Ex-president warns against N. Korea policy

Former President KimYoung-Sam said Monday that President Kim Dae-Jung and North Korean strongman Kim Jong-Il worked together to pull the strings behind the "impure elements" who obstructed his lecture at Korea University on Oct. 13.

Over a luncheon at his residence in Sangdo-dong the ex-president told reporters that President Kim yielded too much to North Korea for the sake of winning the Nobel prize.

"If he is a human rights advocate worthy of the Nobel laurel, he must demand the freedom of political prisoners held in North Korea in addition to his campaign for complete democratization here in the South," the retired leader said.

Recalling the communization of South Vietnam in one year's time after U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and North Vietnamese Communist Party general secretary Le Duc To had shared the Nobel prize for concluding an armistice in 1973, Kim observed Korea as following suit. He said that President Kim and Kim Jong-Il were promoting unification into a Koryo Federation System, advocated by Pyongyang, denouncing President Kim for telling "a downright lie that North Korea has abandoned the federation scheme."

"A serious confusion of values, slackened security preparedness and continued military buildup of North Korea -- these combine to create a critical security vacuum we have never seen before," Kim said.

Of the dissolution of the Sajik-dong special investigative squad under the direct control of the presidential office, he said its existence has been of no use because the police and prosecution were there to fulfill the same duties. Kim went on to speak lightly of the regular meetings of the leaders of the two major political parties, saying an accord reached there on prohibiting the sale of medicines at hospitals and clinics and confining their role to writing prescriptions only led to a commotion.

Sun Dae-In eodls@donga.com