South Korea: Scrapping a Blacklist

President Chun Doo Hwan last week abolished a four-year-old blacklist under which 14 leading South Korean opposition figures were banned from political activity. Among them were the country’s two most important dissident leaders, Kim Young Sam, 57, and Kim Dae Jung, 60. The President’s move freed the latter – Kim from the house arrest imposed after his return last month from exile in the U.S. But because Kim has 17 1/2 years left on a suspended 20-year sentence for sedition, he remains prohibited from engaging in politics. Thus Kim Young Sam may well outpace him as the future leader of the opposition, unless Chun chooses to undo the sedition verdict. For now the President seems unwilling to go that far or to agree to a call by the two Kims for a “dialogue” between the opposition and the government. Nonetheless, by ending the ban, a vestige of the period of martial law that followed the assassination of President Park Chung Hee in 1979, Chun has helped to improve his image before his scheduled meeting in Washington next month with President Reagan.