Democratic Party as an adviser to its presidential nominee, Kim Young Sam.

Chong and Kim said they have no intention of joining any political party.