South Korea refuses to revert to ‘junta era’

President Yoon Suk Yeol was compelled by the South Korean legislators to beat a hasty retreat and withdraw the martial law within hours of its promulgation. As per recent reports, he has apologised for this move. The proclamation, which had few takers, has now boomeranged upon him as the opposition members plan to move an impeachment motion against the president.

The very existence of a provision titled “martial law” (Article 77) stigmatises the Constitution of the Sixth Republic approved in October 1987. The South Koreans had to struggle against two back-to-back military dictatorships of General Park Chung Hee (1961-79) and General Chun Doo Hwan (1980-87), extending over a quarter of a century, before they emerged into the daylight of democracy in 1987.

However, as Hang Sung-Joo (1988) reminds, the Constitution was a product of political convenience and expediency as much as the fruit of a long struggle for democracy at a time when South Korea raced against the political clock. In the backdrop of the countdown to President Chun Doo Hwan’s expiration of his seven-year term in February 1988 (under the Constitution ’80) and the inauguration of the Seoul Olympics on September 17, 1988, South Korea exploded in popular pro-democracy demonstrations (South Korea in 1987: The Politics of Democratisation, Asian Survey Journal, January 1988).

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The provision of “martial law” no doubt antedates the Sixth Republic. It was apparently there in the Constitution of the First Republic (1948), which was largely drafted by Chin-o Yu, Dean of the College of Law and Politics of Korea University, the only professor of constitution in the entire peninsula in those days. It was weaponised by the first president, viz. Syngman Rhee, in May 1952 after his efforts to bring an amendment in the Constitution (1948) abjectly failed in the legislature mostly dominated by independent members. At that time the president was elected by an electoral college comprising the National Assembly in a system approximating parliamentary democracy.

Rhee had always been uneasy with the cabinet system of government and preferred a presidential form of government akin to the United States. Rhee fancied his prospects of being re-elected in 1952 as rather grim. Therefore, in November 1951, he supported a constitutional amendment to elect the president by a popular vote. The motion, however, was handsomely defeated by a vote of 143 to 19 in the assembly. Four months later, in April 1952, when the opposition introduced a motion calling for the establishment of full-fledged parliamentary democracy, Rhee responded by declaring martial law and rounding up assembly members by force.

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This time his constitutional amendment to elect the president by popular vote was ramrodded through the assembly, obtaining 163 Yes votes out of a total of 166. In the subsequent popular elections, Rhee was re-elected with 72 per cent of the votes. However, the 1952 amendment limited the Presidential tenure to two terms only. However, Rhee, desirous of unlimited tenure, instrumentalised another amendment in November 1954. In 1956, he could, with a reduced margin of 55 per cent of votes, as his principal opponent Sin Ik-hŭi, died in the midst of the election campaign. Rhee could ultimately stay in power until April 26, 1960, when he resigned at the age of 85.

Rhee always loathed his critics and opponents and equated criticism with treason. One could read a similar script in the outburst of Yoon Suk Yeol against the legislators while promulgating martial law. He accused the opposition members of sympathising with North Korea and paralysing the government with anti-state activities. Under Rhee’s watch, thousands of South Koreans—estimates vary widely between 60,000 and 200,000—were massacred in 1950 on mere suspicion of being communist sympathisers.

This infamous Bodo League Massacre (1950) during the Korean War (1950-53) was falsely attributed to North Korean leader Kim II Sung whereas the truth was exactly the opposite. This dark chapter of carnage, consistently hidden by South Korea for more than half a century, was brought to light by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission first established in December 2005. North Korea under its tin-pot Communist dictator Kim Jong Un doubtless continues to threaten a democratic South Korea. Yet, the same could not be used to suspend democracy, which the South Koreans have achieved as a result of a long struggle. The expression “martial law” itself is inconsistent with a democratic constitution in place. All over the world, it is associated with the suspension of democratic constitutions.

South Korea had to weather two military dictatorships. The longer one was under Park Chung Hee between 1961 and 1979. The schizophrenic Park era should be remembered both for the authoritarianism and the economic miracle he achieved. In the very first year of his regime (1961), he founded two institutions, viz. the Korean Central Intelligence Agency (KCIA) and the Economic Planning Board (EPB). While KCIA, placed under Park’s relative Kim Chong-p’il, acted as political police to prevent a countercoup and suppress all potential enemies, the EPB, whose head was made the Deputy Prime Minister, initiated the five-year plans for South Korea’s development. The South Korean government became, to quote the then Deputy Prime Minister SaKong Il, an “entrepreneur manager”. Between 1963 and 1977, public enterprises in Korea grew at an annual rate of 10 per cent.

The junta under Park drew up a new constitution, which was put before popular referendum in December 1962, where it received 78.8 per cent of the vote. Under the pressure from the United States, an ally of South Korea since the end of World War II, Park retired from the army as a four-star general and ran as a candidate for the Democratic Republic Party (DPR) created by the military leaders (1963-80), in anticipation of returning to civilian politics. Park won both the 1963 and 1967 elections by a slender majority, and there is little evidence to prove that they were rigged. In the 1960s, Park followed a relatively moderate policy, allowing considerable freedom to criticise the government and engage in organisational activities. However, like Rhee before, Park also wanted an unlimited number of terms. Thus in 1969, he amended the constitution to succeed himself for the third time as president in 1971.

He showed his true colours on becoming the president for the third time. In December, 1971, he proclaimed a national emergency and forced through the National Assembly legislation to “control, regulate, and mobilise the people, the economy, the press, and everything in the public domain”. In October, 1972, he proclaimed martial law, dissolved the National Assembly, closed all universities and colleges, imposed strict censorship, and suspended political activities. Thereupon, he unveiled a new draft constitution, under which he could be elected as president an unlimited number of times, nominate one-third of members to the National Assembly, and exercise emergency powers at will.

The 1972 Constitution was widely criticised by the civil society and student community, who launched a campaign against it. Park responded first with an emergency decree in January 1974 by outlawing such campaigns and then finally with his draconian Emergency Measure No. 9 in May 1975, which made it a penal offence to criticise the Constitution ’72 or even to provide press coverage to any such event. Park justified his tough measures by invoking national unity in the face of an alleged North Korean threat.

Park could brook no dissent in his quest for power. On August 8, 1973, the kidnapping of Kim Dae-jung from his hotel in Tokyo by KCIA agents precipitated a crisis in Japan-Korea relations. Dae-jung, who had unsuccessfully contested against Park in the 1971 presidential elections, had been living in Japan after Park declared martial law and undertook several trips to the USA to attract global attention to the South Korean situation. It was natural for Japan to react against this illegal act of abduction. Park banned the circulation of Asahi Shimbun, the Japanese progressive newspaper, in South Korea.

Park was assassinated on October 26, 1979, ironically in a KCIA safe house in Seoul, shot dead by the Director of KCIA and the president’s security chief. Though the assassin Kim Jae-gyu, considered to be the President’s closest friend, was hanged to death in 1980, the motives of the assassination remain open to interpretation. It is unclear whether it was a coup attempt, an impulsive step, or protest against Park’s dictatorial policies. Five years previously there was another attempt to assassinate Park, by a South Korean living in Japan, in which the first lady perished. Park’s assassination came amidst a political crisis.

The new leader of the New Democratic Party, viz. Kim Young Sam, had begun to openly criticise Park in the National Assembly. In his scathing attack, he said that Park’s government had become an international disgrace for its suppression of human rights. He said that people should be free to choose a new president through direct elections and be permitted to live without fear. After an outspoken Kim Young Sam was ousted from the National Assembly by the government, all opposition members resigned in protest on October 13, 1979. Students’ protests had spiralled, leading to the imposition of martial law in the city of Pusan. In fact, when Park was assassinated in the KCIA safe house, it was at a dinner over which the Pusan situation was being discussed. The discussion had turned acerbic before Park was shot dead along with his bodyguards by an agitated Jae-gyu.

The assassination of Park Chung Hee did not mark the end of the repression story in South Korea. General Chun Doo Hwan, who seized power in a military coup (December 12, 1979), was in no mood to allow the students’ protest that had resumed in 1980. In May 1980, he issued a decree closing down all colleges and universities and prohibiting all political gatherings. All publications and broadcasts were subject to prior censorship, and all criticism of the previous and incumbent presidents was prohibited. Between May 18 and 27, 1980, a huge demonstration ending in a horrible bloodbath took place in Kwangju as a result of conflict between students/local populations and soldiers. One of the demands of the protestors, apart from rolling back martial law, was releasing Kim Dae-jung (the dissenter once abducted from Tokyo under Park’s order and now arrested by the Hwan regime).

The soldiers being from Gyeonsang (Kyongsang) Province, from which both Park and Hwan hailed, and the demonstrations being in Jeolla (Cholla) Province, from which Kim Dae-jung hailed, the confrontation took on a bitter provincial colour despite the fact that Gyeonsang, with its biggest city Busan, had suffered equally in agitation against the Park regime. The Kwangju uprising caused (by local figures) 200 fatalities, including 24 soldiers and four policemen. The Kwangju massacres became a turning point in the annals of South Korea’s struggle for democracy against martial law.

General Hwan set up the Fifth Republic under a new constitution (Constitution ’80) and became its first president. He sought to purify and reform the Park’s regime rather than seeking to revolutionise it. Chun wanted to implement a “Cultural Revolution”, where high government officials, judges, prosecutors, business executives, college professors, and their spouses—32,000 persons in all—were exposed to an intensive three-day programme. In August 1980, the government started a massive propaganda campaign under which “Bright Society Rallies” were organised in major cities and tens of thousands of citizens were mobilised to hear speeches.

The year 1987 witnessed massive student protests for democratisation in South Korea. The protests were triggered by the death of Park Chong Chol, a Seoul University student, due to torture under police interrogation. They assumed special significance as the end of Hwan’s 7-year presidential term and the Seoul Olympics were due in 1988. The year naturally witnessed an intensification of political activity over the constitutional reforms, which Hwan wanted to avoid, but the opposition parties put on top priority.

Ultimately Roh Tae Woo, whom Hwan’s party, viz. the Democratic Justice Party (DJP), put up as an official candidate, put forward an 8-point proposal, which was finally accepted by the opposition parties. The most intense bargaining was over direct election to the president’s post, which the opposition parties wanted and got. However, due to a rift in the opposition camp, the two torchbearers of democracy in South Korea, viz. Kim Young Sam and Kim Dae Jung, could not agree on a common candidate. This allowed Roh Tae Woo, the former army general and Hwan protégé, to win the December 16, 1987 elections with 36.6 per cent of votes.

South Korea, like Taiwan, is a case where persistent economic development under an authoritarian regime in an Asian country prepared the way for democracy. The recent ‘martial law’ fiasco proves that South Korea is unwilling to turn the clock back on its history.

The writer is author of the book ‘The Microphone Men: How Orators Created a Modern India’ (2019) and an independent researcher based in New Delhi. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost’s views.