Clash Erupts Over Management of Children`s Center

The Children’s Center in southwestern Seoul, which is run by the non-profit organization Yookyoung Foundation, is again mired in a stakeholder dispute.

Some 26 people belonging to the so-called Emergency Measures Center for Yookyoung Foundation Children’s Center,” including a former secretary general of the Foundation, and 30 private bodyguards occupied the center at 7 a.m. yesterday.

Scuffles broke out when they prevented the foundation’s managing director and other staff from entering the center.

The emergency measures center said, “Though the court banned the managing director from entering the center, he stayed in the building. We sought to normalize the center’s operations by taking over the office and barring illegal intruders.”

The managing director, however, made a conflicting statement in saying, “The former secretary general has no authority in the matter.”

Police were dispatched around the center to prepare for contingencies.

The foundation was established in 1969 by then First Lady Yook Young-su to promote children’s welfare. Since Park Geun-ryong, the second daughter of the late president Park Chung-hee, stepped down from as director, her confidants have been locking horns with secretarial staff over the center’s management.

Park’s directorship was forfeited in 2004 over allegations that she ran the foundation for profit. Her case was thrown out by the Supreme Court in May.

niceshin@donga.com