COLUMN ONE : The Ghosts Hovering in S. Korea : At least 240 people were killed in a 1980 uprising against military rule. But many contend the toll was four times that. Victims’ families, and the nation, are watching warily as a new probe begins.

Caressing her son’s tombstone, Pae Eun Shim cried out to his spirit with exciting news: “Han Yol, Han Yol! [Former presidents] Chun Doo Hwan and Roh Tae Woo are imprisoned now!”

Nearby, ignoring a freezing wind, Choi In Soon, 78, went from grave to grave, sprinkling sand she had washed 108 times to “ease the anger” in the hearts of the dead. Choi was performing the Buddhist ritual, her son explained, despite having no relatives in this “May 18 Graveyard,” the resting place for about 150 martyrs of democracy, including more than a hundred victims of the 1980 massacre by which Chun consolidated power.

But the elderly village woman vehemently contradicted him.

“They are all my sons and daughters!” she declared, her voice rising. “We shouldn’t distinguish someone else’s sons and daughters! They are all mine!”

For relatives of martyrs and ordinary citizens alike, the recent arrests on mutiny and bribery charges of Chun and Roh, both former generals, mark a milestone in South Korea’s torturous progression from military dictatorship to modern democracy. It is a time of fresh hope--although fears linger that the promise of this moment may yet go unfulfilled.

President Kim Young Sam has ordered a new investigation into the Kwangju uprising of May 18-27, 1980, and the bloody military crackdown that crushed it at the cost of at least 240 lives.

The rebels of that struggle--this nation’s equivalent of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests in Beijing--are close to winning mainstream recognition as fighters for democracy, not violent radicals as the government has long portrayed them. Once-suppressed videotapes showing protesters in a favorable light and revealing the brutality of the troops are being broadcast almost nightly on nationwide TV.

“The nightmare haunts me even today. The paratroopers sent to Kwangju were not like soldiers. They were mad dogs,” said Park Young Soon, who was 25 when his right leg was shattered by a bullet as he rode in an open truck on the fourth day of the protests, the day armed citizens and massive street demonstrations drove the hated paratroopers from the city.

Shim Sae Byol, a Kwangju housewife who was only in junior high school and too young to join the protests, observed: “It is only natural” that Chun and Roh should be imprisoned, as “we can never forgive them, when you think of all the people who were sacrificed.”

What is unfolding is nothing less than a rewriting of South Korea’s modern history, with onetime leaders now disgraced as murderers, and criminals transformed into heroes, said Chon Kye Ryang, a former navy officer who lost a son in the crackdown, then served for a decade as head of Kwangju’s Bereaved Families Assn.

“Reassessment of history means that what was written wrongly in the textbooks should be corrected, so that future generations can have the right perception of the past,” Chon said. “Without clarifying past wrongs, we cannot know the right path for the future.”

This task, he said, is just beginning.

*

The Kwangju uprising was an idealistic outpouring of support for democracy. It also was a protest against Chun’s seizure of power and the May 17, 1980, arrest of leading opposition politicians, including the Kwangju region’s favorite son, Kim Dae Jung.

But most of all, Chon said, it was the spontaneous response of the people of Kwangju to the extraordinary brutality of paratroopers sent into the city in the predawn hours of May 18. That aggressive move by the military clique headed by Chun was apparently intended to frighten troublesome student protesters into staying quiet.

It backfired.

Trouble began when students arrived at Chonnam University on May 18 to find paratroopers guarding the gates, Chon said. Minor clashes erupted, and some students were beaten by soldiers.

“More students gathered, and they were severely beaten and even stabbed” with bayonets, Chon said. Soon soldiers had spread through the town, grabbing, beating and bayoneting young men and high school boys--even if they were not participating in protests, he said.

“The streets everywhere were stained with the blood of young people,” Chon said. “It was later revealed that the soldiers were forced to go without food and then were given alcohol or drugs. They were not human beings. Some Kwangju people honestly believed they were North Korean soldiers in South Korean uniforms. Otherwise, how could our own army do such brutal acts to Kwangju citizens?”

The clash became more murderous, and by May 21, Chon said, “the emotion was: ‘Let’s all go out and die together. We’ll either die being beaten by them or we’ll die fighting them.’ ”

As a navy officer, Chon did not join the protests. His wife tried to stop their son, Young Jin, 17, from leaving home that day.

“He said: ‘The country is calling me. I have to obey.’ And then he left,” Chon recalled.

The next day, after citizens drove the soldiers out of Kwangju, Chon found his son’s body at a hospital, a bullet through his head. Five days later, Kwangju fell to a lightning army assault.

Many in Kwangju believe that the death toll in the 10 days was close to 1,000. One of their demands now is for an accurate accounting. But whether this will be seriously pursued remains uncertain. For while President Kim has gained popularity by turning against his predecessors, the issues involved remain explosive for him and the nation.

It is not just Chun and Roh who are threatened by disclosures. All who collaborated with them also face danger, at least to their reputations, if not to their wealth and freedom.

*

In a statement Tuesday, on the 16th anniversary of the 1979 mutiny that launched Chun on the road to power, Kim, whose own political roots lie in the struggle for democracy, said he had initially tried “to forgive those who committed wrongs.”

But after the late-October revelation that former President Roh had accumulated a $653-million slush fund, Kim said, he decided that he could no longer overlook Chun’s and Roh’s acts--even for national reconciliation.

“Righting the wrongs of history is, indeed, a revolution to restore our honor and regain our self-esteem,” Kim declared.

Yet here in Kwangju, many question whether Kim is committed to this goal or can even carry it out. This skepticism may be the only point on which the people of Kwangju agree with Chun, who declared in a defiant statement before his Dec. 3 arrest for the mutiny: “If I am a chieftain of treason, President Kim should also bear appropriate responsibility for having cooperated with insurrectionists.”

Kim’s position is uneasy because he came to power in 1993 as the candidate of a ruling party formed in 1990 by the merger of his opposition group with the party of Roh and Chun, plus another opposition group. A full exposure of the past, thus, might undercut pillars of this nation’s power structure. That could bring South Korea closer to real democracy but also carries a risk of economic setbacks or even new tragedies.

The recent bribery indictments of eight business tycoons--with the arrest of only one--in the slush-fund scandal show the far-reaching nature of the problem and Kim’s caution in dealing with it.

Kim’s party, which last week renamed itself the New Korea Party, still contains many members who served in high positions under the now-jailed former presidents. Some have refused to support Kim’s plan later this month to pass a “May 18th” law allowing Chun and Roh to be punished for the Kwangju massacre. The dispute could split the ruling party.

Chon said he believes that Kim may have ordered such a law drafted to take the issue away from opposition leader Kim Dae Jung. Calling for an investigation of the Kwangju incident and punishment of those responsible has long been the opposition chief’s “greatest weapon,” Chon said.

The suspicion that those responsible for the massacre will escape real punishment is fueled by the mystery, years later, about what really happened at Kwangju and how many died there.

*

In the most recent government figures, released last month by prosecutors investigating the incident, the government reported that 166 civilians, 23 soldiers and four police died in the clash; 47 more people remain missing and presumed dead.

The belief that far more died--and, thus, that the crime of Chun and his cohorts was even more heinous--is based on several sources.

One is Kwangju city death statistics, which caused a sensation in 1988 when they were disclosed in parliament by an opposition legislator. From 1976 to 1983, 45 people on average died of tuberculosis each year. But in 1980, 592 tuberculosis deaths were reported. Sudden, unnatural deaths averaged 151 per year from 1976 to 1978; statistics for 1979--printed late, in the next year--showed 1,238 such deaths; the 1980 figures in this category recorded 1,261 deaths.

National authorities blamed the figures on a staff mistake. And while the numbers can be taken to suggest that attempts were made to hide the cause of as many as 2,750 deaths, few people in Kwangju today argue that the massacre toll was that high.

Instead, a figure of 1,000 dead seems reasonable to many.

Kwangju activists explain how this could be: In an earlier government investigation, 100 more people were reported missing, but families could not provide evidence to win official recognition that these were massacre-related deaths. This alone suggests the toll was at least 340.

Then, there were 200 or so homeless trash collectors, shoeshine boys and petty hoodlums in Kwangju before the uprising; almost all joined the confrontation enthusiastically, residents say. Afterward, they all were gone--but few had family to report them missing. Similarly, the fate of more than 100 boys at a correctional center is unclear.

If most of these people died, as some suspect, and if at least 300 Kwangju families saw no point in reporting the missing to previous military-backed governments, the toll could easily be 1,000 or so, as activists insist. A serious new investigation and fresh atmosphere could clear up doubts.

“The complaint in Kwangju about Kim Young Sam is that his sincerity in ordering an investigation is questionable,” said Chung Dong Ryon, chairman of the May 18th Kwangju People’s Resistance Alliance. “If he is not determined to find out the whole truth, then it is better not to start at all. Once he goes through the motions of investigating and covers it up, it will be very difficult to raise this issue again.”

*

Doubts are also fueled by persistent rumors of mass burial sites. Chon, former chairman of the Bereaved Families Assn., said his group began hearing many reports of such sites in the early 1980s.

But those initial sightings could not be confirmed, Chon said, adding: “There would be reports of bodies, and we would go and there was already a new house built on it or a new highway. Wherever we went, something had already been built on the site. . . .

“People are forgetting that during the years of Chun Doo Hwan’s authoritarian rule, they did everything they could to destroy evidence.”

For Kwangju city spokesman Choi Hyon Ju, setting the record straight is a moral matter. And the arrests of Chun and Roh were a key step.

“During the past 15 years, the truth was not known,” he said. “On top of the agonies and pains of the victims, they were forced to remain silent, and their names were marked ‘rebels.’ Kwangju citizens endured the reputation of being radical, extreme, confrontational, because the media sided with the dictatorial government. Chun and Roh seemed to be such immovable rocks, and suddenly they crumbled.

“What seemed unbeatable has been beaten.”

Chi Jung Nam of The Times’ Seoul Bureau contributed to this report.

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BACKGROUND

* The Kwangju incident runs deep in South Korean history:

* Chun Doo Hwan, 64, a former general, was president of South Korea from 1980 to 1988.

* Roh Tae Woo, 63, also a former general, was president from 1988 to 1993.

Chun took control of the South Korean army with a 1979 mutiny, backed by Roh. He assumed control of the government in May 1980 by declaring martial law, arresting opposition politicians and crushing a pro-democracy uprising in the southwestern city of Kwangju. At least 240 died there, by government count, but many in the city estimate the toll at 1,000.