This article is from the source 'nytimes' and was first published or seen on . It last changed over 40 days ago and won't be checked again for changes.
You can find the current article at its original source at http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/19/world/asia/south-korean-president-vows-to-disband-coast-guard-over-ferry-sinking.html
The article has changed 5 times. There is an RSS feed of changes available.
| Version 0 | Version 1 |
|---|---|
| South Korea To Disband Coast Guard, Leader Vows | |
| (about 1 hour later) | |
| SEOUL, South Korea — President Park Geun-hye of South Korea vowed on Monday to disband her country’s Coast Guard, saying that South Korea owed “reform and a great transformation” to hundreds of high school students who died in a ferry disaster last month. | SEOUL, South Korea — President Park Geun-hye of South Korea vowed on Monday to disband her country’s Coast Guard, saying that South Korea owed “reform and a great transformation” to hundreds of high school students who died in a ferry disaster last month. |
| Bowing deeply before television cameras, Ms. Park offered a “heartfelt apology” for having failed to prevent the sinking of the 6,825-ton ferry Sewol on April 16 and for the Coast Guard’s bungling of rescue operations. | |
| “The ultimate responsibility lies with me, the president,” she said. | “The ultimate responsibility lies with me, the president,” she said. |
| Although she had apologized a few times over the sinking, Ms. Park’s nationally televised speech on Monday was her clearest expression of public contrition. As of Monday, 286 people had been confirmed dead, with 18 missing, making the episode one of the country’s worst peacetime disasters. It has also developed into Ms. Park’s biggest political crisis; over the weekend, the police detained more than 200 people who had tried to march on her office, calling on her to step down. | Although she had apologized a few times over the sinking, Ms. Park’s nationally televised speech on Monday was her clearest expression of public contrition. As of Monday, 286 people had been confirmed dead, with 18 missing, making the episode one of the country’s worst peacetime disasters. It has also developed into Ms. Park’s biggest political crisis; over the weekend, the police detained more than 200 people who had tried to march on her office, calling on her to step down. |
| “We failed to save those students who should have been saved,” Ms. Park said. “I will make this an opportunity for South Korea to be born again.” | “We failed to save those students who should have been saved,” Ms. Park said. “I will make this an opportunity for South Korea to be born again.” |
| She promised a reorganization of her government to help it deal more efficiently with disasters. She said she would disband the Coast Guard, which she said failed to do enough to save the students. The vast majority of the dead and missing were students trapped in the dangerously listing ferry after its crew repeatedly urged them to stay put. When the first Coast Guard boats arrived at the scene on April 16, they saved the ship’s captain and other crew members who were deserting the ship and made inadequate efforts to reach the trapped students. | |
| The duties of the Coast Guard will be absorbed into the national police force or into a new agency responsible for safety that Ms. Park said she would create to ensure that disasters are handled more efficiently. | |
| Toward the end of the speech, she turned emotional, struggling to fight back tears, as she cited the names of those she called “true heroes”: students, crew members and teachers who survivors said helped passengers escape but did not make it out themselves. | |
| “The sinking of the Sewol will stay as a hard-to-erase scar in our history,” Ms. Park said. “It’s the duty of the living to make reform and a great transformation for the country so that the sacrifices of the dead were not wasted. If we cannot reform ourselves in a situation like this, we will become a nation that will never be able to achieve reform.” | |
| With that, she declared a war against what she called her country’s deeply entrenched culture of “kkiri kkiri,” or collusive ties between businesses and government regulators that she said had spawned lax regulatory enforcement and an easy acceptance of poor safety standards throughout the society. | |
| Investigators of the ferry sinking say that corrupt culture contributed to the disaster in several ways. The ferry was overloaded with cargo that was poorly secured, and yet it was ruled safe to sail by the Korean Shipping Association, a lobby for the industry that was also in charge of inspecting the safety of ships. Central government officials were accused of failing to supervise the association, where their former colleagues and bosses found high-ranking jobs after retirement. | |
| Critics have said that virtually all other industries are plagued by what Ms. Park called “bureaucratic mafia”: government officials taking cushy jobs in the industries they used to regulate. Such jobs are reconsidered important perks for retiring government officials, who then shield the industries from regulators. To break the collusive links, Ms. Park said she would revise laws to tighten the screening of officials looking for private-sector jobs after retirement. | |
| She also called for the revision of the criminal code to increase punishments drastically for those who endanger the lives of many people. She cited for an example the Sewol’s captain and crew; she called their decision to flee ahead of passengers “like an act of murder.” | |
| The president also proposed that the National Assembly enact a special law to allow the government to search and confiscate the assets of Chonghaejin Marine Company, the operator of the ferry, and the family that holds stakes in it. The family was accused of investing little in safety while using the company to accumulate a private fortune. | |
| In memory of the dead, she said she would designate April 16 as National Safety Day. |