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South Korea Seoul's Responses
The pre-Korean War period was marked by political turmoil and
widespread demands for sweeping political, economic, and social
change. As the communists entrenched themselves in the north and
right-of-center politicians emerged in control in the south, the
possibility for peaceful unification of the peninsula
disappeared. In the autumn of 1946, a series of unorchestrated
leftist-led labor strikes and rural peasant rebellions were
suppressed by the fledgling Korean National Police after some
1,000 deaths and 30,000 arrests. The communist South Korean
Workers' Party led a partly indigenous guerrilla movement in the
south after a major rebellion on Cheju Island in April 1948 that
claimed tens of thousands of lives. South Korea's military and
paramilitary forces were beset by mutinies and defections but
eventually gained the upper hand. In reaction to the communist-
based Yosu-Sunch'on rebellion of October 1948, a harsh national
security law was passed in December 1949 that made communism a
crime. However, the law was so comprehensive and vague that it
could be used against any opposition group. Under the law,
members of the South Korean Workers' Party were arrested and some
150,000 persons were barred from political activity. Guerrilla
warfare continued until the end of 1949, coupled with skirmishing
along the thirty-eighth parallel. North Korea's conventional
attack followed when it became clear that the insurgents would
not triumph easily.
Recollection of this chaotic period and the invasion from
North Korea colored subsequent South Korean government attitudes
toward internal security. Domestic opposition, especially from
the left, was suspect. President Syngman Rhee's call for national
unity provided political justification for limiting the
activities of the opposition during the 1950s. Although the
regime did not suppress all opposition or independent sources of
information, it suppressed some organized opposition and
criticism
(see The Media
, ch. 4).
In the late 1950s, as Rhee became more authoritarian, the
government increasingly resorted to using the police force and to
a lesser extent, the military security forces, for political
purposes. The Ministry of Home Affairs, whose charter ranged from
intelligence and investigative operations to supervision of local
and provincial affairs, emerged as a powerful political force.
The police, with a strong core of veterans from the Japanese
colonial police (approximately 70 percent of the highest ranking
officers, 40 percent of the inspectors, and 15 percent of the
lieutenants), was both effective and feared. The police used
strong-arm tactics to coerce support for the ruling party during
elections and harassed the political opposition. The prerogative
of the police to call in anyone for questioning was a powerful
tool of intimidation. These circumstances inevitably led to
police corruption, politicized law enforcement, and exploitation
of the populace in the name of internal security. Rhee's
political survival became more and more dependent on the police.
When police control wavered at the time of the April 19 student
revolution in April 1960, his regime fell.
The short-lived Chang Myon government (July 1960 to May 1961)
did not survive long enough to articulate an internal security
policy but was committed to a more open political system.
However, because of internal conflict within the ruling party and
the obstructions of the conservative opposition, society was in a
state of political and social turmoil.
Following the May 16, 1961, military coup, the Korean Central
Intelligence Agency (KCIA) was formed on June 19. Directly under
the control of the Supreme Council for National Reconstruction,
the KCIA, with nearly unlimited power, emerged as the
organization most feared during the Park Chung Hee era. Under Kim
Chong-p'il's direction, the organization weeded out anti-Park
elements and became the prime tool keeping the regime in power.
Under Park, the lack of advancement in civil liberties
continued to be justified by referring to the threat from North
Korea. The political influence of the Ministry of Home Affairs
and the police declined in the face of the KCIA's power. The
relationship between the police and general public, however, was
not significantly altered. As Se-Jin Kim wrote in 1971: "The
former still act with arbitrary arrogance; the latter respond
with fear but not respect."
The government often used martial law or garrison decree in
response to political unrest. From 1961 to 1979, martial law or a
variant was evoked eight times. The October 15, 1971, garrison
decree, for example, was triggered by student protests and
resulted in the arrest of almost 2,000 students. A year later, on
October 17, 1972, Park proclaimed martial law, disbanded the
National Assembly, and placed many opposition leaders under
arrest
(see
The 1980 Constitution;
Human Rights
, ch. 4). In November the
yusin constitution (yusin means revitalization),
which greatly increased presidential power, was ratified by
referendum under martial law.
The government grew even more authoritarian, governing by
presidential emergency decrees in the immediate aftermath of the
establishment of the yusin constitution; nine emergency
decrees were declared between January 1974 and May 1975. The Park
regime strengthened the originally draconian National Security
Act of 1960 and added an even more prohibitive Anticommunism Law.
Under those two laws and Emergency Measure Number Nine, any kind
of antigovernment activity, including critical speeches and
writings, was open to interpretation as a criminal act of
"sympathizing with communism or communists" or "aiding
antigovernment organizations." Political intimidation, arbitrary
arrests, preventive detention, and brutal treatment of prisoners
were not uncommon.
Opposition to the government and its harsh measures increased
as the economy worsened in 1979. Scattered labor unrest and the
government's repressive reactions sparked widespread public
dissent: mass resignation of the opposition membership in the
National Assembly and student and labor riots in Pusan, Masan,
and Ch'angwon. The government declared martial law in the cities.
In this charged atmosphere, under circumstances that appeared
related to dissatisfaction with Park's handling of the unrest, on
October 26, 1979, KCIA chief Kim Chae-gyu killed Park and the
chief of the Presidential Security Force, Ch'a Chi-ch'ol, and
then was himself arrested. Emergency martial law was immediately
declared to deal with the crisis, placing the head of the Defense
Security Command, Major General Chun Doo Hwan, in a position of
considerable military and political power.
Popular demand for the restoration of civil liberties after
Park's death was immediate and widespread. Acting President Ch'oe
Kyu-ha revoked Emergency Measure Number Nine, which had forbidden
criticism of the government and the yusin constitution.
Civil rights were restored to almost 700 people convicted under
the emergency decrees. The illegitimacy of the yusin
constitution was acknowledged, and the process of constitutional
revision begun.
The slow pace of reform led to growing popular unrest. In
early May 1980, student demonstrators protested a variety of
political and social issues, including the government's failure
to lift emergency martial law imposed following Park's
assassination. The student protests spilled into the streets,
reaching their peak during May 13 to 16, at which time the
student leaders obtained a promise that the government would
attempt to speed up reform. The military's response, however, was
political intervention led by Lieutenant General Chun Doo Hwan,
then KCIA chief and army chief of staff. Chun, who had forced the
resignation of Ch'oe's cabinet, banned political activities,
assemblies, and rallies, and arrested many ruling and opposition
politicians.
In Kwangju, demonstrations to protest the extension of
martial law and the arrest of Kim Dae Jung turned into rebellion
as demonstrators reacted to the brutal tactics of the Special
Forces sent to the city. The government did not regain control of
the city for nine days, after some 200 deaths.
General Chun Doo Hwan, as chairman of the standing committee
of the Special Committee for National Security Measures (SCNSM),
assumed de facto leadership of the country. The pronouncement of
martial law announced as a result of Park's assassination
remained in effect until January 24, 1981. Under the Special
Committee for National Security Measures and the Legislative
Council for National Security that replaced it, sweeping
political controls were instituted. Established political parties
were disbanded and over 800 people banned from politics; the
media were restructured, many journals were abolished, and
hundreds of journalists were purged; some 8,000 employees were
purged from government or government-controlled companies and
some 37,000 people were arrested and "re-educated" in military
training camps under the Social Purification Campaign; and
military court jurisdiction was extended to such civilian
offenses as corruption and participation in antigovernment
demonstrations. The new National Assembly Law and the amended
National Security Act (which was rewritten to incorporate
elements of the 1961 Anticommunist Law) also were passed. On
January 10, 1981, the Martial Law Command allowed people to
resume limited political activities in preparation for the
presidential election.
The Fifth Republic's constitution marked significant progress
from the yusin constitution. As implemented by the newly
elected Chun government, however, it fell far short of popular
expectations of democraticization that had been raised after
Park's death. The constitution was attacked by students and
dissidents as Park's yusin system under new trappings. The
government attempted to defuse discontent by "decompression" as
well as repression, gradually returning civil rights to those
banned in 1980. Additionally, the government opened up the
political system slightly in 1983 and to a greater degree in
1985, although the dissident movement continued.
Discontent was kept under control until 1987 by the regime's
extensive security services--particularly the Agency for National
Security Planning (ANSP, the renamed KCIA), the Defense Security
Command (DSC), and the Combat Police of the Korean National
Police (KNP). Both the civilian ANSP and the military DSC not
only collected domestic intelligence but also continued
"intelligence politics."
The Act Concerning Assembly and Demonstration was used to
limit the expression of political opposition by prohibiting
assemblies likely to "undermine" public order. Advanced police
notification of all demonstrations was required. Violation
carried a maximum sentence of seven years' imprisonment or a
fine. Most peaceful nonpolitical assemblies took place without
government interference. However, the act was the most frequently
used tool to control political activity in the Fifth Republic,
and the Chun regime was responsible for over 84 percent of the
6,701 investigations pursued under the act.
The security presence in city centers, near university
campuses, government and party offices, and media centers was
heavy. Citizens, particularly students and young people, were
subject to being stopped, questioned, and searched without due
process. The typical response to demonstrations was disruption by
large numbers of Combat Police, short-term mass detention of
demonstrators, and selective prosecution of the organizers.
Arrest warrants--required by law--were not always produced at the
time of arrest in political cases.
The National Security Act increasingly was used after 1985 to
suppress domestic dissent. Intended to restrict "antistate
activities endangering the safety of the state and the lives and
freedom of the citizenry," the act also was used to control and
punish nonviolent domestic dissent. Its broad definition of
offenses allowed enforcement over the widest range, wider than
that of any other politically relevant law in South Korea. Along
with other politically relevant laws such as the Social Safety
Act and the Act Concerning Crimes Against the State, it weakened
or removed procedural protection available to defendants in
nonpolitical cases.
Questioning by the security services often involved not only
psychological or physical abuse, but outright torture. The 1987
torture and death of Pak Chong-ch'ol, a student at Seoul National
University being questioned as to the whereabouts of a classmate,
played a decisive role in galvanizing public opposition to the
government's repressive tactics.
The security services not only detained those accused of
violating laws governing political dissent, but also put under
various lesser forms of detention--including house arrest--those
people, including opposition politicians, who they thought
intended to violate the laws. Many political, religious, and
other dissidents were subjected to surveillance by government
agents. Opposition assembly members later charged in the National
Assembly that telephone tapping and the interception of
correspondence were prevalent. Ruling party assembly members,
government officials, and senior military officials probably also
were subjected to this interferencal though they did not openly
complain.
Listening to North Korean radio stations remained illegal in
1990 if it were judged to be for the purpose of "benefiting the
antistate organization" (North Korea). Similarly, books or other
literature considered subversive, procommunist, or pro-North
Korean were illegal; authors, publishers, printers, and
distributors of such material were subject to arrest.
Use of tear gas by the police (over 260,000 tear gas shells
were used in 1987 to quell demonstrations) increasingly was
criticized; the criticism eventually resulted in legal
restrictions on tear gas use in 1989. The government continued,
however, to block many "illegal" gatherings organized by
dissidents that were judged to incite "social unrest." In 1988
government statistics noted 6,552 rallies involving 1.7 million
people. There were 2.2 million people who had particiated in
6,791 demonstrations in 1989.
Data as of June 1990
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