President Roh Moo-hyun’s Suicide - Political Murder

Former Korean President Roh Moo-Hyun died in a suicide on May 23, 2009 Saturday at the age of 62. He jumped from a 100-foot (30 meter) high cliff behind his house in Bonghwa. Roh was rushed to a hospital in Busan around 8:15 am and died around 9:30 am (local time in Korea).
In most English articles about his suicide that I read, his death was generally understood in this kind of context:
Former South Korean President Roh Moo-Hyun admitted that his wife and a relative received six million dollars from a business man Park Yeon-cha during his presidency. Many Koreans were disappointed that he was accused of such allegations of bribery especially when he became a president vowing clean politics.
So is that it? Contrary to his image, this former Korean president Roh shamelessly received the bribes of $6m, felt embarrassed after it’s revealed, and avoided pain and humiliation by committing suicide?
As a Korean who deeply feels sorry about his death, I should shout that’s never it! I feel I should write about it more in detail as much as I know because I think many articles read by non-Koreans are based on the reports from Korea’s mainstream newspapers and broadcasting companies, which many Koreans find unfair and untrustworthy.
The biggest problem here is that the prosecutors were not fair at all in conducting the investigation against him. The investigation “timely” started as Roh’s criticism of the current President Lee Myung-bak became stronger and more effective.
Typically, when the prosecutors start an investigation, they do it because they have suspicion of a crime. That is, they have suspicion first, they find a suspect and then they begin an investigation. But in Roh’s case, they started the investigation first and then tried to find suspicion as if they “wanted to” find a crime. That’s why the investigation was even nicknamed as “afflicting Roh Moo-hyun”.
They continued the investigation for weeks without any apparent evidence, very frequently, almost everyday “kindly” leaking unestablished suspicions against Roh to the media so that the conservative media could join in “afflicting Roh Moo-hyun”.
Even some prosecutors inside opposed the investigation, pointing out that there was no political base to charge him with the bribery in regard to the money that his wife took. Yet, the Prosecutor’s Office added several more prosecutors as weeks went by and continued the investigation to find whatever little dust they could find.
Let’s closely look at the allegations against Roh.
The prosecutors’ allegations against former President Roh Moo-hyun were that he was involved with six million dollar bribes: during his presidency, his niece’s husband had received five million dollars and his wife, Kwon Yang-sook had received one million dollars, both from Taekwang Industrial Chairman Park Yeon-cha.
For the five million dollar bribe, the prosecutors themselves admitted that it was a legitimate investment. For the other million dollar bribe that Roh’s wife received, the prosecutors announced a far-fetched report: the president Roh called Park Yeon-cha and “asked for” the money, and Park wired the money to a USA bank account.
According to Roh’s wife Kwon, she received money to pay their son’s tuition and down payment for a condo from Park Yeon-cha, who’s a very close family friend and a long-lasting supporter.
Why did they wire the money between two bank accounts that are apparently so easy to trace with their real names? Or if they were kind of people who would take a bribe of one million dollars to help their children study, why didn’t they embezzle the president’s public activity funds? It’s well known that Roh often donated the most of the public activity funds to the poor and not-haves during his presidency.
Like this, the prosecutors couldn’t prove that the money was received for a political compensation or Roh’s involvement in this.
Of course, as a wife of a country’s president, Kwon should have known better and been more careful in making such a decision especially when Roh was trying so hard to set examples of clean politics. I don’t think that this was something that several of Korea’s top prosecutors should spend time on for months. But they did it anyway and they “believed” that they proved the money was a bribe for an obvious political interest. Then, why didn’t they indict Kwon when they found it out in February?
To me, it’s inevitable to think that from the beginning their target was not Kwon or other family members, but former President Roh.
According to a former top aide, Roh did not know about this money till February, this year, and he almost fainted when he heard about the news from his former representative - he’d been already physically weak because of the pressure and stress caused by the investigation that had been lasting for months.
Because Roh tried so hard to break the cycle of corruptions during his presidency and for his whole life, he could not bear the dishonor that he and his family caused to Koreans. He believed that he and his family wouldn’t have problems in legally defending against the allegations, but morally he felt very remorseful about what happened. On his community blog, he posted an apology to Koreans that he damaged his morality and he couldn’t be a symbol of the values that Koreans pursue any more.
When he left for Seoul for the investigation on April 30, he apologized to the Koreans again for the disappointment that he caused. He also wished the investigation would be concluded faster with his cooperation whether there would be indictment or not.
Yet, the prosecutors intensified the investigation and put off any indictment decision for days, directing the conservative media to pursue the alleged accusations against him and his family.
“Thanks to” their voluntary leaks, the newspapers and broadcasting companies kept themselves busy driving Roh and his family to the corner of deadlock, “surveiling” his every action for 23 days. As he posted on his blog, he had to live his last days as if he had been imprisoned.
Roh devoted himself in establish an independent Prosecutors’ Office after a long history of the vicious cycle of corruption. It was such a shame that his efforts and accomplishments were thrown away, and the Korea’s Prosecutor’s Office has become a meek subordinate staff of the corrupted and prejudiced political power.
Koreans have so many reasons to believe that it was a political investigation from the beginning and Roh’s death is rather a “political murder” directed by Cheongwadae with the assistance of the prosecutors on the land of authoritarianism. Authoritarianism that he fought to break for his whole life!
Cheongwadae: The Blue House, Korea’s president’s office and official residence
Posted under Roh Moo-hyun on Tuesday, June 2nd, 2009 | No Comments »


































