Reconciliation in South Korea?

Next month South Korea is scheduled to experience a political watershed in its postwar history when power for the first time is transferred peacefully from one president to his successor. Such a handover was the goal of President Chun Doo Hwan when he announced last April that he had chosen his crony Roh Tae Woo to succeed him. The plan of Chun and the ruling party then was to have Roh elected president under rules that would have precluded any chance of an opposition victory. That the succession will now instead come after a freewheeling and bitterly contested presidential campaign and as a result of a direct and for the most part honest popular vote adds greatly to its significance.

In a sense Chun got what he wanted. Roh will be the next president. But the Roh who takes office on Feb. 25 may be a far different man from the Roh anointed by Chun last spring. It was Chun’s crude effort to assure that power would continue to be controlled by a small clique of former generals that led to the huge anti-government demonstrations whose scope and intensity rocked the regime. For the protests revealed what years of repression had artificially concealed: South Korea’s rapidly growing middle class was fed up with being denied basic democratic political rights. Roh, for one, got the message.

Beginning last spring and continuing through his election last month, Roh has been talking a reformist line, promising expanded civil liberties and a more equitable distribution of South Korea’s expanding national wealth. Aware that nearly two-thirds of Koreans voted for one of his opponents, Roh says that he will hold a plebiscite on his performance later this year, after the Olympic Games in Seoul. Meanwhile, he invites his major opponents to talk about political reconciliation.

Kim Young Sam, one of those opponents, says that he’s ready to talk. Kim Dae Jung isn’t--at least not yet. Both Kims claim, without much supporting evidence, that the election they lost was rigged. But both also accept responsibility for dividing the anti-government vote and so assuring Roh’s victory. The division in the opposition ranks remains. The legislative elections that are to be held sometime in the next few months will see both Kims and their followers still split. That could prove another boost to Roh’s party.

Reconciliation, like compromise, is largely alien to the Korean way of conducting politics. This doesn’t mean that a precedent cannot now be set. Roh and the two Kims at least share the common ground of wanting the best for their country. Generosity on Roh’s part, and cooperation by his opponents, could do a lot to give South Koreans the greater democracy and economic justice that most have shown they want.