Police Patrol Colleges; Bookstores and Galleries Raided : Chun Moves to Curb S. Korean Dissent

There are more than 400 political prisoners, the police have returned to college campuses and government agents are raiding bookstores and art galleries.

For four years after seizing power in 1980, President Chun Doo Hwan relied on repression to stay in power. Then, early last year, he began to tolerate a measure of dissent. Now, a new crackdown is under way.

A test of how far the confrontation between Chun and his critics might go will probably come this month, when more than 8,000 bankers, central bank presidents and finance ministers from around the world gather here for an International Monetary Fund conference. Chun’s critics see the meeting as a chance to discredit him.

The chief targets of the new crackdown are on the campuses--the 2,000 to 3,000 activists among the nation’s 950,000 college students. Also feeling the lash are teachers, artists, writers and workers.

Supporters Also Curbed

Even Chun’s supporters have not been spared. He fired Justice Minister Kim Suk Hui after disorder broke out in a courtroom where 20 students were on trial for taking part in the seizure last May of the U.S. Information Service library here. The students are scheduled to be sentenced Wednesday.

Chun also ousted Lee Hyun Jae, president of Seoul National University, after Lee--before the court reached a verdict--refused to expel the eight students from his university who were among the 20.

Foreign analysts are not sure why Chun has changed tactics again.

Last year, student demonstrations erupted in February when Chun withdrew plainclothes policemen from the campuses, freed 360 jailed students and reinstated 1,373 others who had been expelled. This year the demonstrations increased and became more violent.

Small Numbers Involved

Still, they had not involved great numbers of people, usually fewer than 50. Nor had they disrupted the studies of other students or led to public unrest.

A longtime foreign resident here, who asked not to be identified by name, said he believes that the generals Chun relies on for support insisted on the crackdown to choke off demands that the military get out of politics. But a Western diplomat, who also requested anonymity, said the reason is simpler than that.

“Chun lacks a strategic plan and has no political ability,” the diplomat said, “so when things got heated up, the only thing left to fall back on was the hard-line approach.”

A year ago, after Chun had loosened the screws, human-rights advocates said there were only 91 dissenters in prison, the lowest number since 1972. Recently, as South Korea’s prisons have been filled with political prisoners, repression has returned to the level of 1980, when Chun seized power.

Student Rallying Point

The crackdown has given the students a rallying point--demanding the release of their colleagues. Most observers think it also has increased the chance of more violence.

Chun’s new, hard-line approach was underscored on Sept. 19 when two opposition members of the National Assembly, Park Chan Jong and Chough Soon Hyung, were charged with violating a law that bans unauthorized assemblies. Park was also charged with inciting an illegal demonstration; he could be sent to prison for up to 10 1/2 years.

The charges brought the ruling party into sharp confrontation with the opposition New Korea Democratic Party, which immediately began a boycott of the National Assembly, demanding that the government withdraw the charges. But Chun’s party insisted that the two legislators apologize for what it called attempting to instigate student unrest.

The turning point in Chun’s policy came with the seizure of the U.S. library by 72 students, who demanded that the United States apologize for allegedly authorizing Chun’s use of South Korean troops in May, 1980, to put down an insurrection in the city of Kwangju. The students finally agreed to leave the library after three days, without receiving a U.S. apology, and the government released all but 20.

Then, in June and July, the government arrested 137 students in the first mass arrests since 1980. It also instructed the courts to resume stiff jail sentences after a year and a half of relative leniency; demonstrators had been getting off with only a few days in jail.

Lenient Judges Removed

Two judges who persisted in showing leniency for student demonstrators were reassigned to minor rural courts. A third, who criticized the reassignments, met the same fate.

In August, it appeared that Chun was ready to declare all-out war on the students. His Democratic Justice Party announced plans to convene a special session of the National Assembly to enact a “campus stabilization bill” calling for ideological “reorientation” of campus troublemakers without formal arrest or trial.

The party described the bill as an effort to avoid stigmatizing students with formal arrest records. But Chun’s critics assailed it as a pretext for establishing what they called concentration camps.

The bill would also have authorized seven-year sentences for adults guilty of instigating unauthorized student activity, a provision that was widely regarded as giving carte blanche for the arrest of opposition politicians.

Chun Backed Down

In the end, Chun ordered the bill set aside. A forceful speech on Aug. 15 by U.S. Ambassador Richard L. Walker is believed to have played a role in his decision. Walker said, in part: “Americans insist that intellectual and religious freedom must be the foundation for legitimate rule.”

Western diplomats said they think that allowing direct election of Chun’s successor--as opposed to the present electoral college arrangement--would defuse campus unrest, if not eliminate the demonstrations altogether. So far, however, Chun has shown no sign of yielding to, or compromising with, the opposition on its demands for free elections.