Editorials
Monday, March 16, 1998SOUTH Korea's new president, Kim Dae-jung, spent years in prison for battling oppressive military regimes. So it's understandable that after taking office he would grant amnesty to criminals. And he has, in a big way -- to 5.5 million people, ranging from political dissenters to drunken drivers. Amnesty could help
S. Korean presidentSince his election last December, Kim has preached reconciliation. His first act after the victory was to ask his predecessor to pardon two former military presidents, Chun Doo-hwan and Roh Tae-woo, who were freed in January.
This amnesty is a dramatic act of forgiveness. Prominent "prisoners of conscience" freed included novelists Hwang Suk-young and Kim Ha-ki and former lawmaker Suh Kyung-won, imprisoned for visiting North Korea, which is prohibited.
However, the amnesty order did not cover all political prisoners, and human-rights activists weren't satisfied. One still held was the world's longest-serving political prisoner, Woo Yong-gak, a North Korean commando who has spent the last 40 years in prison and has refused to recant his communist beliefs.
Of 2,304 people serving sentences for various offenses who were freed under the amnesty, only 74 were political prisoners. Human-rights groups estimate there are more than 400 prisoners of conscience in the country. A human-rights group complained that the number of prisoners of conscience freed was half the 144 released after the inauguration of Kim Dae-jung's predecessor, Kim Young-sam, in 1993.
However, the minister of justice, Park Sang-cheon, said the life sentences of 12 prisoners who have renounced communism would be cut to between 20 and 25 years.
Also excluded from the amnesty were election law violators and persons involved in a kickback scandal linked with the collapse of the Hanbo Group last year.
Park said the objective of the amnesty was to create harmony among Koreans and help the nation overcome its financial crisis. That crisis requires more than dramatic gestures, but this one, despite the complaints, could help by inspiring confidence in Kim Dae-jung's leadership.
A federal judge has ordered the government of Iran to pay $247 million in damages to the family of an American student killed in a 1995 suicide bombing in the Gaza Strip. The award by District Judge Royce Lamberth was based on a 1996 law allowing Americans victimized by terrorism to sue governments accused of supporting the terrorists. Terrorism award
But the government of President Mohammad Khatami refused to acknowledge the suit and isn't likely to pay. It called the decision "irresponsible in the extreme" and politically motivated. A statement released by its U.N. mission said the allegations raised in the court's proceedings were "without a shred of substantiation, have no basis in fact and fail any standard of evidence."
Attorneys for the plaintiff, the family of Alisa Flatow, 20, who was killed in 1995 when a terrorist drove a van loaded with explosives into an Israeli bus, will try to attach frozen Iranian assets in the United States or seize Iranian money abroad. But neither approach may be successful.
After the overthrow of Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi and the taking of hostages by the revolutionary regime, the United States froze Iranian assets valued at $12 billion in 1979. However, only about $20 million remains under U.S. control.
In this case, the bomber was a Palestinian, a member of the Islamic Jihad. Iran bankrolls the Islamic Jihad, but no evidence was introduced that Iran's leaders planned, endorsed or even knew of the bombing. Yet without such evidence the basis for the award is questionable.
This was the first case decided under the 1996 law, but attorneys said the law may be invoked in a suit against Libya for the 1988 destruction of Pan Am Flight 103 over Scotland. The idea is to make the foreign sponsors of terrorism pay a price. The problem is they are usually beyond the reach of U.S. courts.
In this case, another consideration is the fact that Washington and Tehran have indicated they are interested in improving relations. The decision could set back such efforts.
AN independent counsel was appointed in July 1995 to investigate the finances of Commerce Secretary Ron Brown. When Brown was killed in a plane crash in Croatia in April 1996, the independent counsel resigned and turned the results of his investigation over to the Justice Department. Ron Brown probe
The investigation didn't end there. On Friday Nolanda Hill, a former business partner of Brown, and Kenneth White, a Maryland businessman, were charged with tax fraud and conspiring to defraud the government. They were the fifth and sixth persons to face criminal charges in the Brown case.
Brown's son Michael pleaded guilty last summer to a misdemeanor election law violation of secretly giving $4,000 more than the $2,000 legal maximum to the 1994 re-election campaign of Sen. Edward Kennedy. In November, he was sentenced to three years' probation and ordered to do 150 hours of community service.
Former Hawaii residents Nora and Eugene Lum, a couple who raised funds for the Democratic Party, pleaded guilty last year to felony charges of making $50,000 in illegal contributions to Kennedy and an Oklahoma congressional candidate. The Lum's daughter, Trisha, pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor of serving as an illegal conduit for a $10,000 contribution to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.
Last fall, the Lums were sentenced to 10 months' incarceration and home confinement and fined $30,000 each. Their daughter drew a $5,000 fine and three years' probation.
This is one independent counsel investigation that has produced results, even though the chief target died.
Rupert E. Phillips, CEO
John M. Flanagan, Editor & Publisher
David Shapiro, Managing Editor
Diane Yukihiro Chang, Senior Editor & Editorial Page Editor
Frank Bridgewater & Michael Rovner, Assistant Managing Editors
A.A. Smyser, Contributing Editor
