U.S. Protests to Seoul Over Kim Treatment

The Reagan administration protested to the South Korean government Friday over the roughing up of returning exile Kim Dae Jung and the group of Americans, including two congressmen, who accompanied him.

Neither Kim, his wife, nor the Americans were injured in the airport incident, but Rep. Edward F. Feighan (D-Ohio) said South Korean security agents acted like “a band of thugs”--pushing, shoving and even punching them.

Also roughed up were Rep. Thomas M. Foglietta (D-Pa.), Patricia Derian, a former assistant secretary of state for human rights, and Robert E. White, former ambassador to El Salvador. They were forcibly separated from Kim in an airport melee after they insisted on accompanying him.

Ended 2-Year Exile

At the State Department, deputy spokesman Edward Djerejian said the U.S. Embassy in Seoul has protested to the South Korean government, demanding both an investigation and an explanation.

“We had hoped for a trouble-free return . . . obviously this did not happen,” Djerejian said.

Kim, 61, who returned home after two years of U.S. exile, was placed under house arrest after he and his wife were forcibly separated from the Americans by Korean security forces.

Moments after Kim left the plane, police pushed him and his wife into an airport elevator, shoved two American congressmen and several people aside and drove the couple to their Seoul home by back roads to avoid crowds gathered along the main highway to welcome the popular opposition leader.

Kim told reporters later: “Police used violence against me. They pushed me. I felt as if I was beaten.” His wife, Lee Hee Ho, told a reporter earlier that people were shoved and pushed but not beaten.

U.S. officials were particularly incensed that American Embassy representatives were barred from meeting Kim’s plane at Seoul’s Kimpo Airport, although they had been assured in advance they could.

Rep. Feighan said through his office here that the security agents acted like “a band of thugs.” Derian said the incident amounted to “thuggery at its height.”

The State Department spokesman said Washington had been assured in advance that embassy representatives could greet the Kim flight, which “might have prevented the incident.”

“There were understandings we thought we had with the Korean government that were not carried out,” Djerejian said.

Administration officials said the incident will not cause a cancellation of President Reagan’s invitation to South Korean President Chun Doo Hwan to come to Washington in April for a meeting at the White House.

“We expect President Chun’s visit will proceed as scheduled,” Djerejian said. Chun, whose government sentenced Kim to death in 1980, also visited Reagan at the White House in 1981.

But on Capitol Hill, House Speaker Thomas P. (Tip) O’Neill Jr. (D-Mass.) said he deplored “the apparent physical abuse of Kim Dae Jung and the Americans accompanying him. . . . I call on President Chun to personally guarantee the safety and security of Mr. Kim and the members of Congress who are with him.”

Seoul Denies Beating

The South Korean government denied that Kim had been beaten and said it was “regrettable that the U.S. should demand, once again, a full explanation.”

The State Department said the Korean government had promised an investigation of the incident and offered new assurances that the Americans would be protected. A 37-member delegation, most of them Americans, accompanied Kim on the trip from Washington.

They sought to prevent any recurrence of the reception given to Philippines opposition leader Benigno S. Aquino Jr., who was murdered upon his arrival in Manila in 1983 after three years of American exile.

Some of the reporters who were along were also “handled roughly.” Djerejian said there were reports that one or two of the Korean-Americans in the group had to be hospitalized, one with a heart ailment.

Djerejian called for Kim to be released from house arrest “as soon as possible.”

“We regret any steps, such as this one, which do not promote the goal of political liberalization in Korea,” he said.

While he said the incident by itself won’t interfere with Chun’s April visit to Washington, he said the U.S. government will “follow closely” the treatment of Kim during coming weeks and months.

The Administration had held up the original announcement of Chun’s visit until it received assurances that Kim would not be sent back to prison. Kim faces a possible 17 1/2 years in prison, the time remaining on the 20-year prison sentence he was serving when he was allowed to go to the United States for medical treatment in late 1982.

Kim had been sentenced to death by the Chun government in 1980, but the sentence was commuted to 20 years after both the Jimmy Carter and Reagan administrations intervened on his behalf. The State Department said at the time that charges of sedition against Kim were “far-fetched.”