| [ HUFSan ] in KIDS 글 쓴 이(By): HUFSan (무지개) 날 짜 (Date): 1998년 8월 16일 일요일 오후 01시 17분 29초 제 목(Title): 전문5/ In the post-cold war era, a political leader's main job is managing the economy. But in Korea, politics matters: the cold war is still hot along the South's border with the North. The security threat posed by Pyongyang has long distorted South Korea's democracy, providing conservatives with an excuse to clamp down on any kind of dissent. Nobody knows that better than Kim, who survived several assassination attempts at the hands of the country's previous military leaders. Those experiences convinced Kim his free-market program won't work without a more muscular democracy in the South. So while working to ease tensions with Pyongyang, he has tried to heal the political divisions the confrontation with the North has left in South Korean society. In one of his first acts in office, Kim released dozens of political prisoners. Some had languished in jail for decades. His government has promised to free Korea's remaining prisoners of conscience on Aug. 15, as long as they sign a pledge to respect the constitution. That would end one of the bitterest legacies of authoritarian rule. Political prisoners have filled Korea's jails since the 1970s, as successive leaders imprisoned anybody suspected of leftism or sympathy with North Korea. Draconian security laws often served as a convenient tool for locking up political enemies. Painter Nam Kyu Sun learned that lesson in 1989 when the government ordered the arrest of her husband, also an artist. The offense: painting pictures of oppressed workers. After the arrest, Nam joined the Committee for Democratic Families, a group made up of relatives of political prisoners. Her husband was released by the end of the year, but she continued to militate for human rights. That sometimes meant fasting in front of Myongdong Cathedral in a bid to pressure the government to free prisoners. But after a turbulent decade that saw Korea move firmly toward greater democracy, the committee is taking on a different role. The job now, says Nam, is to safeguard Korea's new democratic freedoms: "If we were a dissident group in the past, our new role is to monitor the government on human rights issues." Even Korea's combative students are looking for new roles in a more democratic era. The world became used to scenes of students marching through the streets of Seoul, facing down helmeted riot police. It was student protesters who helped force dictator Chun Doo Hwan to step down and hold a direct presidential election in 1987, ushering in a decade of democratic reforms. Today, the students are as likely to be found furiously debating the shape of the new Korea in e-mail forums and long, smoke-filled bull sessions on university campuses. Not that they have lost their spunk. At Seoul National University, Chung Byung Doo, 23, an engineering major, spends his days sleeping on a mat on a linoleum floor down the hall from the headquarters of his student union, attending political debates at night. He fears police will arrest him if he leaves the campus because he took part in a banned May Day demonstration in support of workers. That's a familiar hazard for student leaders. The big change, Chung says, is that many of the students are now ready to work within the system, instead of trying to topple it. Chung hopes his faith in Korea's reform-minded President isn't misplaced. "I want to ask Kim if he still feels the desperate urgency he used to have as a democratic activist," the student leader says. Kim would probably answer that he still does have that fire in his belly, but that he and other Koreans also need to draw on their traditional strengths: grit, self-sacrifice and perseverance. Those qualities--which have turned another young Korean, golfer Pak Se Ri, into a hero for her countrymen--once made their country great, and surely will again. With reporting by Stella Kim/Seoul -Warren G, DRU Hill, Graham Bonnet, Boyz List, Boston Kickout, Areosmith,Shawn Colvin, FireHouse, Celine Dion, Rod Stewart, Toni Braxton, Kenny G, Mark Owen, Donna Lewis, Scolpions, Gloria Estefan, REm, Suede, Enya, Take That...n' HUFSan |