Serving Democracy Also Serves Himself, Kim Finds : Asia: South Korean president’s political fortunes rise as he presides over the downfall of two of his predecessors.

When President Kim Young Sam ran for office in 1992, he quoted a Korean proverb to explain why he was the candidate of a party linked to military-backed regimes: “To catch a tiger, you must enter the tiger’s den.”

Kim’s burning ambition to be president was known to everyone in South Korea, and his words were taken as an admission that for him, that goal was worth almost any price--even the tarnishing of his credentials as a longtime fighter for democracy.

“We thought what was meant by his analogy was that the tiger actually means political power,” recalled Han Sang Jin, a political scientist at Seoul National University. “The typical interpretation was that Kim Young Sam wanted power, and to get power he needed to jump into the enemy camp.”

But Kim’s extraordinary actions over the past two months, in which he has turned ferociously against the two former generals who preceded him in office, have given the tiger-hunting proverb a whole new meaning.

Kim, 68, had prosecutors throw former President Roh Tae Woo in jail on bribery charges in mid-November, a few weeks after Roh tearfully confessed to having accumulated a $653-million slush fund while in office. Then Kim had former President Chun Doo Hwan arrested early this month for a 1979 mutiny that catapulted the hard-line general to power the next year.

Both men, who engaged in brutal suppression of dissent, were indicted in connection with the mutiny last week.

Kim “had been waiting many years, I think, to catch this right moment,” said Lee Bu Young, an opposition Democratic Party legislator. “So in every action he takes, we can detect a sly politician.”

Kim’s tough actions came despite the 1990 merger of his opposition group with the ruling party of then-President Roh and former President Chun--a move he defended at the time as a “grand decision” for national reconciliation. The party formed out of that merger remains the ruling party, although it was renamed the New Korea Party this month.

Kim skillfully picked “the right time to hunt down the tigers,” opposition legislator Lee said. “When the slush funds were disclosed, all the mass media reported how corrupt and vicious the Roh Tae Woo and Chun Doo Hwan regimes were. Then, the Chun Doo Hwan and Roh Tae Woo cliques were isolated from the people.”

It was only at that point, in late November, that Kim launched a probe of Chun’s 1979 mutiny, which Roh had backed, and of the bloody suppression of a May 1980 civilian uprising in the southwestern city of Kwangju, in which Chun crushed opposition to his power.

Kim previously had insisted that judgments on these events should be left to historians. But Roh’s slush-fund confession--itself prompted by Kim-initiated reforms that made it harder to hide illicit money--created new circumstances.

Suddenly the demands of democratization and the president’s political self-interest overlapped almost perfectly.

That makes it virtually impossible to sort out Kim’s true motives.

But it produced a historic opportunity to try to break this nation loose from the dictatorship and corruption of the past and lay a firmer basis for democracy.

“To me, he is our country’s Abraham Lincoln,” a business executive said of Kim, noting that the U.S. president was chastised by many of his contemporaries for waging a civil war and sending huge numbers of Americans to their deaths.

“No one complains now about Abraham Lincoln’s cause,” the executive said. “The fact that critics are correct doesn’t mean the cause of the main actor is nullified. . . . [Kim] went into the tiger’s cave to catch a tiger. The question is: ‘Is it fair? Does it taint his morality? Does the goal justify the means?’ In this case, I think it does.”

Kim clearly sees himself in heroic terms.

“We had to live through the pain, sorrow and frustration of the oppression of military dictatorship for more than 30 years,” he said in a mid-December statement to the nation. “We remember vividly that countless citizens had to pay painful sacrifices to win freedom of the press and bring democracy to this country. In the process, I myself suffered enormous persecution and endured indescribable insults and pain.”

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To move forward, South Korea must “firmly guard the democracy we have won at the cost of our blood, sweat and tears, by bravely liquidating the vestiges of militarism and exorcising the ghost of the coup d’etat,” Kim said. “I have taken the lead. For these tasks to be accomplished, however, every single one of you will have to join me.”

Born Dec. 20, 1927, to a prosperous family that owned a fleet of fishing boats, Kim has worn ambition on his sleeve since his school days. One of the most famous stories about his youth is that in high school, he hung calligraphy on the wall of his lodging-house room proclaiming “Future President Kim Young Sam.”

Kim moved on to Seoul National University, the nation’s top school, where he majored in philosophy with a minor in political science. He was elected to the National Assembly in 1954 at age 26. He broke with the then-ruling Liberal Party six months later and was an opposition leader for the next 36 years, until his 1990 jump into the ruling camp.

He was jailed for a month after Park Chung Hee took power in a 1961 coup. But Kim was elected to the National Assembly again in 1963 after a ban on his political activities was lifted.

In 1969, while he was opposing a bid by Park to rewrite the constitution to allow the president a third term in power, unidentified assailants made an attempt on his life.

Trouble came again on May 17, 1980, when Chun moved to expand his power from control of the army to control of the entire government. Nationwide martial law was declared, several opposition leaders were jailed, and Kim was briefly placed under house arrest.

Kim was confined to house arrest again in 1982, this time for about two years. In May and June of 1983, he staged a 23-day hunger strike that helped revitalize the country’s democracy movement.

Elections for Chun’s successor were held in 1987. But Kim and Kim Dae Jung--his longtime colleague and rival within the pro-democracy camp--both ran for president, thereby splitting the opposition vote and allowing Roh to win. The resulting bitterness between the two Kims has never been patched up and continues to affect South Korean politics.

Against this background, it came as a shock to many South Koreans when Kim suddenly merged his party with Roh’s party and another opposition group in 1990. Among those who were bitterly disappointed was Pae Eun Shim, the mother of a Yonsei University student, Lee Han Yol, who was killed in a 1987 anti-Chun protest in Seoul when he was hit in the head by shrapnel from a tear gas canister.

Lee’s death marked a milestone in the nation’s movement toward democracy, with news reports estimating that 1 million people lined the streets of Seoul to watch his funeral procession.

“I lost confidence in Kim Young Sam the day he merged the three parties,” Pae said in a recent interview. “When the funeral ceremony of my son was held, about 1 million people turned out. From Yonsei University to City Hall there was a march, and in the front of the parade were Kim Dae Jung, Kim Young Sam, myself and religious leaders. I was comforted by the fact that these democratic leaders would forever stand by my side, fighting for the country, to make the death of my son and others meaningful.

“But Kim Young Sam joined with those people he had pledged to fight to the end. I felt so betrayed. I felt that my son and others like him had died and been deceived.”

Kim’s critics among former dissidents and pro-democracy activists say he still cannot be trusted to take firm action against the military men who trampled South Korea’s democratic hopes in the 1980s. There also are some who worry that the key target of his steps the past two months may actually be Kim Dae Jung, his longtime rival.

Kim Dae Jung, 70, leader of the main opposition National Congress for New Politics, might be a strong candidate to be Kim Young Sam’s successor in 1998. But the president wants the office to go to someone from a younger generation--preferably a politician of his own choosing.

Revelation of Roh’s slush fund prompted Kim Dae Jung to confess that he himself received $2.6 million from Roh during his unsuccessful 1992 presidential campaign. But Kim Dae Jung also charges that Kim Young Sam received $390 million from Roh for his campaign. The president has denied receiving any campaign money directly from Roh.

The president’s strongest supporters say criticisms of him miss the point.

“In the past, people who opposed the government were arrested by the intelligence authorities and were tortured in the basement of that organization, but we do not hear anything like that now,” said Park Kwan Yong, a former chief of staff to Kim. “We are enjoying freedom of press in this country. The political neutrality of the military has been firmly established, and we have introduced a local election system. . . .

“After more than 30 years of struggle for democracy, a firm basis of democratic politics has now been introduced in Korea. This is the major achievement of the Kim Young Sam presidency.”

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Still, many of those associated with Chun and Roh see the president as unfairly harsh on his predecessors and disloyal to those from Roh’s camp who helped Kim win office and thereby played a role in the country’s democratization.

A phrase--”getting boiled”--has even become popular to describe the fate of those from the Roh camp who supported Kim’s election in 1992 but now find themselves facing political destruction because of his drive against corruption and the vestiges of military rule. There already have been several such cases, and more are expected.

The phrase originated in 1993, when former National Assembly Speaker Kim Jae Soon announced his retirement from parliament after his reputation was damaged by a law requiring public servants to make their assets public. He quoted a proverb that originated in China, where, as in Korea, dog meat is a traditional delicacy: “After the rabbit is caught, the hunting dog gets boiled.”

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