Freedom in the World 1998 - South Korea

1998 Scores

Status: Free
Freedom Rating: 2.0
Civil Liberties: 2
Political Rights: 2

Overview

As South Korea struggled through its deepest economic crisis in decades, veteran pro-democracy campaigner Kim Dae Jung took office as president in February 1998 in the country's first transfer of power to the opposition. Kim, who won presidential elections two months earlier, began tackling the crony capitalism and staggering corporate debt problems that had wracked this advanced industrial economy.

The Republic of Korea was established in August 1948 with the division of the Korean Peninsula. In the next four decades, authoritarian rulers suppressed civil liberties while undertaking a state-directed industrialization drive that transformed a poor, agrarian country into the eleventh largest economy in the world. South Korea's democratic transition began in 1987, when violent student-led protests rocked the country after Chun Doo Hwan, a former general who had seized power in a 1980 coup, picked another army general, Roh Tae Woo, as his successor. Roh called for direct presidential elections in December 1987, and beat the country's best known dissidents, Kim Young Sam and Kim Dae Jung.

The 1988 constitution limits the president to a single five year term and ended his power to dissolve the 299-seat National Assembly. Kim Young Sam merged his party with the ruling party to form the governing Democratic Liberal Party (DLP) in 1990, and won the 1992 presidential election to become the first civilian president since 1961.

Kim curbed the internal surveillance powers of the security services, shook up the military hierarchy, and launched an anti-corruption campaign. But his popularity waned as the reforms slowed. At the April 1996 legislative elections, the DLP, re-named the New Korea Party, won only a 139-seat plurality, with the opposition divided between Kim Dae Jung's center-left National Congress for New Politics (NCNP) and the conservative United Liberal Democrats (ULD). In an unprecedented development in the fall, a court sentenced former presidents Chun and Roh to death and 22 years' imprisonment, respectively, on charges of corruption and treason during the military era. Kim Young Sam reduced both sentences, and as president-elect, Kim Dae Jung pardoned both men as a goodwill gesture toward political conservatives.

In 1997, an economic slowdown caused eight highly leveraged chaebol, or conglomerates, to collapse under heavy debts and triggered a banking crisis. For decades the government had directed bank lending to chaebols in order to develop strategic industries, and the chaebols funneled cash back to the ruling party. But this politicized lending ultimately encouraged the chaebols to diversify haphazardly and pursue market share rather than profit. In November, as corporations bought dollars in anticipation of higher overseas borrowing costs, the value of the won plummeted, and the country came within weeks of a private-sector debt default.

With Kim constitutionally barred from a second term, the 1997 presidential election turned into a wide-open race. Kim Dae Jung ran a strong campaign that sought to refute his portrayal by past military governments as a radical who would be soft on Communist North Korea. He formed an alliance with conservative ULD leader Kim Jong Pil, whom he promised to name as prime minister, and pledged to transform the polity into a parliamentary system. As the campaign continued, on December 3, the government agreed to a $57 billion dollar International Monetary Fund-led bailout conditioned on corporate reform and an end to lifetime labor guarantees. As popular anger mounted over the country's worst economic crisis in decades, Kim won the December 18 election with 40.4 percent of the vote, as Lee Hoi Chang, the ruling party's candidate, and Rhee In Je, a ruling party defector, split the conservative vote.

Kim took office on February 25, 1998. His challenges included dealing with an opposition-dominated National Assembly, making his alliance with Kim Jong Pil's ULD work, reforming the chaebols, breaking the entrenched alliance between government and big business, and convincing his labor allies to accept layoffs. In negotiations that began while he was president-elect, Kim opened financial markets to foreigners, ordered the chaebols to adopt international accounting standards, and persuaded trade unions to accept new labor laws that ended a tradition of lifetime employment in return for improved social benefits and further corporate reforms. The government also restructured some $150 billion in private-sector foreign debt.

As the financial crisis appeared to bottom out, labor leaders charged that even though huge numbers of workers were being laid off, corporations were still largely resisting reform. In December, the five largest chaebols announced that they would sell more than half of their subsidiaries, but many observers greeted the news with skepticism.

Political Rights and Civil Liberties

South Koreans can change their government democratically. The judiciary is independent. In 1997, a court sentenced then-president Kim Young Sam's youngest son to a three-year prison term for bribery and tax evasion (currently on appeal). Along with other recent high-profile corruption cases, this is an unprecedented development in a country in which rulers and their corporate patrons and families had been considered above the law. Anecdotal reports suggest that corruption in politics, business, and daily life has decreased in recent years but is still pervasive.

Despite its democratic status, South Korea holds hundreds of political prisoners, a legacy of its authoritarian past and of the omnipresent security threat from North Korea. Most are either labor activists convicted of holding illegal strikes, or supporters of North Korea who refuse to renounce Communism. Authorities continue to apply the broadly-drawn National Security Law (NSL), under which hundreds of people are arrested each year for allegedly pro-North Korean statements, for unauthorized ownership of North Korean publications or contact with North Koreans, and for other nonviolent activities. In March, Kim freed 74 political prisoners. Minkahyup, a human rights organization, said it had submitted a list of 478 political prisoners it felt should be pardoned. Both political prisoners and ordinary detainees are often beaten to extract confessions, and generally do not have access to an attorney during interrogation.

In 1996, parliament restored the National Security Planning Agency's authority to investigate and interrogate people accused of pro-North Korean sympathies, powers that had largely been rescinded in 1994. The government says legislative oversight has made the Agency more accountable than under the military rule. In March, Kim fired 24 top officials at the agency and ordered further reforms.

In recent years, courts have convicted and jailed several journalists under criminal defamation laws for articles critical of officials or corporations. Courts convicted at least one journalist of criminal defamation in 1998. Authorities reportedly pressure editors to kill critical articles, and the largely private media practice some self-censorship. The broadcast media are subsidized by the state but offer varied viewpoints. Television featured significantly for the first time in the 1997 presidential election campaign, although citizens complained of an emphasis on frivolity and personality rather than policies.

Civic institutions are strong and local human rights groups operate openly. Student protests have become a ritual occurrence and frequently turn violent. Women face social and professional discrimination, and domestic violence is reportedly fairly widespread. Religious freedom is respected.

Labor relations are frequently characterized by union militancy and forceful responses by authorities. In 1997, parliament lifted a ban on multiple trade unions in each industry that had maintained the dominance of the military rule-era Federation of Korean Trade Unions. The independent Korean Confederation of Trade Unions had been technically illegal despite representing 550,000 workers. However, union monopolies at the company level will continue until 2002.

New labor laws in February ended the tradition of lifetime employment by allowing job dismissals, but also allowed unions to engage in political activity and granted state-employed teachers the right to organize. Other civil servants received the right to form "consultative" groups. Foreign workers are frequently forced to work longer hours and for less pay than initially promised, and are occasionally beaten and otherwise abused.