Ex-Korean Leader Takes Scandal Blame, Quits Posts

Former President Chun Doo Hwan today resigned all his public and political posts to accept responsibility for his brother’s role in a massive corruption scandal.

Chun, looking tired and strained, told a news conference he was resigning as chairman of the Advisory Council of State Elders and as honorary president of the governing Democratic Justice Party.

The former president said he was giving up the offices because he failed to prevent his brother’s embezzling a fortune in cash, land and stocks through government contacts. He said his brother should be judged sternly.

“I cannot but keenly feel that it was due entirely to my own incompetence and lack of discretion that I have failed to control and supervise my younger brother,” Chun said.

Chun’s resignation leaves him without any official positions and appears to signal his departure from politics. As president of the advisory council, he served as a principal adviser to the president.

Chun’s brother, Chun Kyung Hwan, is awaiting trial on charges of embezzlement, influence peddling and extortion while he was head of the semiofficial Saemaul Undong, or New Community, development movement.

The younger Chun was named to the post in 1981, while his brother was South Korea’s president, and resigned last year. The movement oversees rural and urban development projects.

Government prosecutors say they have evidence that millions of dollars were stolen by the younger Chun and his associates to build a private empire that operated under official protection.

Some government officials are being investigated on suspicion they covered up the protection to protect the president’s family. The former president has not been implicated in the corruption probe.

President Roh Tae Woo, who succeeded Chun on Feb. 25, is thought to have sanctioned the corruption inquiry to discredit his predecessor and undermine Chun’s attempts to retain power. The former president reportedly wanted to use his advisory position to wield influence behind the scenes.