Returning Seoul Dissident Faces Arrest

A leading South Korean dissident who faces probable arrest on national security charges when he returns to Seoul today said he has contacted supporters by telephone and asked them not to hold an airport welcoming rally that would be sure to invite confrontation with police.

“I want to solve this with reason and not with power,” the Rev. Moon Ik Hwan told reporters Wednesday in Tokyo, where he stopped on his return from a controversial, unauthorized visit to Communist North Korea.

South Korean authorities have reacted angrily to Moon’s free-lance diplomatic mission to Pyongyang, the North Korean capital, and warned that they will arrest him on arrival on charges of violating the national security law.

Moon, speaking at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan, said he does not fear arrest and imprisonment but hopes that the Seoul government will exercise restraint.

“I sincerely hope they will not put me in prison,” said Moon, 71, a Presbyterian minister and veteran political prisoner who was freed under democratic reforms in 1987. “I feel it will be a national disgrace.”

Authorities have said Moon must be dealt with harshly because his 10-day journey undermined the government’s role as the sole channel for contact with the North Korean regime, with which South Korea has remained technically at war for the past 36 years.

Hyun Hong Joo, minister of government legislation and a leading member of President Roh Tae Woo’s Democratic Justice Party, summed up the official view in an interview in Seoul last week, saying Moon’s trip was “an assault on the government’s authority to conduct foreign relations.”

“We should be careful about creating another martyr or giving the impression that the government is backtracking to the old way of cracking down on dissidents,” Hyun said. “But the government has a responsibility to maintain law and order.”

Held Talks in North

Moon held seven hours of talks with North Korean President Kim Il Sung and signed a joint declaration on reunification with Ho Dam, a member of North Korea’s Politburo. But he said his activities did not constitute true diplomacy because he was acting in his unofficial capacity as an adviser to South Korea’s largest dissident coalition, the National Alliance for Democracy, and Ho was representing Pyongyang’s Committee for Peaceful Reunification of the Fatherland.

He said he felt it necessary to use private initiative to break a deadlock in government-to-government talks.

“When I saw the government harden its position and retract from Nordpolitik, I felt this was the time to go to give a little shock treatment,” Moon said.

Nordpolitik refers to Roh’s policy of seeking reconciliation with North Korea and improving trade ties with Communist countries. Since last year, Seoul has conducted a series of fruitless negotiations with Pyongyang on opening a political dialogue. This year, Chung Joo Yong, founder of the Hyundai conglomerate, received government approval to visit the north to try to open up intra-Korean economic cooperation.

Moon’s trip, however, sparked a crackdown on dissident forces in South Korea and brought on an apparent chill in the north-south dialogue. Prosecutors have indicted three leaders of the National Alliance for Democracy on charges of conducting anti-state activities. Chung’s second trip to North Korea has been canceled, and officials are expressing reservations about the pace of implementing Roh’s northern policy.

“The real issue is the social mood of the country. Maybe we’ve become a little more conservative in north-south affairs,” Hyun said. “I think the biggest loser (in Moon’s gambit) was the cause of reunification itself.”

Moon said he is confident that after the initial uproar dies down, his visit will have a positive effect on relations with North Korea.