Onslaughts of Force and Fury

By John Greenwald

On the 49th day after death, according to Buddhist teaching, the souls of the dead make their journey into the next world. So it was last week that on the appointed day several thousand students gathered in the streets of Seoul to mark the final passage of Park Jong Chul, a 21-year-old student who had died during a police interrogation. What followed was more like a descent into hell.

The students, joined by an assortment of sympathizers, were met by an overwhelming onslaught of force and fury. Some 10,000 shield-bearing policemen, armored in riot helmets, blocked major street corners. As the students marched in remembrance of their slain comrade, the police fired tear- gas grenades into their midst. Thick clouds of blinding fumes soon routed the protesters, sending them gasping and reeling. One band of Buddhist monks were gassed and shoved as they tried to enter their temple. Chanted several gray- robed monks as they were driven back: "Restore democracy! Overthrow the dictatorship!"

That cry has echoed more and more across South Korea in recent months, and more often than not it has been uttered by the country's students, especially the radical hard-liners. On every side, demands are growing that President Chun Doo Hwan reform a regime that, while not nearly as repressive as Communist North Korea's, stifles dissent and tortures and imprisons political opponents. In frequent demonstrations, university students have demanded an end to dictatorship when Chun, a former general who seized power in 1980, fulfills a pledge to step down next February. The students' aim is nothing less than to bring what they consider democracy to a country that is rapidly becoming an economic power while remaining politically mired in the autocratic traditions of a 5,000-year-old society.

The students, who began a new school term last week, have attracted intense scrutiny by Washington and other capitals. With a 40,000-troop garrison in South Korea, the U.S. views that countryas a key Pacific ally and a bulwark against the Soviet-backed North Korean government. Washington was thus taken aback last year, when North Korean slogans began creeping into South Korean protests and student rhetoric turned sharply anti-American. The U.S. has since urged Chun to help defuse the situation by compromising with the opposition on a formula for the transition to democracy. Secretary of State George Shultz, who visited Seoul last week during a ten-day Far East swing, reportedly received assurances that Chun would seek such a compromise. Said a senior U.S. diplomat: "We believe this is a historic opportunity, and both Chun and the opposition have got to take it." A breakthrough will be difficult to achieve, however, because the country has little tradition of political accommodation.

The students and Chun today seem to be on a collision course. The protesters are clear about what they want. "Most Koreans, whether students or not, favor a return to civilian government," says a former council president at Seoul National University who was jailed for 1 1/2 years for organizing a reading circle. "We want to see a change in the constitution and direct election of a President. This is the most important thing to end the crisis in the country."

The election issue is a bitter one in a nation that has not had a democratic change of power since its founding in 1948, and hopes to show the world a peaceful face when it is host to the 1988 Summer Olympics. Chun, who would be the first South Korean leader to leave office voluntarily, wants to convert the presidential system into a parliamentary one that would choose his successor. That move would allow the party that controls the National . Assembly to name a Prime Minister. But opponents argue that under South Korea's complex method of apportioning seats, such a system would give Chun's Democratic Justice Party a stranglehold on power. That in turn would perpetuate the grip of Chun's strongest supporter, the 600,000-member armed forces, on the political life of the country.

While the students are clear about their goals, they are vague about their ties to North Korea, one of the world's most repressive Communist regimes. South Korean police are always quick to draw a link between students and the North or pro-Communist groups. Said Lee Yong Chang, the director of the national police, last week: "These student activities will provide pro- Communists with an opportunity for terrorism."

Police claimed they had proof of such charges last fall when they discovered a North Korean newspaper article reprinted on wall posters at Seoul National University. Banners urging unification of the two Koreas, in terms used by North Korea, later cropped up during a four-day student occupation of Seoul's Konkuk University. Though radical leaders contend that police planted the provocative materials, many students champion unification with the North. Says a student-union president: "The North and South are one people. Unification is a nationalistic goal, not an ideological one." Adds a frequent demonstrator: "Unification of the fatherland is our main goal."

Yet not even the most militant protesters admit to favoring a North Korean- style Communist government. "Actually we are in favor of democracy first and then unification," said a Korea University sophomore. Such views reflect a brand of thought that one U.S. diplomat labels "infantile Marxism." Says a Seoul prosecutor who has handled many cases against radical students: "They harbor some romantic views on the nature of the socialist state, and their idealism leads them to think that some of the problems of our society could be solved by socialism. But few understand or are dedicated to bringing the North Korean system here." Nor do they apparently realize that any unified state that the North Korean regime accepts would have to be Communist.

Some of the most thoughtful protesters are careful to renounce any ties to the North. "We are moving away from such linkage," says one student activist. "That position did not help us, and it was misunderstood by the public because the government used McCarthyite tactics to paint us all as Communists." The lesson was painfully learned. Many students continue to long for unification as an important goal, but they have grown wary of discussing it.

The youths are more open in their attacks on the U.S. They blame Americans for the Allied division of the Korean peninsula after World War II. Their chief complaint, though, is that Washington supports the dictatorial Chun government. "Without getting rid of the foreign influence of the Americans," one protest leader says, "we cannot restore democracy to Korea." A computer- science major at Seoul National University puts it simply, "We think of America as the most moral government in the world, and yet it backs this immoral Chun government. Why doesn't America support democracy here?"

Such views are often spread through radical study groups that have sprung up on every South Korean campus. Dabbling in authors ranging from Lenin to Psychoanalyst Erich Fromm, the groups recruit promising freshmen who know little about politics or political theory and soon acquire a taste for sweeping generalities. "Basically our program stresses freedom, independence and democracy," one member says. Some groups run summer camps that bring youths to the mountains for intensive study. Others encourage students to quit school and take up jobs in factories, where they try to organize workers. While police seek to break up the groups by arresting their leaders, new ones quickly arise to replace those in jail.

Too often, student attitudes are marked by naivete. Politics is seldom taught in school, and many students are the first members of their families to have received a higher education. They are often attracted by the latest intellectual fashion or the best conspiracy plot. One theory now making the rounds is that the small CIA team that supposedly engineered the ouster of Ferdinand Marcos in the Philippines has arrived in Seoul to topple Chun.

The very repressiveness of the Chun government gives radicals a rich soil to thrive in. South Korean students fill a political void that does not exist in some other East Asian countries. Japan, for example, permits dissent and has a vocal opposition that includes the Communist Party, which holds 27 seats in the national parliament, or Diet. But Koreans have no such democratic outlets. Kim Dae Jung, the country's most famous dissident, is barred from all political activity, and has been under frequent house arrest since returning from U.S. exile in 1985. Even left-wing books and pamphlets are officially forbidden.

Koreans have a history of student activism that dates back to 1919, when youths led mass demonstrations against the occupying Japanese. That tradition continued unabated after World War II. In 1960 student protests drove President Syngman Rhee from office after twelve years in power. Demonstrations frequently erupted throughout the 1960s and '70s. A student uprising claimed more than 100 lives in 1980 in the city of Kwangju. More recently, some 1,500 protesters were arrested during last October's unrest at Konkuk University. Many were sentenced to up to seven years in prison.

By police estimates, students staged nearly 1,700 demonstrations during 1986.

But the violence brought a backlash that cost the students political influence and popularity. Radicals were largely ignored when they called for mass protests to disrupt last September's Asian Games. Most Koreans were proud and delighted by the 16-day games, which served as a warm-up for the 1988 Olympics, and were put off by student militants. The Koreans' pride was enhanced by the strong showing of their country, which outscored archrival Japan and finished a close second to China.

The chastened radicals are now shifting toward a less violent, if no less confrontational, approach to political action. They responded to police tear gas last week with balloons bearing anti-Chun slogans, rather than with bricks and fire bombs. "The people hate the government, but they are afraid of violence," one protest leader said. In their new mood, the students are seeking alliances with the New Korea Democratic Party, the chief opposition force. "They criticized us for being too pro-American, and would not work with us," says Dissident Kim, a powerful party mentor. "Now they are willing to take a more moderate line. True, they are still anti-American, but they have moved away from violence and pro-Communist slogans."

Yet the radicals are unlikely to renounce violence for long if their newfound pacifism proves unproductive. The student movement has gained too much strength, and is too deeply committed to change, to shrink from confrontation if it is felt to be necessary. "We will try this for the first half of the year," says a student leader at Seoul National University. "But we do not know how the government will react to these new tactics. They may be even more brutal, and then things will escalate once again. I can't tell how it will develop." Given South Korea's tradition of student dissent, the protesters seem likely to remain in the streets.

With reporting by Barry Hillenbrand/Seoul