S. Korea’s Kim Solemn, Hopeful at Inauguration

Calling for “a small but effective government,” longtime dissident Kim Dae Jung was inaugurated as president of South Korea today in a ceremony full of the symbolism of the era of reconciliation and global integration he has promised this nation.

Drummers thumped a joyful beat, and napal trumpets wailed. Dancers in ancient court costumes waved pastel banners, and a folk chorus serenaded the audience of about 40,000. But there was also a pop performance of “Dance with DJ,” the 74-year-old president’s campaign song, and the Seoul Municipal Chorus’ rendition of “Bridge Over Troubled Water.”

Four former South Korean presidents--including the disgraced Chun Doo Hwan and Roh Tae Woo, who were released from their prison cells just before Christmas--left the plaza near the National Assembly building to the strains of “Pomp and Circumstance.”

In his inaugural address, Kim offered to hold a summit with hostile North Korea. In a demonstration of his resolve to heal the peninsula’s rift, the soils and waters of every Korean province--including the Northern ones--were solemnly commingled.

“The Cold War-style South-North relations, which have not allowed members of separated families, for over half a century, to ascertain even whether their own parents and brothers and sisters were alive or dead, let alone carry on dialogue and exchanges, must end as soon as possible,” Kim said. “I cannot but feel boundless shame before our ancestors, who maintained one unified country for more than 1,300 years.”

Kim vowed that South Korea will neither tolerate armed provocation from nor attempt to undermine or absorb North Korea. Despite the South’s economic troubles, he said, Seoul will honor its commitment to build nuclear power reactors for the North and will not be parsimonious with food aid to its hungry neighbor.

In almost four decades as a fiery opposition leader, Kim built a reputation as a gifted orator who never employed a speech writer.

But in deference to the presidential schedule--he has, in effect, been running South Korea since his Dec. 18 election--as well as to defuse concerns that his habit of micro-management could prove disastrous in his new job, Kim set up a 15-member committee of scholars and politicians to draft his inaugural address. They presented him with a 20-minute speech they thought was “presidential” and “inspirational”--only to have it rewritten by the president-elect, who decided South Koreans were fed up with rhetoric and would prefer a more practical elaboration of the new president’s policies.

“I argued with him for about three or four hours, but I lost,” Chung Tae Chul, chairman of the speech-writing panel, said with a guffaw of approval.

The streets of Seoul were calm today, with no sign of the panic and frenzy that seized South Korea in November and December, when the currency and stock markets went into free fall, the nation turned to the International Monetary Fund for a bailout just days ahead of default on massive foreign debt, and frightened shoppers cleaned out supermarket shelves.

Kim has been applauded at home and abroad for his moves to stabilize the country and embark on the IMF-mandated reforms--but his inner circle worries about public complacency. “The real pain has yet to be felt,” You Jong Keun, Kim’s chief economic advisor, warned Tuesday. “I’m afraid the Korean people are losing the sense of urgency they had two months ago.”

South Korean companies have an estimated $20 billion in foreign debts and $11.5 billion more in exposure to Indonesia’s plummeting economy, You said. A deal struck with international creditors has only bought a bit of time for reform, and as the downsizing begins, 1 million or more people are expected to be thrown out of work in the next year.

Kim’s inaugural address offered no magic solutions for “the most serious national crisis since the Korean War.” He said South Korea finds itself in a “stupefying situation.” Pointedly defusing any anti-IMF, anti-foreign sentiment, he noted that South Korea is “barely escaping from catastrophe” thanks only to the efforts of its citizens and its friends, including the United States, Japan, Canada, Australia and the European Union, as well as the IMF, the World Bank and the Asia Development Bank.

His voice broke as he read the list of those who had helped his country.

“Consumer prices and unemployment will rise this year,” he said. “Incomes will drop, and an increasing number of companies will go bankrupt. All of us are being asked to shed sweat and tears.”

But he noted that South Koreans have shown “amazing patriotism and resilience,” including turning in $2 billion worth of gold to help shore up the ailing currency. Many volunteers refused any compensation in won, the South Korean currency, for the gold coins, jewelry and heirlooms, which they continue to haul into local banks. “I am boundlessly proud of your patriotism, which is more precious than the gold itself,” Kim said.

He appealed for cooperation from the opposition, which holds a majority in parliament and which has declared that it will vote down Kim’s nominee for prime minister, the conservative Kim Jong Pil, later today.

“I will consult with you on all issues,” Kim promised his opponents. “You, in return, must help me, if only for one year--this year--when the nation is standing on the brink of disaster. I believe my wishes are shared by all citizens.”

If the opposition does muster the votes to reject Kim Jong Pil, to whom Kim Dae Jung publicly promised the job in the campaign, aides fear the new president will lose face and political clout on his first day in office.

Having survived prison, exile, house arrest, a kidnapping and assassination attempts by South Korea’s former military dictators, Kim vowed to pursue economic development and political reform in tandem.

“When democracy and a market economy develop together in harmony, there cannot be unsavory collusion between politics and business, government-directed financing or irregularities and corruption,” he said, arguing that it was a dearth of democracy, public accountability and clarity in the system that brought on the current economic disaster.

Kim also promised to:

* Revamp education, reforming the university entrance exam system and putting computers in primary schools.

* Embrace foreign investment.

* Pursue a policy of collective security, including reinforcing the military partnership with the United States.

* Globalize Korean culture.

* Spur technological development.

But while Kim planned to spend the rest of inauguration day feting foreign and domestic dignitaries, well-wishers and such visiting celebrities as pop star Michael Jackson, his Ministry of Culture was scheduled to attend to the most ancient Korean matters of state.

Last November, while cleaning out a pond at Kyongbok Palace in Seoul, former residence of the Korean kings, officials fished out a large bronze dragon, almost 5 feet long. It is thought to have been placed there in 1865 by the court of King Kojong. According to the Munhwa newspaper, latter-day geomancers believe that because the dragon symbolizes the power of the Korean king, its removal from the pond triggered a national disaster--presumably the advent of the IMF.

An exact replica of the dragon has been made, and a spokesman for the Ministry of Culture said that, as is always the case with such artifacts, the copy will be put back where the dragon was found, while the original will be sent to a museum. “The good luck thing is just shamanism and folk talk,” the spokesman said. “We’re doing this for cultural preservation reasons.”

Just in case, though, the dragon replica will go back in the pond at 1 p.m. on Kim Dae Jung’s inauguration day.