Former S. Korean Leaders Face Sedition Charges

Former South Korean presidents Chun Doo Hwan and Roh Tae Woo, along with six former army generals, were indicted today on sedition charges in a 1980 massacre in the city of Kwangju.

Lee Jong Chan, head of a special team investigating Chun and Roh, told a Monday news conference in Seoul that once the current session of the National Assembly ends, four incumbent members of parliament also will be indicted and arrested for their alleged roles in the incident, which consolidated Chun’s hold on power.

Chun and Roh were arrested late last year and already face charges of corruption in office and of insurrection in a 1979 mutiny that launched them on the path to power. Chun, 64, president from 1980 to 1988, is in custody at a police hospital, recovering from a hunger strike he staged to protest his arrest. Roh, 63, president from 1988 to 1993, is in prison.

Three of the generals indicted today were arrested last week, but some of the others are expected to remain free while they face trial. At least 240 people died in the brutal suppression of the 10-day civilian uprising in Kwangju, which started as a protest against nationwide martial law and the arrest of leading opposition politicians. Some estimates place the death toll closer to 1,000.

The indictments largely conclude the initial stage of President Kim Young Sam’s vow to “right the wrongs of history” by punishing his predecessors for misdeeds committed during their rise to the presidency and while in office. Trials, appeals and legal challenges are expected to take many months.

The announcement that four lawmakers face indictment and arrest sometime in the next few weeks sets the scene for the incumbent National Assembly members to wage April reelection battles from jail cells, something they are already preparing to do.

At Kim’s urging, the National Assembly passed a special law last month that lifts a 15-year statute of limitations on the prosecution of the two former presidents and their military cronies connected to the 1979 mutiny and 1980 massacre. That law already faces a court challenge by Chun charging that it is unconstitutionally retroactive.

Today’s indictments, however, were brought under previously existing law rather than the special law approved last month, Korean media reported.

Charges are being pursued under the prosecution’s legal theory that Chun, Roh and their associates carried out a “creeping coup d’etat” over a period of more than a year. The coup allegedly began with the Dec. 12, 1979, mutiny, advanced further with a May 4, 1980, planning meeting, then reached its climax with the May 17, 1980, declaration of martial law and the subsequent massacre in Kwangju--but did not actually end until the lifting of martial law on Jan. 24, 1981.

By this theory, the statute of limitations for suspected participants in the “creeping coup” does not end until today--exactly 15 years after the lifting of martial law.

Lee, the head of the special investigating team, did not clarify whether prosecutors plan to use previously existing law or the new law passed in December to charge the incumbent lawmakers, who cannot be arrested while parliament is in session without special action by the National Assembly.

Lee said the lawmakers who will be arrested include ruling New Korea Party members Huh Sam Soo and Hur Hwa Pyong. Also to be arrested, he said, are Park Joon Byong of the United Liberal Democrats, which is a conservative opposition party, and Chung Ho Yong, an independent from the southeastern city of Taegu, which is in the home region of Chun and Roh and remains a bastion of support for the former presidents.

At least Chung and Hur are generally believed to have a chance at winning reelection on April 11 even from jail cells, because they hail from the Taegu-North Kyongsang region, which benefited from regional favoritism when the imprisoned former presidents were in office.

According to South Korean media reports, all four lawmakers threatened with arrest have already prepared promotional videotapes for use in their reelection campaigns.

Chi Jung Nam of The Times’ Seoul Bureau contributed to this report.