South Korea Reforms On Hold

The stadiums have been built, the logos designed, and throughout Seoul huge billboards count down the days until the opening of the 1988 Summer Olympics. Everything in South Korea between now and next summer fits into a tight schedule that reaches a climax with the Olympics. President Chun Doo Hwan, a former general, has also been fitting presidential politics into the program. Chun promised to revise the constitution so that when he leaves office in February 1988 — the first Korean President to do so voluntarily — his successor would be more democratically chosen.

But last week in a national broadcast, Chun announced that because of the pressing business of preparing for the Olympics, there will be no constitutional revision. This means that a military-backed candidate will almost certainly maintain control of the presidency. Chun explained that the Olympics and the country’s “new glorious era of democracy” would be marred by constitutional debates that “split public opinion and waste national energies.”

The opposition has long criticized the present constitution’s indirect method of electing the President. The choice is made by an electoral college of more than 5,000 members, whose votes may be tampered with or bought and whose numbers are weighted by law in favor of the ruling party. Instead, the opposition has stubbornly championed direct elections. It believes that under such a system its candidate would have a chance of defeating a military- supported nominee.

For nearly a year the government and the opposition have been arguing the pros and cons of constitutional reform. Two weeks ago the opposition’s two major leaders, Kim Dae Jung and Kim Young Sam, pulled out of the New Korea Democratic Party, the largest antigovernment group in parliament, because they felt the N.K.D.P. president was about to agree to a compromise supported by Chun. Citing the “mess in the opposition,” Chun last week said he could not deal with a party unable to “resolve its own internal problems through dialogue.” Critics charge that the president encouraged the divisions, negotiated only to set up a democratic facade, and would allow no one other than one of his supporters to succeed him.

That successor is likely to be Roh Tae Woo, another ex-general and currently chairman of the ruling Democratic Justice Party. A former classmate of the President, Roh commanded the Seoul garrison that was instrumental in bringing Chun to office in the military scramble for power that followed the assassination of President Park Chung Hee in 1979.

After Chun’s announcement, the opposition called for a renewed dialogue with the government and warned of political troubles to come. The President, however, has expressed no desire to talk with either of the Kims. In fact, the police have tightened security around Kim Dae Jung, who has been under house arrest for the past two weeks. Unless Chun reopens talks, said Kim Young Sam, “resistance and uprisings” would be unavoidable. Others made similar predictions. Said Stephen Cardinal Kim Sou Hwan of Seoul, whose influence goes far beyond the country’s 2 million Roman Catholics: “The people’s dream for constitutional reform, which they had expected to open a new brighter era, has been miserably shattered.” The prelate added that South Korea would be “soaked with tear gas once again.”

In Washington, Reagan Administration officials publicly refused to take sides, saying only that the “U.S. consistently and steadfastly supports the development of democracy in Korea.” Privately, though, State Department officials expressed chagrin. “We’re pretty disappointed about what’s happened in South Korea,” said one diplomat. “The whole situation just doesn’t look as good as it might, and that’s caused by all the parties involved, not just Chun.”

To prevent demonstrations, some 100,000 policemen went on alert, combing 52 colleges and universities and detaining more than 4,000 people. Officials seized leaflets and firebombs. Nonetheless, by midweek the predictions of political troubles came true. Throughout the country, 13,000 students mounted rallies denouncing Chun. At several campuses, youths battled police with homemade bombs and stones. Such unrest was not part of the President’s Olympic program.