Hunger Strike Imperils Health of Ex-S. Korea Leader Chun : Justice: Former president may be moved from prison. Lawmakers are close to passing law to punish 1979 mutineers.

Former South Korean President Chun Doo Hwan, jailed early this month on insurrection charges for a 1979 mutiny, is in rapidly worsening health from a hunger strike and may be moved soon from prison to a hospital, authorities said Monday.

Chun, 64, has refused any solid food, consuming only barley tea and water since his imprisonment Dec. 3, Justice Ministry officials said. A former general, Chun was arrested after he defiantly refused to submit to prosecutors’ questioning about the mutiny, which led within months to a coup and a bloody crackdown on opposition.

Chun’s hunger strike is seen as a form of continued defiance even as the ruling party and the main opposition party in the National Assembly near agreement on a special law to punish those responsible for the Dec. 12, 1979, mutiny and a massacre of pro-democracy protesters in the southwestern city of Kwangju the following May.

This “May 18” law, named after the day the Kwangju uprising began, would be aimed at least at Chun, president from 1980 to 1988, and former President Roh Tae Woo, another former general who backed Chun in the mutiny.

Roh, who has admitted accumulating a $653-million slush fund during his 1988-1993 term in office, is imprisoned on bribery charges.

A corruption trial began Monday for Roh, five of his former aides and nine prominent business leaders. All confirmed that huge sums of money were given to Roh but denied that they were bribes. Lee Kun Hee, chairman of the Samsung Group, described his transfer of $32.6 million to Roh as “a kind of tax money.”

President Kim Young Sam announced late last month that he wanted the National Assembly to pass a “May 18 special law” before the end of its regular session today.

A large majority of lawmakers say they support such a law, but drafting has been held up by wrangling over its contents. The main opposition party, the National Congress for New Politics, has demanded that the law provide for a special prosecutor, but the ruling New Korea Party has refused.

Negotiators for the two sides made major progress Monday, however, with leaders of the opposition party deciding not to link the special-prosecutor issue to passage of the bill. They proposed instead that the National Assembly hold an extraordinary session next month to address that issue.

The question of a special prosecutor has political significance because an independent investigator might be more aggressive in pursuing questions damaging to the ruling party.

The stage thus appeared set for probable passage of the bill today.

As expected, the National Assembly gave approval Monday by an overwhelming margin--206 to 36, with four abstentions or invalid votes--to President Kim’s appointment of South Korea’s most prominent legal scholar, Lee Soo Sung, as prime minister. Lee leaves the post of president of Seoul National University. Then early today, the full Cabinet resigned to clear the way for a reshuffle by Kim.

In a speech after his confirmation, Lee said the nation is at “a historic turning point.”

“Correcting our distorted history means opening a new era in which justice and love flow like a river,” he declared.

“By revealing the personal assets of public servants, by implementing the ‘real-name’ banking system and by revising the electoral law, we have achieved some accomplishments, but there is still much to be done,” he said. “As public servants we must uphold the wishes of the people and go beyond merely settling accounts with individual persons. We must boldly reform bad systems and practices, and must uphold law and order.”