Human Rights South Korea

Two hundred Korean human rights advocates from major U.S. cities, Europe, Japan, South Korea and Australia converged Friday on Los Angeles' Koreatown to publicize what they say are rampant human rights violations in South Korea. "The South Korean government puts on a democratic face to the world, but inside Korea, it's business as usual," said Minn Chung during a noontime rally in front of the South Korean Consulate in the Mid-Wilshire district.

"To My Dear Mother, who must be hanging her head down low not finding my name on the list on the prison wall, who must be lonelier now than at any time before . . . not being able to touch my hand." Cho Soon Sun, 73, choked on her son's words as she recited them to the small crowd gathered in the park. The letter from Kang Yong Ju tried to explain why he had chosen to remain in his prison cell rather than answer the government's simple questions about how he would obey the law if freed.

Demonstrators fought for hours Tuesday against nearly 50,000 riot police in hit-and-run clashes on the streets of Seoul during a day of remembrance for a student who died during police torture. Violent confrontations were alsoreported in six other cities. Police said that 20 people were hurt in all--two seriously--and that 395 were detained.

The screams in the night, the torture by terrifying national security agents, the coercive demands for false confessions--none of this was supposed to happen anymore in the shining civilian democracy of South Korean President Kim Young Sam. But Park Choong Ryol claims that it still does. He experienced it all last year, he says, when the government accused him of meeting an alleged North Korean agent.

Caressing her son's tombstone, Pae Eun Shim cried out to his spirit with exciting news: "Han Yol, Han Yol! [Former presidents] Chun Doo Hwan and Roh Tae Woo are imprisoned now!" Nearby, ignoring a freezing wind, Choi In Soon, 78, went from grave to grave, sprinkling sand she had washed 108 times to "ease the anger" in the hearts of the dead.

Amnesty International accused South Korea of reversing a two-year trend of human rights improvement, citing mass arrests and the reported torture of prisoners. The London-based group said 800 political and union activists have been arrested in a crackdown on political opposition by President Roh Tae Woo's government.

A fascinating test case was filed recently to try to force the Bush Administration to vigorously enforce some provisions of U.S. trade laws that can have a profound economic and political impact around the world. In sum, the relatively new provisions of our trade laws say this country must sharply restrict our trade with nations that fail to provide their workers with some fundamental, internationally recognized rights.

The State Department hailed improvements in Moscow's observation of human rights as it released its annual report on the issue Wednesday, but it cautioned that the changes are "less than fundamental." Assistant Secretary of State Richard Schifter, who heads the department's Bureau of Human Rights, told a news conference that the Soviet Union remains a one-party dictatorship, despite the new style of Kremlin leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev.

For Kim Kee Joon, there is still no democracy in South Korea. Kim awoke Friday morning to learn that her son, a 25-year-old "prisoner of conscience," will not be among the political prisoners that President Chun Doo Hwan's government plans to release in its promised wave of democratic reforms.

South Korean President Chun Doo Hwan fired his home minister and national police chief over the torture death of a student activist in police custody. The student, Park Jong Chul, 21, died last week from having his throat pressed against the edge of a bathtub while his head was pushed into water. Kim Chong Hoh was replaced as home minister by Chung Ho Yong, a former army chief of staff, and the national police director, Kang Min Chang, was replaced by the Seoul police director, Lee Yong Chang.

Caressing her son's tombstone, Pae Eun Shim cried out to his spirit with exciting news: "Han Yol, Han Yol! [Former presidents] Chun Doo Hwan and Roh Tae Woo are imprisoned now!" Nearby, ignoring a freezing wind, Choi In Soon, 78, went from grave to grave, sprinkling sand she had washed 108 times to "ease the anger" in the hearts of the dead.

Hong Doo Seung and Kim Keun Tae were both intimate participants in South Korea's long legacy of institutional violence. Hong freely admits he beat enlisted men with rifle butts and canes when he was an officer in the all-powerful South Korean military, which ruled the nation until the democratic election of 1987. Kim, a labor activist, suffered such excruciating electric shocks that his throat swelled from his screams as he reached the brink of death under police torture in 1985.

Two hundred Korean human rights advocates from major U.S. cities, Europe, Japan, South Korea and Australia converged Friday on Los Angeles' Koreatown to publicize what they say are rampant human rights violations in South Korea. "The South Korean government puts on a democratic face to the world, but inside Korea, it's business as usual," said Minn Chung during a noontime rally in front of the South Korean Consulate in the Mid-Wilshire district.

A fascinating test case was filed recently to try to force the Bush Administration to vigorously enforce some provisions of U.S. trade laws that can have a profound economic and political impact around the world. In sum, the relatively new provisions of our trade laws say this country must sharply restrict our trade with nations that fail to provide their workers with some fundamental, internationally recognized rights.

Amnesty International accused South Korea of reversing a two-year trend of human rights improvement, citing mass arrests and the reported torture of prisoners. The London-based group said 800 political and union activists have been arrested in a crackdown on political opposition by President Roh Tae Woo's government.

Casting aside security concerns to take a closer look at one of the world's tensest borders, Vice President Dan Quayle today became the highest-ranking U.S. official ever to visit this truce village in the Korean demilitarized zone. While American Presidents and vice presidents have visited South Korea and the DMZ on several occasions, they have avoided trips to Panmunjom because of the proximity of North Korean troops and the difficulty of ensuring security.

Taking over in the first peaceful and democratic transfer of power in Korean history, President Roh Tae Woo assured his countrymen today that economic growth and military security will no longer be used as excuses to thwart democracy in South Korea. "The day when freedoms and human rights could be slighted in the name of economic growth and national security has ended.

South Korea has made significant progress on human rights as it prepares to host the Olympic Games, but the government still holds 600 political prisoners and tortures some of them, Amnesty International said. The London-based human rights group said in a report that some political prisoners were jailed after unfair trials but that torture has decreased. Government sensitivity to world attention during the Sept. 17-Oct.

More than 1,800 of South Korea's leading clergymen Friday accused the government of human rights abuses and demanded that it make good on promises of democratization and other reform. The Korean National Council of Churches said the government of President Roh Tae Woo is more undemocratic than that of his dictatorial predecessor and is "causing people's lives to collapse with the suppression of human rights."

Conversations with Kim Keun Tae lead invariably to the subject of torture. Kim, one of South Korea's most prominent dissidents, endured three weeks of beating, electric shock and water torture at the hands of the anti-Communist bureau of the national police in 1985, according to international human rights advocates and Kim's own account.