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SOUTH KOREA Repression stepped up THE BERLIN WALL has fallen, but the wall that divides the two Koreas remains solid and insurmountable. On February 5 of this year, two South Korean dissidents received heavy prison sentences for having illegally visited the North Korean capital, Pyongyang.
The Seoul authorities sentenced ImSuk-Yong, a young student of French literature, to ten years imprisonment for havthe International Festival of Youth held last summer in the North. Catholic priest Moon-Kyu-Hyun, who had also visited Pyongyang, received an eight year sentence. To show that they were not being manipulated by the Kim-ilSung regime, the two oppositionists decided to return to Seoul, conscious of the consequences which awaited them.
The sentence handed out to Im-SukYong also represents a response on the part of the government to the political radicalization of South Korean students. If the breadth of the mobilizations is a little reduced in comparison with the 1987 crisis and the Olympic Games of 1988, their
(attributable to extraordinary diffusion of Marxist literature in the university campuses), continues to advance, as does the radical content of
The death of six policemen during a demonstration at Pusan University (Pusan is the South's second biggest city on May 4, 1989, has led to a spiral of "militarizaof student struggles and police repression. Ten days later, a student from
- a town which was the scene in Sea or Jaoar JAPAN
1980 of a veritable massacre carried out by the armed forces of Chung-Doo-Wan, and which continues to be one of the bastions of the movement - died under torture, which exacerbated the conflicts still more. The last episode in this escalation of confrontations has been the occupation of the U.S. ambassador's residence in Seoul by a student commando unit on student mobilizations, South Korea has been gripped in the last three years by numerous strike movements in all the principal cities. The working class, which has been for thirty years the victim of the astonishing South Korean "economic miracle", has decided to demand what is owing to it from the bosses and, after having won sizeable wage increases, is fighting for the legalization of its trade unions (see IV 156, February
At the head of the workers' strikes are often found former militants of radical become workers (there is no unemployment in South Korea after having been expelled from universities in recent years (before the 1987 liberalization). Consequently, a link exists between the workstrikes and the struggles of the students, but this has not yet been translated into the birth of a unified social opposition movement.
There remains a considerable gap between the demands of the students (national reunification, expulsion of the U.S. troops, genuine democratization of the country, condemnation of the soldiers implicated in the Kwanjiu massacre) and those of the workers which are essentially economic (recognition of trade union rights). It is precisely such a coming together of students and workers that the regime today wishes to prevent at all
For the South Korean government, the revolutionary events shaking Europe signify uniquely the opening up of new markets for an economy still largely export-orientated (this is the meaning of the normalization of relations with Hungary and, shortly, with the Soviet Union). On the other hand, for the students, the earthquakes in Eastern Europe show above all that the reunification of the country must be won by struggle and involve the withdrawal of the
AROUND THE WORLD 40,000 U.S. soldiers stationed in their country. It is difficult to forget the photograph of two South Korean students who, on the day the Berlin Wall fell, stood on top of the Brandenburg Gate to remind us that Korea remains divided. * MOROCCO Hunger strikes NEW hunger strikes have been taking place since the start of the year in Moroccan prisons at Marrakesh, Rabat and Meknes. For more than four years, Moroccan prisons have been agitated by waves of protests by political prisoners against bad conditions of detention.
On August 19, 1989, Abdelhak Chbada, a 28-year old student, died after a 64-day long hunger strike in Rabat. Three other prisoners, accused of belonging to the
"March 23 movement" were hospitalized in a coma. Actions of the same type have taken place at other prisons in the country in Casablanca and Marrakesh. According to the Moroccan human rights organization there are still at least 26 political prisoners in Morocco.
On January 31, the political prisoners at the civil prison in Casablanca transmitted the following text to us:
"At the moment when an unlimited hunger strike of political prisoners is underway in Marrakesh and Rabat prisons, 11 political prisoners at Meknes find themselves forced, in their turn, to go on hunger strike from January 13, 1990 in order to get their legitimate rights to education, information, medical care, proper food, exercise and visits, as well as their right to meet amongst themselves respected.
"They have only resorted to going on hunger strike after vainly trying out every other means: they have asked for a dialogue with the prison administration, have repeatedly approached the central penal authorities and the Justice Ministry in writing with communiqués, open letters
"Faced with all these initiatives, in place of satisfying the legitimate demands of the prisoners, the administration has persisted in refusing to talk with us. Worse still, they have recently stepped up their harassment of prisoners and their families.
"We, the undersigned political prisoners held in the civil prison at Casablanca energetically condemn the murderous policy that is the response of the Moroccan leaders to the modest and legitimate demands of the hunger strikers and call on everybody with a living conscience, and every defender of human rights, to intervene with the Moroccan authorities with a view to the satisfaction of the demands of the hunger strikers, and, first of all, to prevent any repeat of the drama that has taken place in Marrakesh and Rabat." *
Mohammed Qnouch, Abdallah Ajaha, 27
Dahbi Machrouhi