In South Korea, No 2 to former president Roh dismisses ‘dirty tricks’ in CIA files as groundless
- Park Chul-un, brother-in-law and closest aide to president Roh Tae-woo, says ‘no election fraud was planned or carried out’ in the 1987 polls
- CIA files obtained exclusively by the Post show South Korea’s military-backed ruling camp had prepared to fix the country’s first democratic election
But ahead of the landmark 1987 polls, the military-backed ruling camp so feared its chosen candidate would lose that it drew up detailed plans to fix the result in favour of Roh, according to CIA documents obtained exclusively by the South China Morning Post through a freedom of information request.
“The CIA reports were absolutely groundless,” said Park Chul-un, Roh’s brother-in-law and a former lawmaker who in effect acted as the former president’s No 2 from 1988 until early 1993.
“As a key campaigner for then candidate Roh, I guarantee for sure there was no election fraud that was either planned or carried out,” he told the Post.
Park said such allegations might have been fed to the CIA by supporters of then opposition candidates who feared such tricks could occur in a bid to “pre-empt” them.
It was just unthinkable for the then ruling party to carry out election fraud or seek to nullify [the results]
He also denied the then ruling camp had planned to crack down on protests that might occur following Roh’s victory, despite CIA documents to the contrary.