South Korea’s first president, Syngman Rhee,
lasted until 1960. By then the old autocrat had
lost his grip and was forced to bow out after
student-led riots in April of that year, protesting
against corruption and election fraud. There was
a brief hope that the politicians might create at
least the semblance of civilian, democratic gov-
ernment. After some months of turmoil, in May
1961 the military stepped in and a junta led by
Major-General Park Chung Hee took control.
His repressive military-police regime allowed just
enough leeway in the 1970s for political activity
to function sporadically. But, whenever such
activities threatened to become too assertive or
violent, Park reimposed rigid control by emer-
gency decree, arresting opposition politicians and
suspending civil rights. Suppression would be fol-
lowed by a measure of liberalisation, as long as it
did not threaten military power. Korea’s chief of
intelligence assassinated him in October 1979. A
civilian president was tolerated for nine months
but the military remained the real power in the
land.
In 1980 a new general took over, General
Chun Doo-Hwan, who was no less determined to
keep the opposition under firm control than Park.
The 1980s, like the 1970s, were plagued by peri-
odic demonstrations and riots answered by police
truncheons, firearms and torture. The killings in
the riotous town of Kwangju in May 1980, when
hundreds lost their lives, were just the worst of
these. But Korea’s rapid industrial development
made it desirable to create a better image in the
West. The opposition was again allowed a degree
of activity, political prisoners were released, and
the most prominent opposition leaders, Kim Dae-
Jung and Kim Young, were from time to time
freed from house arrest and allowed to campaign.
In 1987, on the eve of the Olympics, a relatively
free presidential election was held. The general’s
nominee, Roh Tae-Woo, won, but the opposition
would have succeeded instead had they been able
to close ranks behind a single candidate. Without
full democracy it is difficult, if not impossible, for
political parties and institutions to develop, which
are necessary for democracy to function. So South
Korean politics were caught in a vicious circle.
Roh Tae-Woo was prepared to allow a wider
margin of political freedom than his predecessors.
In May 1990 the opposition was strengthened
and gained a majority in the National Assembly
when two opposition parties combined. The well-
known dissident Kim Young Sam, leader of the
Liberal Democratic Party, was elected president
in December 1992. He took office in February
1993, the first civilian president in 32 years.
The dichotomy between political backward-
ness and economic modernisation had been
a characteristic since 1962. For the ordinary
Korean, politics took second place to material
welfare, which so rapidly increased for the major-
ity of the people. Opposition politics and violent
demonstrations were for the young and for the
minority of political activists, not for the major-
ity. For those who did not actively oppose, there
was not only far greater prosperity but also
greater freedom in the South. The influence of
the generals receded, and the president tackled
corruption; democratisation made some headway.
In the North, nothing much was to change until
Kim Il Sung died in 1992 and was succeeded by
his son the ‘dear leader’.
By the 1990s the reunification of Korea had
for long been one of the demands of the radical
opposition. All politicians in the South were in
favour of it; it was the official policy, and visits of
government delegations from the North and the
South were exchanged in 1990 and in 1991. In
December 1991 the communist North and the
capitalist South at their fifth meeting signed a
non-aggression pact. The meetings continued in
- North Korea was working towards the
manufacture of nuclear weapons. The Americans
withdrew their army from the South, so President
Roh’s prime interest was to stop the North from
making its own bomb. The whole of Korea,
according to the wishes of the South, of Japan
and of the US, should be free of nuclear weapons.
South Korean enthusiasm for merger with the
North was at its height when Germany reunified
in 1989, but it waned in the light of German
experience. The population of the North with its
low standard of living is far greater proportion-
ately to the South’s than East Germany’s was to
its well-off Western cousins. The Korean statistics
bring out this contrast very sharply.
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