South Korea Bumpy Landing

By Susan Tifft

After more than two years of exile in the U.S., Kim Dae Jung, 60, South Korea's best-known dissident, finally flew home to Seoul last week. Unlike Benigno ("Ninoy") Aquino, the Philippine opposition leader who was assassinated at Manila airport in 1983 as he returned from exile, Kim survived the homecoming. But his arrival was anything but routine. In a rough-and- tumble airport scene, he and a number of prominent U.S. supporters were jostled, pushed and generally man-handled by South Korean security guards.

As Kim, his wife Lee Hee Ho, 22 U.S. companions and 50 journalists stepped off Northwest Airlines Flight 191 at Kimpo International Airport, they were met by about 50 security guards who tried to whisk Kim away. He refused to go along. He feared for his safety, he said, and preferred to proceed through normal immigration channels. After a heated discussion, the guards slammed Kim into an elevator and took him into custody. Several protesting Americans were shoved and punched. Among them: Democratic Congressmen Edward Feighan of Ohio and Thomas Foglietta of Pennsylvania, and Patt Derian, Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights in the Carter Administration. Said Foglietta: "It was a disgraceful exhibition of force and brutality."

While the police maintained that they were simply trying to ensure Kim's safety, they were also keeping him from seeing several hundred supporters who had filtered past police roadblocks into the main arrival building. Nor was he able even to glimpse an estimated 20,000 well-wishers assembled near the airport.

South Korea did live up to a promise not to formally arrest Kim, who has 17 1/2 years remaining on a 20-year prison sentence for sedition. The pledge was aimed at the U.S., which had been so concerned about Kim's safe return that it briefly delayed the announcement of a White House meeting between South Korean President Chun Doo Hwan and President Reagan, scheduled for April. When Kim was escorted to his Seoul home, he found it surrounded by guards. His activities, the government announced, will be limited to "fulfilling his daily necessities."

The Americans who were mistreated at the airport were outraged. Derian called on Reagan to cancel the Chun visit. The State Department promptly lodged a protest with Seoul, but indicated that the Reagan-Chun meeting would go ahead "as scheduled."

Kim returned four days before elections for the 276-member South Korean National Assembly--timing that seemed calculated to bolster the opposition New Korean Democratic Party, formed last December with the help of Kim's fellow dissident Kim Young Sam. Both Kims and twelve other opposition figures are forbidden to vote or run for office. To what degree Kim's presence might influence voters remains unclear. Most are too young to remember his nearly successful 1971 bid for the presidency; moreover, the electoral rules favor President Chun's Democratic Justice Party.

More worrisome for Chun is Kim's potential role as a focus for dissent. Only a few days before his arrival, an estimated 50,000 people attended a political rally in downtown Seoul. Afterward, 1,000 protesters marched through the streets chanting, "Down with the dictatorship."

In an interview with TIME before leaving Washington, Kim said his purpose was to "unify all opposition" and "begin a dialogue with Chun," with whom, he said, he had no "political vendetta." In the end, his future may depend on the U.S. attitude toward South Korea. While the Reagan Administration has not pressed Chun overly hard, at least publicly, on the subject of human rights, last week's dustup could prompt a rethinking of Washington's position.

With reporting by S. Chang with Kim and Edwin M. Reingold/Seoul