Kim Considering Sacking Top Cop

Labor interests and the opposition Grand National Party continue to press President Kim Dae-jung over the brutal police crackdown on union members at Daewoo Motor Bupyeong Factory in Inchon on April 10.

Members of the militant Korean Confederation of Trade Unions marched on Thursday into central Seoul, in front of the National Police Agency, protesting the melee in which police wielded clubs on 350 union members demanding re-employment. They were among 1,750 workers given pink slips in February.

Lawmakers from the opposition Grand National Party blasted the incident at the Legislation and Judiciary Committee, which Justice Minister Kim Jung-kil attended. "How can such a thing happen in a country where the president is known for his achievements in democracy and human rights," Rep. Yoon Kyoung-sik said.

At a Thursday lunch at the Blue House, members of the ruling Millennium Democratic Party asked the president to dismiss Lee Moo-young, commissioner general of the National Police Agency.

Presidential aides said that Mr. Kim is considering it. They said he feels that he has made a sufficient response to the crackdown, but is torn between the need to enforce a strong public order and the need to meet public sentiment.

Mr. Kim issued a public apology Tuesday for the police violence. He has fired Min Seung-kee, former chief of the Inchon Municipal Police Agency, and Kim Jong-won, former head of the Bupyeong Police Precinct, holding them responsible.

In the first move of its kind, the National Police Agency broke up the Second Mobile Company of the Inchon Municipal Police Agency, the unit responsible for causing about 20 injuries among the protesters. The 148 members of the company, including 13 police officers, were reassigned to nine other companies.

"The dissolution of such an elite company as this is the severest form of punishment," an official at the central police agency said.

by Kim Jin-kook