Word: chun
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...Easter Sunday congregation at Kwangju was perhaps the largest demonstration in South Korea since Chun Doo Hwan assumed the presidency six years ago. Just one week earlier, a similar protest had been held in the city of Pusan. And last weekend the opposition mounted yet another rally in the central city of Taegu. Though police took no action against the orderly crowd of 10,000 people who heard Kim Young Sam speak, they fired tear gas and waded into 2,000 youths who threatened to storm the city hall after the main group had dispersed...
...demonstrations are ostensibly being held to collect signatures demanding a reform of the country's system of indirect elections. In reality, the gatherings have allowed Koreans to air with new vehemence their long-standing complaints against Chun's strongman rule...
...South Korea has been awakened in large part by the almost miraculous triumph of "people power" in the Philippines that led to the fall of former President Ferdinand Marcos. Yet the differences between the two countries are glaring. Not even his enemies have accused the austere and hardworking Chun of Marcos-like cronyism or corruption. His army, unlike that of the Philippines, is strikingly well disciplined and unlikely to split into factions. Most of all, the South Korean economy has boomed even as the Philippine economy collapsed. While 20 years ago the average Filipino earned almost three times as much...
Washington officials are wary of applying anything more than steady but gentle pressure on Chun. The South Korean President, they believe, shows every sign of stepping down when his term ends in 1988 and seems to be moving--or at least edging--toward democracy. Nor is the U.S. inclined to underestimate its ally's strategic needs or its own. Last week Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger visited the 41,000 American servicemen in South Korea and reaffirmed the Reagan Administration's view that the country's security is vital to U.S. interests...
...intransigence on Chun's part, however, is equally certain to foment national divisions and put the country at risk. As he looks toward Manila and Pyongyang, perhaps he can see that compromise rather than conflict holds out the hope of a happier outcome...