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Calls mount in South Korea for punishment of officials
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Copyright ) 1997 Nando.net
Copyright ) 1997 The Associated Press
SEOUL, South Korea (December 6, 1997 11:06 a.m. EST
http://www.nando.net) -- For years, South Korea's giant economic
ministry has been credited with lifting the country out of the ashes of
the Korean War to become the world's 11th largest economy. This week,
the economic policy makers were accused of not only leading the country
into a financial crisis, but humiliating the nation in the process.
"Fire the Finance and Economy Ministry!" protesters shouted Friday in
downtown Seoul, unfurling a banner with the same message.
Newspaper editorials urged prosecutors Friday to bring criminal charges
against the nation's former and incumbent economic policy makers for
reducing South Korea to the role of international beggar.
Newspapers also reported they were flooded with calls from citizens
demanding punishment for high officials.
South Korea agreed to a record $55 billion bailout by the International
Monetary Fund on Wednesday -- a sum that swelled to $60 billion by
Friday. Local media compared it -- and government handling of the crisis
-- to the "biggest national humiliation since 1910," when Japan began
its 36-year colonial rule of Korea.
Kim Dae-jung, a leading candidate to win the Dec. 18 presidential
election, vowed to open a parliamentary probe if elected to punish state
economic planners.
"If necessary, President Kim Young-sam will have to stand before the
Parliament," he said.
Other candidates demanded that President Kim relinquish power
immediately after the election -- a humiliating slap at a man who came
to power vowing economic reform. Kim's five-year tenure ends in
February.
"The prosecution is agonizing over what it can do to help resolve the
nation's economic difficulties," said chief prosecutor Lee Won-sung.
Lee was commenting on reports that prosecutors were investigating
allegations that senior economic officials lied to the people about the
condition of the economy and ignored warnings months before a currency
crisis hit.
"Even when a crisis was evident, all the Finance and Economy Ministry
and other policy makers did was hide and distort the reality," said the
daily Kookmin Ilbo.
Only days before South Korea applied for an IMF bailout Nov. 21, Finance
Ministry officials insisted publicly that the country had enough
ammunition in its foreign reserves to fend off "foreign speculative
forces jealous of South Korea's economic success."
"We don't need it, we don't want it. What more explanations do you
need?" one ministry official shouted to a reporter two days before South
Korea turned to the IMF for help.
When international publications reported on the nation's dwindling
foreign reserves, ministry officials threatened to sue.
After negotiations began with the IMF, South Korea announced four times
in a week that it had a done deal -- only to see it unravel when the IMF
said there was more work to be done.
"I am so ashamed about the way they handled this. Even a beggar retains
a certain level of dignity when begging for a bowl of rice," said Chang
Do-man, a taxi driver in his late 50s.
"Incompetency, Lies and Shifting Responsibility," the leading daily
Dong-A Ilbo shouted in a headline Friday.
It pointed out that South Koreans got even angrier when government
officials appeared to shift the blame on the people by suggesting they
had spent too much on overseas travel and foreign goods.
In ensuing frugality campaigns -- some organized by
government-subsidized groups -- school children donated U.S. dimes and
nickels in the lame belief that could help the economy.
Economists say South Korea could have avoided the IMF bailout if it had
heeded reforms and prescriptions recommended by the Organization of
Economic Cooperation and Development and others.
"Most of the IMF's prescriptions are what economists at home and abroad
have recommended for years," said Yun Kun-young, an economics professor
at Seoul's Yonsei University. "Government policy makers were just too
arrogant to admit their mistakes."
-- By SANG-HUN CHOE, The Associated Press
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