Korea: More to Accomplish Than Economic Well-Being

South Korea has dazzled the world with its successes: a per-capita gross national product of $2,500 that ranks it third among Asian nations, a 98% literacy rate and a thriving trade that ranks it as the United States’ seventh-largest trading partner. South Korea’s proximity to Japan, China and the Soviet Union has given it a long-standing geopolitical significance.

This impressive image has been shaken by a series of recent political developments that have made the issues of civil and political rights a major national debate. The calls for direct elections, for freedom of speech and association and for labor rights remind us of an old but often forgotten message: A country’s domestic and international standing is only as durable and legitimate as its citizens permit.

A major component of the debate raging in South Korea is the need to protect fundamental human rights: the right to state peacefully one’s opinion, whether supportive or critical of the government; the right to assemble for nonviolent expression of those views, and the freedom to exercise these rights without fear of torture, arbitrary detention or unfair trial procedures.

In many ways the government must be credited with letting such rights be exercised during July and August and heeding Koreans’ demands for change as evidenced by the negotiations for a direct electoral system, the sentencing of police for the torture-death of a young student, the release of political prisoners and the comments of presidential candidate Roh Tae Woo and Minister of Labor Lee Hun Ki that workers’ rights have long been ignored.

Making a sweeping conclusion that such positive developments signal an end to human-rights abuses, however, is extremely dangerous and precipitous. In Amnesty International’s long-term experience monitoring human-rights abuses in South Korea, actions taken in isolated cases, however positive, have often proved to be the rug under which longstanding practices and policies allowing human-rights abuses are swept.

For example, during Amnesty International’s missions to South Korea in the last few years, South Korean officials conveyed their intention to the delegation to take specific steps to end human-rights abuses. But sweeping language in the National Security Act and the Law on Assemblies and Demonstrations continues to permit detention of those nonviolently critical of the government. In addition, safeguards have yet to be established to protect detainees from the routine practice in the last few years of beating or torture during incommunicado detention.

Finally, of the hundreds of political detainees released, some are what Amnesty International calls “prisoners of conscience.” These are are political detainees who have been abused or imprisoned solely for expressing their nonviolent political views. Amnesty International knows of dozens of such prisoners who have not been released by the South Korean government. Many of the South Korean prisoners of conscience on Amnesty International’s list have languished in jail for more than 10 years for their peaceful opposition to the government.

These prisoners come from different sectors of Korean society, but their experiences are similar. Many were tortured into making confessions. Many were victims of unfair trial procedures that violated international standards as well as South Korean law. Amnesty International has concluded that their only real “crime” was stating political views and engaging in political activities that were nonviolent in nature and challenging to government policies.

Familiarity with human-rights abuses does not magically create acceptance of those abuses; such an assertion diminishes the humanity of the South Korean people. Since 1948 every Korean constitution has provided for freedom of expression and assembly and protection against torture.

South Koreans should be able to point with pride to the respect for their political and civil rights at home. The current political demands graphically show the unquestionable linkage between the country’s well-being and the protection of individual rights.

Amnesty International believes that the latter cannot be achieved until all prisoners detained for their nonviolent exercise of fundamental human rights are released, specific laws are amended to safeguard against torture and unlawful detention, laws that prevent human-rights abuses are enforced, and regulations are established to end incommunicado detention and interrogation practices.

The true long-term test of survival of the South Korean government rests ultimately on its willingness to embrace the human rights of its people.