Many Won’t Be Freed, Angry Koreans Learn

For Kim Kee Joon, there is still no democracy in South Korea.

Kim awoke Friday morning to learn that her son, a 25-year-old “prisoner of conscience,” will not be among the political prisoners that President Chun Doo Hwan’s government plans to release in its promised wave of democratic reforms.

Her plight and that of hundreds of other prisoners’ relatives was the battle cry of an estimated 20,000 angry students who gathered Friday afternoon at Yonsei University for the first major anti-government rally since ruling party Chairman Roh Tae Woo last Monday defused street violence by promising democratic reform.

Angry Chanting

Shaking their fists and chanting “Down with the military dictatorship!” the students asserted that the government would break its promise to free all but the most dangerous of the nation’s nearly 2,000 political prisoners.

This morning, South Korea’s two top opposition leaders joined the call for an immediate prisoner release. After a lengthy breakfast meeting in downtown Seoul, Kim Dae Jung and Kim Young Sam told reporters in a joint press conference that they would not negotiate with the government until it grants full amnesty to all political prisoners.

“The government should not attempt to free or amnesty people on a selective basis,” said Kim Dae Jung, who is himself charged with political crimes. “All but murderers or Communists should be given amnesty. We have decided not to enter into negotiations yet, but wait and see.”

A day earlier, clutching the wrinkled clipping from the newspaper Chosun Ilbo that carried the news about her son’s grim future, Kim Kee Joon personified what is becoming a major national controversy. With the anger of years of frustration, the story of her son, Lee Chong Won, came pouring from her lips in the shabby offices of an anti-government organization that is continuing its battle for reform.

It was almost two years ago to the day that the police raided a friend’s boarding house and took Lee in for interrogation.

A week later, after intensive torture that his mother said “took life away from him,” Lee signed a confession, was charged with violating the National Security Act and has never been a free man since.

Asked why her son, a senior at Seoul National University at the time, was jailed, the 50-year-old housewife in a white print dress said, “He taught laborers at night in churches about their rights under the law. They call it wrong. How can that be wrong?”

Several days ago, a startled Kim Kee Joon listened to ruling party Chairman Roh make Korean history by offering a series of major reforms. “Human dignity,” Roh said, “must be respected even more greatly, and the basic rights of citizens should be promoted and protected to the maximum.” Roh then offered to free “all those who are being detained in connection with the political situation.”

Only ‘Selective Release’

“Since Roh’s announcement, I had been expecting my son would be released, but the newspapers and television are now saying ‘selective release--not full release,’ ” Kim said angrily, waving her clipping in the face of reporters.

“According to the newspaper, my son cannot be released because he is charged with actually organizing the grass roots of the labor movement--because they say he shook the nation,” she said.

Lee Chong Won is hardly alone.

The Human Rights Commission of the National Council of Churches lists the names of 1,845 political prisoners. The government’s Justice Ministry said it has identified only 1,100 prisoners who qualify for the new amnesty and freedom. The rest, the ministry said, are criminals “who have committed treason or who have shaken the national foundation by committing homicide, bodily injury, arson and vandalism.”

There are press reports that 100 or more will be released this weekend, but there has been no official confirmation or any report of a definite timetable.

“This is not democracy,” Kim said. “It is bad enough to live with having been through these tortures and survived.”

Mother Joined Protests

Kim has also taken her anger to the streets in recent days, joining more than 200 prisoners’ relatives in sit-down strikes at the headquarters of the National Coalition for a Democratic Constitution, sponsor of large demonstrations June 10 and June 26 that filled Seoul with tear gas and forced Roh to make his concessions.

Another protest is planned today at a Buddhist temple.

In an interview Friday, coalition co-chairman Chung Tong Ik said the demonstrations are a reflection of cynicism that remains in the wake of South Korea’s celebration of democracy’s imminent return.

The prisoners’ release, Chung said, “Is the most important issue at this stage because only through this can the government assure us they intend to carry out democratic reforms.

“They have to show some acts to the people that they are keeping their promise to return democracy. All prisoners must be released.”

The story of Kim and her eldest son is typical of the plight faced by the families of many who were jailed under President Chun’s regime.

It is also the story of changing generations in South Korea, a nation that has always put a high value on education but has been caught in a vicious cycle of oppressive politics.

To Prestigious University

“My son is very intelligent, very good-hearted, a naive kid,” Kim said. So she sent Lee Chong Won to the most prestigious school, Seoul National University.

“I wanted him to study well, to become a worthy person and be happy.

“But when he got to college, it was more important for him to fight for democracy. I tried to tell him, ‘Politics belong to the politicians, not to you.’ ”

But Lee answered her, “We must find democracy first.”

He spent his nights holding seminars with laborers, schooling them on their basic rights. There are no independent labor unions in this nation, where the economy has boomed in recent years in large part because of low wages and long hours.

Eventually, Lee became one of 12 university students and alumni implicated in the so-called Flag Incident, charged by authorities with printing and distributing an anti-government pamphlet called The Flag.

Its contents dealt with revolution; it called for the overthrow of the Chun government.

According to Lee’s mother, “My son was never involved with producing leaflets. They were made by the son of a national assemblyman from the ruling party, but he got away.”

‘I Have to Hide Myself’

Nonetheless, at the end of January, Kim said that her son came home and declared flatly, “I have to hide myself.”

“Why?” his mother recalled asking.

“Because the police are looking for us,” Lee answered.

“I told him: ‘If you haven’t done anything wrong, do not run away. Go to the police,’ ” Kim recalled.

But her son was resolute. “If I get caught, I will be killed,” he told his mother. “And if I am one of the first caught, I will be tortured to tell where the others are hiding.”

That was the last time Kim saw her son as a free man.

The police finally tracked Lee down and arrested him July 12, 1985. But it was not until July 19 that his mother was officially informed of the arrest. And during those seven days, she said he later told her, he was so badly tortured that he would have done anything to stop it.

According to Lee’s mother, his police interrogators deprived him of sleep for days by keeping a bright light in his eyes. He also said he underwent severe water torture in the special building where police take suspected Communists for interrogation.

“My son gave up all hope for life in that room,” she said. “He would sign anything to get out of that room.” Eventually, he signed a confession.

Torture Described

During the trial of the 12 men last October, one of his co-defendants described even worse forms of torture that had been used on them. He said his interrogators put powdered red pepper in his nose while he was suspended upside down. Another testified to being bound and forced to lie in a coffin for a week.

Despite such testimony, a court convicted Lee on subversion charges and sentenced him to 3 1/2 years in prison.

“We accept the sentence because we have no choice,” Kim said. “But we do not accept the charge.”

On Friday morning, the mother said she was further angered by the story in the Chosun Ilbo, reporting that the government will not free the 12 defendants in the Flag Incident, and other “leftists.” Kim said she called the editors to complain about the “leftist” label and told them, “It’s bad enough that I have been killed by the court. Why are you trying to kill me again?”

Later, she told interviewers, all hope is gone for now. “Once these kids are left out of this process, they will be dead forever,” she said.

But Kim, whose husband is a small merchant in Seoul, is not the only voice arguing for blanket liberation under the new democratic mood.

Insist on Full Release

After Roh’s speech Monday, both Kim Young Sam and Kim Dae Jung publicly insisted on full release of political prisoners jailed during the seven years of Chun’s regime.

During a meeting with Roh, Kim Young Sam told the ruling party chairman, “All political detainees should be released. Amnesty should also be granted and civil rights restored for Kim Dae Jung and other dissidents. It is also a serious matter that many people are still wanted by the police. Such actions should also be suspended.”

Kim Dae Jung, who has been in prison and subjected to numerous house arrests since he was convicted of sedition for allegedly masterminding the Kwangju insurrection in 1980, reiterated the call in an interview Thursday night with The Times.

Senior Western diplomats believe the prisoners issue may well become “the stickiest of the sticking points” as the new government seeks to make good on its promises of a new democratic era in South Korea.

‘A Modicum of Truth’

“Many of these people (political prisoners) have been involved in the activities they are charged with,” one diplomat said Thursday. “These are not total fabrications by the government. Always, there is a modicum of truth to it. But the government does not have to exaggerate it.”

The diplomat added that the issue may easily become a hard one for the opposition, as well. As the government begins to reconcile point after point with Kim Young Sam’s Reunification Democratic Party, a political opposition body hungry for the chance to gain power in direct presidential elections later this year, its leaders may be tempted to abandon the prisoner issue in favor of other, more pragmatic political concessions.

“And it’s going to be very difficult for the opposition because of the emotionalism of the issue,” the diplomat said. “It’s going to be very hard for the Reunification Democratic Party to be seen as going against these victimized families.”

At the austere offices of the National Coalition for a Democratic Constitution, a church-based anti-government alliance that is far more activist than the political opposition, co-chairman Chung confirmed that skepticism.

“There is an atmosphere of watching,” he said, as Kim Kee Joon was pouring out her frustrations to a coalition aide in the cramped, one-room office.

“We have been fooled so many times.”