South Korea A Volcano of Unrest

By William R. Doerner.

Rocks and other missiles flew through the air like shrapnel as some 1,500 students rioted on the fourth day of antigovernment protests at Kwangju's Chonnam University. Riot police with orders to disperse the demonstrators charged into the crowd, flailing nightsticks. As the running battle continued, one group of students overpowered a police officer and bound him hand and foot, beating him relentlessly in the process. The captured officer would be held hostage, the students announced, until five of their comrades arrested the day before were released. The police responded brutally and effectively. They stormed buildings across the campus, firing tear-gas canisters into occupied classrooms and the university library, until the hostage, seriously injured, was freed.

The twin spectacles of students seizing police officers as prisoners, and of police barging into university classrooms, eloquently summed up the volcano of unrest that erupted last week throughout South Korea. Day after day thousands of university students gathered on campuses across the country to demand democratic political reforms from the government of President Chun Doo Hwan. They staged marches, hurled fire bombs, seized buildings, chanted antigovernment slogans and burned effigies of Chun. To prevent the campus rioting from spilling into the surrounding streets and possibly igniting more disorder, police used armored cars and tear gas, and charged with clubs in wave after wave. By Friday the violent protests had spread to 34 universities, and at least 10,000 students had joined the fray. Dozens of injuries were reported, but, miraculously, no deaths.

At Yonsei University in Seoul, the country's capital and largest city, a column of more than 2,000 students waved red, white and green flags painted with revolutionary slogans as they sang We Shall Overcome in Korean. A ceremony marking the university's 102nd anniversary exploded into a riot as some 1,000 students vented their rage over a police raid earlier in the day that resulted in the arrest of 36 hunger strikers. At the municipal stadium a victory march by 3,500 students from Kyung Hee University to celebrate their baseball team's championship turned into a political protest.

Nor were students the only South Koreans involved in what amounts to a deepening confrontation with Chun's rule. A congregation of about 1,200, including 800 Protestant and Roman Catholic clergymen, took part in an overnight prayer vigil for political reform at the Ahyun Methodist Church in downtown Seoul. About 40 participants had their heads shaved by amateur barbers as a sign of their determination to carry on the protest campaign. An estimated 750 riot police surrounded the church to prevent additional people from entering. Eventually, the police broke up the meeting with force, injuring 27 participants.

Still other groups used written protests to register their dissatisfaction. One campaign criticizing the lack of political reform collected the signatures of 1,381 professors and instructors at 43 universities and colleges, or more than 10% of the country's total higher education faculty. Another lined up the support of 233 performing artists and 379 writers.

Much of the turmoil, especially among the students, was a prelude to the anniversary this week of a 1980 uprising in Kwangju. Seven years ago, after martial law was suddenly imposed throughout South Korea, rioters in the southwestern city of 700,000 took to the streets, overran ill-prepared police and seized virtually all public buildings. In response, the government mobilized a division of front-line army troops and ordered a military attack against the rebelling civilians. The result was a bloodbath that left nearly 200 people dead. Ever since, the Kwangju massacre has been associated with a group of hard-line generals, including Chun, who took national power a few months later.

Strong as the memory of Kwangju remains in South Korean political life, however, the immediate cause of this year's extraordinary turmoil was a much more recent event. On April 13 Chun abruptly announced the end of a one-year- old national debate over electoral reform by declaring that no changes in the current system of choosing a chief executive would be contemplated until after the 1988 Summer Olympic Games, which are to be held in Seoul. To continue arguing about the matter while South Korea stands in the spotlight of world attention, said Chun, would "deepen our internal schisms and dissipate national resources."

Suppressing the debate, however, would have consequences stretching well beyond the Games. Chun's seven-year term of office ends next February, and he has repeatedly said he will step down at that time. But under South Korea's present voting machinery, his successor would be chosen by a large electoral college, a system that favors the ruling Democratic Justice Party, which is dominated by the military. Without a change in the system before the next election, the opposition would have no hope of reaching power.

Chun's critics, who for years have called for the direct election of the President, were outraged. Kim Young Sam, one of two leaders of the principal minority party, pointed out that Chun won the presidency in 1981 with 92% of the vote in an election boycotted by the opposition. Demanded Kim: "How much difference is there between that election and those of ((Communist)) North Korea, whose leader usually receives 98% to 99% of the votes?" In an interview with TIME, Kim declared, "We will certainly boycott the next presidential election if it is held under the old system."

Chun apparently chose to act in April at least in part because the opposition was in disarray. Unwilling to compromise on the issue of direct presidential elections, Kim Young Sam and his primary opposition partner, Kim Dae Jung, broke with the New Korea Democratic Party and formed a new group, the Reunification Democratic Party. Most antigovernment legislators decided to follow suit, quickly making the R.D.P. the primary opposition party, with 67 seats in the 276-member National Assembly. But the regrouping nonetheless served to splinter Chun's critics further.

The government has tried to still its critics by harassing the opposition. Kim Dae Jung has been under house arrest for the past five weeks, his home surrounded night and day by dozens of policemen. At least a dozen R.D.P. assemblymen are also under indictment or investigation, many on charges for thinly disguised political reasons. The new party has not even found a landlord willing to rent it space for a headquarters, forcing Kim Young Sam to joke that he "may have to pitch an extra-large tent on the bank of the Han River" for offices.

For the U.S., which maintains a force of 40,000 troops in South Korea and regards Seoul as a strategically important ally, Chun's latest retreat from democratic reform presents a dilemma. Some Washington officials claim that the U.S. is unwilling to punish South Korea's political abuses because any action might weaken the country militarily or economically. Yet other observers of U.S. foreign policy are seriously wondering whether Washington's failure to take tougher stands against South Korea's government might itself be contributing to the country's underlying problem. Says Democratic Congressman Stephen Solarz, chairman of the Asian and Pacific Affairs Subcommittee: "The people of South Korea should know that we Americans don't countenance the continued denial of democracy."

This week Congressman Thomas Foglietta, who was beaten up by police when he accompanied Kim Dae Jung to Seoul on his return from exile in the U.S. two years ago, will introduce a bill calling for economic sanctions against South Korea unless it demonstrates progress in moving toward democracy. Foglietta, a Democrat, was forced to strip out some of the toughest measures, including the denial of commercial landing rights for South Korean airlines, when it became clear that the bill as it read stood virtually no chance of passage. But the amended bill would still commit the U.S. to voting against development loans to South Korea by the World Bank and some other international credit agencies.

Last week's spasm of police head knocking and teargassing made it clear that Chun is determined to make good on past threats to crush the opposition. But the violence also proved that South Korea's debate over democratic reform cannot be stifled by the wishes of a single autocrat; quite possibly it cannot be stifled at all.

With reporting by Ricardo Chavira/ Washington and K.C. Hwang/Seoul