Discord Stalls Democratization of South Korea : Struggling Over Constitutional Reform Continues Amid Fears of Showdown

The effort to negotiate South Korea’s transformation from authoritarian government to democracy has run aground. Threats and counterthreats are stirring new tension in the battle between the forces of President Chun Doo Hwan and the opposition New Korea Democratic Party.

The opposition has walked out of a National Assembly committee on constitutional revision and taken its case back to the streets, where it pressed its demand for reform earlier this year. Chun and other officials have responded with a threat to crack down by ordering martial law.

Some privately express fear of a complete political collapse--another coup.

Chun finally agreed last spring, after six years of refusals, to allow his authoritarian constitution to be revised before he steps down in 1988. He agreed to accept reforms if his ruling Democratic Justice Party and opposition groups could reach a consensus in the National Assembly.

No Clause Agreed Upon

But not a single clause of a new constitution has been agreed upon. There have not even been any substantive discussions.

Chun’s party announced the broad outlines of its proposal, calling for a parliamentary system with a prime minister elected by the legislature as chief executive. The opposition put forth the draft of a new constitution, calling for a presidential system and direct election of the president by the people.

The confrontation was on.

In June, ruling party chairman Roh Tae Woo talked of negotiating constitutional revision with the opposition--the first time for such a process here--rather than by unilateral action by the ruling party.

Now the ruling party is warning that it may round up minor opposition groups, independents and dissenters within the New Korea Democratic Party for the two-thirds majority needed for amendments without NKDP agreement.

Amendments must also be submitted to a referendum. But voters are given only a yes-or-no choice, and this is considered a guarantee that anything the assembly proposes will be approved. In 1980, the authoritarian constitution that is still in effect was approved overwhelmingly under martial law.

“If we don’t overcome this current quarreling,” Chun warned recently, “the nation may be faced with another hardship.”

Martial Law Warning

Lee Jong Ryool, a spokesman for Chun, said in reply to a question about the possibility of martial law that the opposition would have to “take the responsibility for what happens” if its street rallies create “social and political unrest.”

The opposition, meanwhile, is escalating its demands and its rhetoric.

Kim Dae Jung and Kim Young Sam, the driving forces behind the New Korea Democratic Party, insist that Chun meet with them or with Lee Min Woo, 71, the party’s titular head.

“Chun is more important than the committee,” Kim Dae Jung said, referring to the constitutional revision committee being boycotted by the opposition. “The only person who has the power to decide (the form of government) is Chun Doo Hwan.”

Nonetheless, the two Kims and Lee have offered to bring the opposition party back into the committee if Chun will agree to direct presidential elections, even if he refuses to meet with them.

They also have proposed a national referendum to let the people choose whether they want to elect the new chief executive directly or indirectly--under a presidential or parliamentary form of government.

Chun has rejected all their proposals.

At the first of the opposition’s new rallies, on Oct. 9 in Kunsan, opposition rhetoric rose.

“Let the government beat us! Let the government jail us! Let the government put us under house arrest!” Lee Min Woo, the NKDP head, declared. “We have no way to retreat from our demand for direct presidential elections because we have made that promise to the people of Korea.”

In a message broadcast to the rally, Kim Dae Jung, who had been placed under house arrest for the day, demanded that Chun step down as president of the ruling party and set up a neutral “election management cabinet” to conduct a national referendum on what form of government South Korea is to have.

Kim Young Sam, in a conversation at Kunsan, dismissed Kim Dae Jung’s proposal as “inconceivable.” He said the opposition will not press it in negotiations with the ruling party. Nevertheless, Lee Min Woo put the demand on the record in a speech to the National Assembly a day later.

To President Chun’s followers, direct elections threaten to stir up emotions and disrupt public order, and they say this is a risk the nation can ill afford with a continuing threat of attack from Communist North Korea.

But to the opposition, direct elections are essential if legitimacy is to be restored to government. Not since a free and open presidential election in 1971, in which Kim Dae Jung ran unsuccessfully as the opposition candidate, have the people been able to choose their leader.

The late President Park Chung Hee, who was shot to death in 1979, usurped power in 1972. Chun acquired power in a military takeover in 1980.

Legitimacy was also cited as a key issue by the outgoing U.S. ambassador here, Richard L. Walker. He said the National Assembly committee on constitutional revision offers South Korea “the first chance (it) has had in its 38 years as a republic to come up with a solution which has all the hallmarks of legitimacy.”

Walker emphasized, however, that the United States will take no stand on what form of government South Korea should have.

Backs ‘Fuller Democracy’

“That is strictly an internal affair,” he said. “But we do support a system that can provide fuller democracy and sustained concern for human rights.”

Roh, the head of Chun’s party, promised Lee last May 29, with Chun’s approval, that the constitution will be revised to “guarantee the people a free choice of government.”

But Chun’s party concedes that what the people want is not what Chun is offering.

A poll conducted secretly by the party disclosed that more than 70% of the people favor the opposition’s demand for a presidential form of government. The newspaper Hankuk Ilbo published the poll’s findings on June 19, but government censors suppressed the story in later editions.

Lee Jong Ryool, the Chun spokesman, told an interviewer that the ruling party’s parliamentary proposal is gaining but still lacks popular majority support.

For only one year--April, 1960, to May, 1961--did South Korea have a parliamentary government. It ended with the coup headed by Park Chung Hee, then an army general.

President Chun’s troubles in persuading a majority to accept a parliamentary form of government stem in large part from deep-rooted distrust of government pronouncements, distrust fueled by 14 years of government control of the news media. With censorship continuing, even now that Chun is pledging democratic reforms, many Koreans simply do not believe that Chun’s military-backed regime would allow fair elections for a National Assembly.

Adding to the people’s suspicions is the fact that the ruling party’s constitutional outline says nothing about how assembly elections would be conducted. The party has promised to discuss this point only after the opposition accepts the idea of parliamentary government.

Strategy on both sides, according to a Western diplomat, appears to be designed to carry the controversy to the brink.

“On both sides of the aisle in the National Assembly,” Ambassador Walker said, “60% to 70% of the members . . . are genuinely seeking to seize the opportunity to provide a legitimate government for the Republic of Korea which can be accepted and supported across a broad spectrum. There are, unfortunately on both sides, those who still regard compromise as surrender.

“It’s going to be a tough, tight and close situation as we see whether an important compromise can be reached. It is such a delicate moment in Korean history. If it gets blown, the country will be set back politically 20 years.”

Against a background of nearly daily anti-Chun demonstrations on the nation’s campuses, the president has exercised considerable restraint.

By the end of September, the number of political prisoners listed by the New Korea Democratic Party and by the Human Rights Commission of the Korea National Council of Churches had risen to 1,229 for the year, but the total was only 39 higher than it was last May.

Most Korean politicians and analysts and foreign diplomats predict a showdown, or a blow-up, next spring. One diplomat said it might not come until next summer. But none are ruling out trouble long before then, particularly if the opposition’s new series of public rallies stirs up serious unrest.

The rally in Kunsan, a city of only 186,000, showed again the depth of popular demand for reforms. About 20,000 riot police tried to block the way, but about 15,000 people turned out to follow Lee Min Woo and Kim Young Sam as they marched to the rally site. Jammed shoulder-to-shoulder, the crowd stood for three hours in intermittent light rain to hear the opposition leaders.

Not long after the Kunsan rally, prosecutors filed charges against the New Korea Democratic Party’s local chairman, Rep. Kim Bong Wook, accusing him of organizing an illegal rally.

Police Block Legislators

And a new blowup occurred in the National Assembly. The ruling party called in the police to block opposition representatives and then rammed through a motion to permit the arrest of the opposition Rep. Yoo Sung Hwan.

Yoo, in a speech to the assembly, had urged that South Korea make national unification, not anti-communism, its principal goal. He was charged with advocating communism, a violation of the National Security Law. Yoo was protected by immunity for any statement made in the assembly, but he had distributed copies of his speech in advance.