Pen/Insular_Notes

A long background piece on the June Struggle by Jasper Becker this time. Generally good I think, although the faith in Chun Doo-hwan’s steady movement ‘towards democracy’ may be a little misplaced. With hindsight, the last sentence also turned out to be a bit on the pessimistic side.

A mother’s story and the South Korean malaise: The threat of continuing unrest which may yet overwhelm the government of President Chun
By Jasper Becker
The Guardian, June 18, 1987

When the two-hour hearing in the stuffy courtroom ended Mrs Lee, a middle aged bespectacled housewife whose 21-year-old son died under police torture, could bear it no longer. Screaming and shouting, she launched herself over the heads of the rows of guards at the five police officers accused of killing her son during routine police questioning in January.

It was the consequent cover-up of Park Chong-Chol’s death that has helped galvanise public opinion against President Chun Doo Hwan’s regime. ‘The men who killed my son should be sentenced to death. ‘ Mrs Lee said last week.

Her account of the treatment her family received at the hands of the government following his death, dissident groups say, illustrates the callous nature of the present government. She said police first tried to find evidence of connections with North Korea to discredit her. They watched her house day and night, followed her and tried to prevent her from attending a commemoration service.

Her son’s body was incinerated three days after his death and the ashes secretly scattered.

Like many South Koreans, the family is Buddhist and the action is equivalent to stealing the corpse.

Mrs Lee said she has now moved her house to be near the temple where a paper with her son’s name is all that commemorates his death. The Government’s action in this case and in the surveillance and control it exercises over the daily lives of ordinary people are as abhorrent to South Koreans as they would be in Britain.

South Korea is not part of the third world where life is sometimes held cheap. Seoul with its downtown skyscrapers, swish underground system and comfortable suburban homes is inhabited by well educated people with Western middle class aspirations and moral standards.

Although television pictures of pedestrians fleeing from tear gas and riot police may create the impression of a country on the verge of chaos, the disturbances have not seriously interrupted the busy life of the capital city of ten million.

Violent student campus protests are a tradition stretching back decades and are largely ignored as the country’s economic miracle has not been created by students, riot police nor for that matter by generals.

The students have always protested against the military backed regimes that have governed Korea since 1945 apart from brief periods of unsuccessful democracy.

By stepping down next February President Chun wants to put an end to a cycle of one man rule ending in violence set by Syngman Rhee who stayed in power 11 years and Park Chung-Hee for 18 years. A fervent anti-communist, President Chun feels imbued with a moral purpose to make Korea strong, economically and militarily.

Anyone who criticises him is automatically labelled a communist sympathiser and the government uses the threat from North Korea to maintain a large and efficient policing system. Many Koreans believe his regime is illegitimate and immoral because it was founded amid the bloodshed during the 1980 Kwangju uprising in which up to 1,800 died.

Yet since seizing power President Chun has been moving steadily towards democracy. In 1982 martial law was lifted and in 1984 his chief opponent Kim Dae Jung was allowed back from exile in America; in 1985 the opposition competed freely in National Assembly elections; and last year the president agreed to talks on revision of the constitution which was expected to lead to direct presidential elections.

His ‘grave decision’ of April 13 shattered the hopes and many Koreans now doubt whether the transfer of power next year, peaceful or not, has any meaning. As the ruling party’s convention a week ago made clear, Mr Roh Tae Woo is President Chun’s handpicked successor; both men have been friends since they attended high school together and Mr Roh moved his troops to support the 1979 coup.

Mr Roh will be the only candidate in this year’s presidential elections which the opposition parties have said they will boycott. President Chun has now overplayed his hand. The fragmented opposition has united and, as last Wednesday’s riots showed, the middle classes are for the first time ready to rally behind them on the streets.

The cover-up of Park’s death was exposed through the efforts of a Roman Catholic priest, a member of the Priests’ Committee for Justice which has become the driving force behind the opposition movement.

The past week’s demonstrations have centred on the Roman Catholic Cathedral in Seoul, where the Cardinal Steven Kim preaches a kind of liberation theology.

A friend of Cardinal Sin in the Philippines (President Chun is also friends with former President Marcos) Cardinal Kim leads a church which has only 2.2 million followers in a country of 42 million.

There is no longer a trade union movement in Korea and the opposition parties have been weakened by internal strife, the Catholic Church has assumed an importance out of proportion to its size.

President Chun has learned the lessons of his predecessor, President Park, and has so far not imprisoned a priest. Similarly Cardinal Kim is determined to avoid the violence of the past decades and insist on nonviolence.

Where the two sides go from here is unclear. President Chun is facing the most serious political crisis of his rule but a resort to martial law would destroy the aims he has nurtured over seven years and would put the country back to where he found it.

In the Philippines the opposition did not face a ruthless and large police force and yet in the end relied on help from the military to gain power. It is doubtful whether a campaign of peaceful resistance alone is going to force the determined hand of President Chun.