S. Korea Still Fighting Its Moral Malady

South Korean President Kim Young Sam has given up golf and limited his lunches to noodles and other humble fare. He has disavowed political donations from business in a personal example that South Koreans should live clean and simple lives.

Since his 1993 inauguration, Kim has pushed through a host of clean-government laws and targeted more than 1,100 officials--including two former presidents--in the biggest, broadest attack on corruption ever attempted here.

But the moral malady that Kim calls the “Korean Disease” rages uncured.

In recent weeks, prosecutors have leveled corruption charges against Kim’s defense minister, the wife of his health minister, a bank president, city officials, bus company executives--even educators. In a renewed crackdown, authorities say they expect to summon more than 60 additional officials for questioning on suspicious transactions.

All told, the alleged bribes and embezzlement amount to millions. Defense Minister Lee Yang Ho, for instance, is accused of taking $187,500 from Daewoo Heavy Industries Ltd. last year via a middleman to expedite action on a lucrative army helicopter project. The school officials allegedly pocketed up to $12,500 each from suppliers of educational materials.

In a scandal that has hit closest to regular Koreans, bus operators who justified fare increases by claiming deficit operations have been charged with embezzling nearly $30 million. They also allegedly offered bribes to city officials.

Not since last year, when it was revealed that two former presidents kept secret slush funds of more than $650 million, have so many corruption charges surfaced so sensationally. The revelations have sent Koreans groping for answers about why corruption is so entrenched--and whether Kim’s clean-government campaign has amounted to more show biz than substance.

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“What President Kim has done . . . is a historic achievement,” argued Information Minister Oh In Whan. Among other things, Kim enacted laws requiring public officials to reveal their assets and explain any unusual increases in them, and ended the practice of setting up bank accounts or conducting real estate transactions under phony names.

But Oh adds that it is too soon to judge the ultimate results. “It will take at least a generation--30 years,” he said.

Political critics are not waiting. They have begun attacking Kim’s anti-corruption campaign as unfair and vindictive, aimed at boosting his allies and weakening his political rivals as next year’s presidential election nears.

“President Kim’s anti-corruption campaign surprised us so much in the early stages,” said Lee Bu Young, a former journalist and opposition congressman. “Then, after one year, we gradually came to realize that he was using his ax on people who seemed antagonistic to him and did not wield it against his favored subordinates.”

Kim Dae Jung, the leader of the main opposition group, the National Congress for New Politics, says prosecutors have unfairly targeted critics, such as two men who challenged Kim for political leadership: Chung Ju Yung, chairman of the giant Hyundai business conglomerate who ran against Kim in the 1992 presidential election, and Park Chul On, a ruling party challenger. Chung was subsequently arrested on tax evasion charges and Park in a corruption case.

In contrast, opposition members point to the case of powerful banker Lee Won Jo, who is believed to have secretly funneled massive political funds to ruling party candidates. He was convicted in a corruption case involving the gigantic slush funds kept by former presidents Roh Tae Woo and Chun Doo Hwan but received a suspended sentence.

Kim Dae Jung also says prosecutors have deliberately avoided investigating whether the president has been up to any financial shenanigans. He claims that prosecutors told a leading businessman being questioned about bribes to Chun and Roh that he need not reveal donations to Kim Young Sam. Kim has not clarified how much money, if any, he received from Roh after becoming the ruling party’s presidential candidate in 1992.

“I was so indignant, but I was weak before the government because I am a businessman,” Kim Dae Jung quoted the businessman as telling him.

But Lee Jung Soo of the prosecutor’s office says he had not heard of such a case.

Opposition leader Kim claims that the ruling New Korea Party has escaped prosecution in investigations of election law violations this year. While the Central Election Committee submitted 25 allegations of ruling party fraud, he says, only two were ultimately prosecuted. In contrast, fewer than half that number of allegations were leveled against the opposition, but six were prosecuted.

The government vehemently denies charges of selective prosecution. “We have left no sanctuaries,” prosecutor Lee declared. “We have investigated anyone, regardless of position or job. Under this administration, we have had no interference from the president.”

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In the last six months, prosecutors have investigated 2,102 corruption cases and arrested 961 people. They include 265 bureaucrats, 77 financial services workers and 33 construction officials.

But some here say the government all too often quietly releases corruption suspects after reaping the public relations rewards of flashy arrests.

And although Kim jailed scores of officials for corruption soon after taking office, he released many of them in the name of “national reconciliation” through a presidential pardon after a few years. Some of them ran for the National Assembly earlier this year after their criminal records were wiped clean.

“What kind of message is this president sending to would-be bribe-taking officials?” attorney Kim Jong Han recently wrote in the English-language Korea Herald newspaper.

Others say the root causes of corruption remain uncorrected: South Korea’s snarl of red tape--which invites bureaucrats to trade license approvals and the like for cash and gifts--and low wages. Public sector wages are just 70% that of the private sector, according to business consultant Jang Song Hyon.

Jang and others say corruption has diminished somewhat, but that the sums demanded have increased because the risks are higher. At the Chongno ward office in the heart of Seoul, government permits that might have required anywhere from $12 to $120 now reportedly cost two or three times as much.

Chongno’s assistant section chief, Yoo Sung Keun, says there have been no corruption cases during his 2 1/2 years in the office. In any case, he says, the old practices of deliberately delaying documents are no longer possible because the office’s newly computerized system spits them out in a matter of minutes.

Korea University professor Choi Jang Jip said Kim can hardly be blamed for the nation’s endemic corruption: “The corruption cases will not deliver a death blow to the Kim government because everyone knows it is not necessarily his fault.”

Recent cases have illustrated how pernicious the problem can be. Seoul Bank President Sohn Hong Kyun, for instance, was recently arrested on suspicion of taking $125,000 from businesses in exchange for arranging favorable loans. Prosecutors charge that he withdrew the payoff from another man’s account.

But prosecutor Lee is undaunted.

“I am optimistic these problems will be solved as people’s minds are enlightened and the wage level is raised high enough to support their livelihoods,” he said. “People have seen with their own eyes former presidents stand trial, and it has been imprinted in their minds that anyone who is corrupt will not be spared.”

Watanabe was recently on assignment in Seoul. Chi Jung Nam of The Times’ Seoul Bureau contributed to this report.