Former Uri Boss Regrets Policies

On December 19th, former Uri Party chief Chung Dong-young said, “We should have perused a practical policy that spares people difficulties. However, we failed to speak with one voice, intensifying infighting further.”

In an exclusive interview with this newspaper, he said, “I am to blame for the declining popularity of our party and the government.”

He added, “The atmosphere of hatred does exist in our society. And I regret we pursued policies of division,” acknowledging the government’s animosity toward some media is wrong.

With respect to the future of the party, he said, “Correction of politics is a term of the past. The public does not like our effort to correct politics, considering it an attempt to remain in power.”

He maintained, “The Uri Party should come to terms with the reality first and seek ways to reinvent. We need to realign our party identity and party line into something that goes well together.”

He went on to say, “To upgrade Korea, we need to reform the current education system that stifles creativity. We are currently discussing with experts to do away with the Scholastic Achievement Examination for College Entrance (SAECE) and to change school system in an effort to put public education on the right path. We will unveil our plan next January.”

The ex-party chief claimed, “In diplomacy, a summit meeting can be used as a last resort. It is incumbent on the current government to seek a summit before presidential election starts in earnest if it wants to put the Korean peninsula on a road to peace.”

He also said, “When I was serving as unification minister, the ministry set a goal to have a summit and we were almost there. Back then we had a plan to facilitate the 4th round of six-party talks scheduled in September 2005 by having a summit before that, and the North, on the other hand, had wait-and-see attitude. Unfortunately, we failed to seize opportune time and our goal went back to the drawing board.”

yongari@donga.com mindy@donga.com