Word: kim
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Opposition Leader Kim Young Sam called on Chun to "rescind the April 13 decision" and proposed talks between himself and the President. But Kim placed conditions on such a meeting: the release of some 1,500 demonstrators still in jail and the lifting of Kim Dae Jung's ten-week-old house arrest. Short of complying with those stipulations, Chun might submit the issue of whether to amend the constitution to a referendum, which it would almost certainly win. That would allow the President to let the matter be settled by popular will without forcing him explicitly to back down...
While unrest was sweeping South Korea last week, Kim Dae Jung, the country's most famous opposition politician, stayed home. He had no choice: for the past ten weeks Kim has been under house arrest, his modest two-story residence in a Seoul suburb surrounded by 500 to 600 police. He and the eight aides confined with him can use the telephone and receive domestic newspapers, but no visitors are allowed inside. That isolation is an apt emblem of the country's weak and divided political opposition. A foe of virtually every regime since the South Korean republic was founded...
Last week's student-led protests could help change that. By demanding free elections, the demonstrators are advancing the formal opposition's most cherished goal. Says Kim Young Sam, president of the Reunification Democratic Party, the main opposition faction: "There is no solution to the present crisis unless the government agrees to our demands for a direct presidential election. The government has been driven to the wall...
South Koreans have had decades to size up the two principal opposition leaders. Kim Dae Jung, 63, and Kim Young Sam, 59, who are neither related nor particularly close friends, have been active in antigovernment party circles since the 1950s. The older Kim, a stubborn politician and charismatic speaker, won 45% of the vote in the 1971 presidential election. In 1980 he was tried by a military court and sentenced to death for inciting students to rise against the government. After the sentence was first commuted to life in prison and then reduced to 20 years, Kim was permitted...
...With Kim Dae Jung under house arrest, Kim Young Sam has assumed a larger role in opposition affairs. A small, lively man who jogs for 45 minutes each morning and serves as a Presbyterian elder, the younger Kim has become highly visible around Seoul. He scuffled briefly with security forces last week when he theatrically sought access to Kim Dae Jung's house. The encounter won him some publicity and a bruised leg, which he proudly displayed to journalists...