Watershed in Massacre Case : Charging of two ex-presidents is historic turn for S. Korean justice system

If the 1980 Kwangju massacre was a watershed in the history of South Korea’s repressive military rule, then certainly this week’s decision by Kim Young Sam’s government to prosecute two former presidents for their roles in that atrocity is a watershed in the long quest to bring to justice those responsible.

Chun Doo Hwan, who presided over a military-backed regime from 1980 to 1988, has been charged with sedition for his part in brutally quashing a pro-democracy demonstration in the southwestern provincial capital of Kwangju. At least 240 people who were protesting the imposition of martial law are known to have been shot or beaten to death over a 10-day period. Most Koreans believe the death toll was far higher.

Roh Tae Woo, Chun’s handpicked successor and, like Chun, a general at the time of the massacre, has also been indicted for insurrection. Both had previously been arrested and charged with corruption in office and with taking part in the 1979 mutiny that clamped more than a dozen years of rigid military rule on the country of 45 million. In addition, six other ex-generals have been indicted, and four members of the National Assembly face charges as soon as the current session is over and their immunity from arrest ends.

President Kim, who is barred from running for a second five-year term next year, has said he wants to “right the wrongs of history” by identifying and prosecuting those who abused human rights and harassed and intimidated political opponents during the 1980s. With free elections and a more independent and critical press, South Korea has made a strong start toward institutionalizing its new democracy. The prosecutions of Chun, Roh and others also aim at setting an unmistakable legal standard by which potential future wrongdoers could be, if not deterred, at least judged.

The Kwangju massacre remains a deep wound in the Korean body politic. The imperative now is not simply to put on trial those who caused it but to expose every knowable fact related to that crime so the wound may at last be healed.