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President Roh Moo-hyun on Thursday belatedly apologized for the government¡¯s failure to halt the rapid growth of the addictive arcade game ¡°Sea Story.¡± ¡°I am deeply sorry for worrying the people,¡± the president said in a special interview with broadcaster KBS. ¡°I could easily have apologized if I meant to just to console people. But I didn¡¯t apologize earlier because I thought I should chose my moment to take responsibility for the government¡¯s policy failure.¡±
Roh said the game arcade scandal ¡°was caused by several complicated, connected reasons such as systemic faults and industrial deregulation policies and lax policing of gambling. It is difficult to deal with the case since a cluster of several small problems have combined into one big scandal.¡± He vowed to reveal on a different occasion what steps the government is taking. Roh waited 12 days to apologize after the gambling scandal broke on Aug. 19.
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President Roh Moo-hyun speaks during a special interview with KBS TV on Thursday./Yonhap
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Roh suggested the overall economy and people¡¯s economic difficulties should be talked about separately. He said macroeconomic indicators including exports, prices and foreign reserves were strong and the stock market more than doubled during his tenure. ¡°But even when our economy is doing well, people can find themselves in economic trouble,¡± he said, due to the growing wealth gap in a globalized era and a surge in the number of temporary jobs and small businesses.
He also reiterated a class-conscious justification for the government¡¯s controversial real estate policy. ¡°Everyone wants to see housing prices rise, but if they do, those with smaller homes will lose out,¡± the president said, adding the hope that there will not be too much resistance to the policy. ¡°There were those who raised the toast, ¡®Let it be forever!¡¯ during the financial crisis of the late 90s when our economy was in serious trouble,¡± he said. ¡°They were not ordinary middle class people¡± -- an apparent suggestion that the rich benefited from the high interest rates during the crisis.
The president also rejected accusations of cronyism in his personnel appointments. ¡°The administration has much improved in managing personnel affairs¡± from its predecessors, he said. ¡°People keep taking issue when someone close to me is appointed to high office, but it¡¯s only natural that I choose someone who understands my policy well.¡± He warned if the criticism refuses to go away, ¡°it will make it very difficult to manage administrative affairs.¡± He added pointing out glaring errors in personnel appointments was fine, but constant griping was ¡°inappropriate.¡±
Turning to the question of Korea taking over sole operational control of its forces, the chief executive said the core of independent defense was ¡°physical military force.¡± ¡°We headhunt the most suitable Korean candidate, not a foreigner, when selecting the president or the chief of general staff,¡± he said. ¡°That is the basic principle of managing a nation.¡± Roh reiterated the plan to ¡°withdraw¡± wartime operational control of Korean troops from the U.S. was already hatched during the Roh Tae-woo administration, while the target date of 2000 was set by the Kim Young-sam government. ¡°The Grand National Party shouldn¡¯t oppose the plan just for opposition¡¯s sake,¡± he added.
(englishnews@chosun.com )
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