Rallies in S. Korea to Press Chun on Direct Elections

Kim Young Sam, a driving force behind the opposition New Korea Democratic Party, said Wednesday that his party will carry out a series of public rallies throughout the country in an effort to force President Chun Doo Hwan to agree to direct presidential elections to choose his successor.

Kim said in an interview that the first rally is scheduled for Oct. 9 in Kunsan, a port city in the west. It is to be followed by others at the rate of one a week until Chun agrees either to meet with Kim and Kim Dae Jung, the other behind-the-scenes opposition leader, or accepts an opposition demand for a presidential system of government and direct election of the president.

Chun, a former general who came to power in 1980 after a military takeover, has said that he will step down in 1988 at the end of his seven-year term.

A National Assembly committee on constitutional revision has reached an impasse on how South Korea’s next leader is to be chosen, and the New Korea Democratic Party said Tuesday that it will boycott that committee unless Chun agrees to meet with opposition leaders.

Kim said Wednesday that the party will not end the boycott until Chun drops his insistence that the country adopt a parliamentary form of government.

Confrontations Possible

If the new rallies take place, they could result in the sort of confrontations that have become part of the South Korean political scene. In May, student radicals disrupted an opposition rally in Inchon and touched off the most violent incident in South Korea since 1980, when 193 people were killed in a 10-day insurrection in Kwangju.

Kim said he is confident that the rallies can be brought off peacefully.

“All but a handful of students realize that they cannot afford to make the New Korea Democratic Party an enemy in their struggle for democratization,” he said. “Democracy must be achieved by peaceful and nonviolent means. Violence will only invite violence.”

Government officials and leaders of the ruling Democratic Justice Party condemned the opposition’s plan “to leave the National Assembly and go out on to the streets” as a violation of the democratic principles the opposition says it wants.

Lee Jong Ryool, the chief spokesman for President Chun, when asked Tuesday about the possibility of Chun’s declaring martial law, said that the opposition “will have to assume the responsibility for what happens.”

Rally Cities Listed

Kim said that “with peaceful rallies, there will be no reason to declare martial law.” He listed the cities where rallies are to take place, in addition to Kunsan, as Seoul, Pusan, Kwangju, Chongju and Inchon. He said there will also be rallies if necessary in all the 52 smaller cities where the party has chapters.