Analysis : Many Losing Patience With Chun : Mishaps, Blunders Fuel South Korean Discontent

In the best of times, President Chun Doo Hwan never enjoyed widespread popular support--and these are not the best of times.

Many South Koreans think that Chun, an obscure major general when the late President Park Chung Hee was assassinated in 1979, has no legitimate right to rule. He came to power seven years ago after a military uprising and has stayed on as the result of an election in which the people took no part.

Now Chun has taken a step toward relinquishing power, but a series of mishaps and blunders has touched off widespread demonstrations indicating that many South Koreans have run out of patience--with military rule in general and with Chun in particular.

For a week now, Koreans have been demonstrating against Chun’s government, first in Seoul and then in cities throughout the country, with shouts of “Drive out the dictator!” and “Bring down the fascist dictatorship!”

Doubt is being expressed that Chun’s heavily advertised “first peaceful transfer of power” in recent South Korean history can be brought off as planned. And questions are being raised about South Korea’s ability to put on the 1988 Olympic Games as scheduled.

Chun’s immediate troubles began in January, when a doctor exposed the torture-murder of a student who was being interrogated by the police.

In April, Chun made things worse by dashing hopes for a real presidential election, which his party had promised a year earlier. He suspended talks with the opposition on revising the constitution until after the Olympic Games in October, 1988.

In May, an official apology for the student’s torture-death and a promise of police reform were exposed as a farce; the police, it was disclosed, had been involved much more extensively than had been thought. There was another apology; the Cabinet was reorganized.

Then, on June 10, Chun made it clear that the “peaceful transfer of power” he had promised would take a different form. As a foreign diplomat put it, the baton was to be passed simply from one former general to another.

No Direct Popular Vote

Chun’s Democratic Justice Party, at its convention, confirmed the nomination of former Gen. Roh Tae Woo, the party chairman, as its candidate to succeed Chun next February. Under the terms of the authoritarian 1980 constitution, the president is to be elected not by the people but indirectly, by an electoral college.

Chun said that the ruling party, by naming a candidate for president while there is a president in office, has taken a “historic step.” It was Act I, he said, of a scenario that will be played out “no matter what sacrifice may be necessary.”

Among the sacrifices may be the Olympic Games. Chun told a group of reporters last fall that he was giving priority to domestic stability over the Olympics.

Lesser sacrifices have already begun. Thousands of people have been detained since the demonstrations began on June 10. Hundreds have been formally charged, including 13 leaders of the National Coalition for a Democratic Constitution, which had called for peaceful protest rallies to coincide with the ruling party’s convention.

Church Aids Protesters

Even the moderate Roman Catholic Church here has sided with protesters, allowing dissident students to take shelter in the church’s headquarters in central Seoul. On Monday night, after a two-month silence, Cardinal Stephen Kim demanded that Chun reopen talks on revising the constitution and permit a free choice of government.

According to Western diplomats here, Chun’s scenario might have won some sympathy from the great majority of Koreans in the center, between revolutionary students on the left and military die-hards on the right, if it had included at least the promise of genuine reform.

But as one put it: “What Chun offered were bread crumbs so tiny they were invisible to the naked eye.” This diplomat, who said he is increasingly concerned about political stability in South Korea, said Chun “should have offered more, and could have offered more.”

Another diplomat pointed out that ever since 1980, Chun has been talking about local autonomy, but when it is suggested that the people be allowed to elect mayors, government officials respond: “Oh! An opposition man might win! We can’t have that.”

Chun has promised legislation this fall that would let the people in a limited number of smaller cities elect municipal assemblies--there are none at present--but Seoul, the capital, which includes 25% of South Korea’s population, would not be included.

President Appoints Mayors

No mayoral elections are planned for any cities at all. The president will continue to appoint mayors.

On another front, a committee of newspaper publishers is considering revisions in the repressive Press Law, but an insider says that any revision will be only cosmetic. At present, news organizations function under licenses, at the government’s pleasure, and no one is talking about a really free press.

“We couldn’t afford to have that kind of freedom here,” Lee Jong Ryool, Chun’s press secretary, has said.

The ruling party has also said it would consider reforming the Presidential Election Law, to broaden the process of choosing about 5,000 electors. But it attached conditions that the opposition is not likely to accept.

Virtually no one puts any faith in the government’s promises.

“Time and again,” a diplomat said, “this government has failed to deliver on its promises. It’s almost as if they believe a promise itself is enough.”

Lip Service to Democracy

The other diplomat said that Chun and his military clique pay lip service to “liberal democracy” but obviously do not believe in it.

“It’s just like free trade,” he said. “They don’t trust it. They don’t trust processes that are messy, sloppy, disorderly and unpredictable.”

In the last week, signs have emerged that elements of Chun’s government are beginning to share these critical views.

A third foreign diplomat said his embassy has been told by the Agency for National Security Planning--the old Korean CIA--that the agency has doubts that Chun’s scenario for reform can be acted out without changes. The agency did not spell out, though, what changes it thinks might be necessary.

Doubts have also been expressed in the past few days as to whether South Korea will be able to go ahead with the Olympic Games.

Lee Man Sup, president of the conservative opposition Korea National Party, said, “Unilaterally pushing a political timetable while rejecting constitutional revision might make it impossible for the nation to conduct the 1988 Olympics successfully.”

Jackson View of Games

In Washington, the Rev. Jesse Jackson, a possible contender for the Democratic presidential nomination, said the Games should be moved to another site if South Korea refuses to allow democracy to develop. It was the first such call from an American.

In Seoul, Robert H. Helmick, president of the U.S. Olympic Committee, told reporters Wednesday that he had seen nothing since he arrived Sunday to indicate that “we should be considering alternative places.”

But then, referring to the disruption of two international soccer matches in South Korea in the last few days, he said: “We do not want to participate in any athletic event where tear gas is popping off outside the stadium. We are monitoring (the situation) week by week and month by month.”

Meanwhile, the opposition shows no sign of compromising on its demand for a direct, popular presidential election, and at least one diplomat says that Chun may well be forced to escalate the use of force as February and the planned change of leaders comes closer.

Other analysts agree that some kind of government overkill, perhaps martial law, which was threatened over the weekend, is a real possibility.