Opposition Parties, “Cho Pung-On Gate This Time“

Bringing up the suspicion of the corruption of arms broker Cho Pung-On living in America, Grand National Party (GNP) on the 3rd made it an issue the relation with current government.

Mr. Cho, from Mokpo, Jeonnam, has managed a hotel, and worked as an arms broker. GNP has tenaciously targeted on him since he was known to be acquainted with President Kim Dae-Jung from early years.

Nothing, however, is unfamiliar one out of 6 suspicions that GNP brought about on the day. These suspicions were the issues came up several times in National Assembly’s interpellation and inspection of the administration so far like the suspicion of `purchase plan of Adonis CC., ` which GNP admitted its fallacy after GNP made it an issue just before the general election in 2000.

But GNP is still investigating the suspicions, which Hong Joon-Pyo presented, that Mr. Cho △ bought Samil building at 50.2 billion won through a foreign invests company in March last year, and △ lobbied to be selected as the dealer of operation system of Kangwon Land Casino through the majority shareholder corporation D.

To this, New Millennium Democratic Party (NMDP) commented, “it is useless to answer the suspicions that government already revealed the details of. GNP is repeatedly making use of them. ”

Deputy spokesperson Yoon Ho-Joong spurned the motion, saying, “GNP presented the same suspicions successively at the plenary session, interpellations during the inspection of the administration and extraordinary session as a broken cassette recorder player does, even though the suspicions were completely made clear. ”

And he criticized, “GNP is overstating the suspicions to attract the interest of party members from Park Geun-Hye, who recently seceded from GNP. ”

But GNP is likely to strengthen the `censure on Cho Pung-On`. Floor leader Lee Jae-Oh had once said, “we are collecting information on Mr. Cho, and resume the offensive sooner or later. ”

Nam Kyung-Pil spokesperson of GNP gave a briefing on the `extraordinary relationship` between Mr. Cho and President Kim, which shows the future offensive.

The spokesperson Nam said, “President Kim, in his early, days worked for the shipping company that Mr. Cho’s father owned, and was Vice Chief of a local young people’s group while Mr. Cho’s father Chief. In addition, President Kim sold the house in Ilsan to Mr. Cho at 600 million won in 1999. ”

And he added, “Mr. Cho is well acquainted with Kim Hong-Il the eldest son of President Kim, and third son Hong-Geol once stayed at Mr. Cho’s during the study in U.S”

Jong-Koo Yoon jkmas@donga.com