At Trial, Roh Cites Threat From North

Former South Korean President Roh Tae Woo, facing trial on sedition charges stemming from a bloody 1980 martial-law crackdown, testified Monday that the crushing of student protests had been necessary to safeguard against North Korean attack.

“At the time, North Korea had stepped up provocations against our country,” Roh, 63, declared defiantly in a court session during which he vigorously disputed prosecutors’ interpretations of events. “Students supported the North Korean cause, so I thought that the country was facing an enormous crisis.”

The administration of President Choi Kyu Hah--who assumed office in an atmosphere of crisis after the Oct. 26, 1979, assassination of President Park Chung Hee by the head of the Korean Central Intelligence Agency--appeared unable to control the situation without stronger measures, Roh asserted.

“We believed that the new government had limited power to settle the turmoil and [that] the existing degree of martial law [in the Seoul area] was not effective,” said Roh, who was a general at the time. “So we thought an extension of martial law was required.”

Roh denied that the May 17, 1980, declaration of nationwide martial law was designed to catapult then-military strongman Chun Doo Hwan into the presidency, a post Chun assumed later that year. Prosecutors charge that the generals forced the Cabinet to approve martial law, which was used to imprison hundreds of dissidents, shut down the National Assembly and put opposition leaders in jail or under house arrest.

Citizens of the southwestern city of Kwangju rose up the next day in protest against martial law and the arrests of opposition leaders. The army crushed their 10-day uprising, with the loss of at least 240 lives.

Chun, 65, is on trial with Roh and appeared next to him in the courtroom Monday, both men dressed in light-blue prison uniforms. Roh succeeded Chun as president in 1988, stepping down in 1993 when President Kim Young Sam took office.

Also on trial are 14 generals who played key roles in the events that put Chun and Roh in power.

Three previous court sessions examined a Dec. 12, 1979, military mutiny that gave Chun control of South Korea’s armed forces. At Monday’s daylong session, prosecutors sought to show that the declaration of martial law the following May was part of a plot to consolidate Chun’s power over the entire government.

The defendants who testified Monday--Roh and several generals--denied such a plot.

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In response to many questions, Roh said, “I don’t know anything about it.” That provoked a rebuke from the presiding judge, who ordered him to respond more fully.

Roh shot back in a loud voice, “You can’t order me around, because I am answering based on my own beliefs.”

The charges against Roh and Chun carry the death penalty, but observers generally expect that even if the former presidents are convicted, they will not be executed.