A History of Korea (82 page)

The outbreak of the Korean War on 25 June 1950 proved fortuitous for the Rhee regime. As the leader of a nation in turmoil, he could rally various domestic political forces behind his leadership, particularly during the first year of the fighting. As the war progressed, however, the battle line was held and the tense atmosphere caused by the war gradually dissipated. Nevertheless, Rhee continued his arbitrary rule, which rapidly deteriorated his relationship with the opposition. At the time his political power base was a loose collection of rightist minor political parties, rightist social organizations, and a majority of independent assemblymen who relied on his patronage. This disparate crew, needing money for political activities and survival, were proving ineffective in the changing political environment. Thus Rhee felt impelled to create a strong ruling party backed by his government apparatus. The police acted to perpetuate his power within an easily maneuverable electoral system. Already in 1949 Rhee had ordered that all rightist youth groups be merged into the Taehan Youth Corps and that all unions join the Federation of Korean Trade Unions. These steps were probably motivated by his desire to strengthen his control over his supporters. In late December 1951 Rhee’s supporters in the National Assembly and five pro-Rhee social organizations—the Taehan Youth Corps, the Federation of Korean Trade Unions, the Federation of Korean Farmers Unions, the Korean National Association, and the Korean Women’s Association—combined to form the Liberal Party. The new party proved instrumental for gathering and distributing the political funds and patronage that made it a firm political base for Rhee to seek future terms as president. By 1952 Rhee had lost much of his support in the National Assembly and his reelection was in doubt. In an attempt to retain power and weaken the National Assembly, Rhee proposed constitutional amendments providing for direct popular election of the president and a bicameral legislature. On 18 January 1952 the National Assembly, led by the opposition Democratic National Party, overwhelmingly rejected the proposed amendments by a vote of 143 to 19. Rhee then instituted a campaign of political harassment and demonstrations against his opponents. When the opposition legislators held firm, Rhee declared martial law in and around Pusan, the temporary
ROK
capital, effective 25 May 1952. He also ordered the imprisonment of more than 50 opposition politicians. Most were soon released, but 7 were charged with participating in a communist conspiracy and several others then went into hiding.

Rhee’s actions concerned South Korea’s wartime allies, as his reckless tactics shattered the image of the
ROK
as a country moving toward democracy and thus jeopardized international support for the U.S.-led war effort. The United States attempted to persuade Rhee to end martial law and release the jailed politicians but to no avail. It then considered stronger action, including support of an anti-Rhee coup by
ROK
military officers and even direct military intervention. Ultimately it reverted to its admonitions and encouragement of a political compromise. The crisis ended in early July, not through political compromise but only when Rhee’s police rounded up all the legislators and confined them to the National Assembly building until they passed his constitutional amendment. His legislation obtained 163 of 166 votes.

The presidential election was set for 5 August 1952 in the thick of the Korean War, providing the opposition with little time for campaigning. Rhee easily won another presidential term, obtaining 74.6 percent of the popular vote, and an uneasy peace returned to the South Korean political scene. Assisted by the powerful police and local administrations, he manipulated the politically unsophisticated populace, seized with insecurity over the war, into backing him.
²
Although civil war and political chaos were averted, the National Assembly was powerless and excluded from any effective policy-making role. Rhee’s political power had become greatly strengthened at the expense of the international as well as domestic legitimacy of his government.

Immediately after the Korean War, Rhee was faced with mounting pressure from
DNP
-led opponents in the National Assembly, but the malleable general population raised little objection to his continuing rule. Mainly people were more preoccupied with daily survival than with politics, but they also liked Rhee personally and had a sense of national unity based on their antipathy toward communism.
³
Moreover, in the 1950s, South Koreans as a whole were still swayed by the traditional Confucian ideas, which translated into the perception of the president as a monarch who should not be easily replaced.

As people’s political intelligence grew, however, Rhee’s popular support began to dwindle. Thus, to ensure victory, he inevitably resorted to repression of the opposition and election fraud. Rhee’s Liberal Party and the Democratic National Party were pitted against each other in the National Assembly elections, held on 20 May 1954. Using police harassment and restrictive electoral laws aimed at disadvantaging
DNP
candidates, the Liberal Party became the first party in Korean history to receive an absolute majority in the National Assembly,
114 of 203 seats. The
DNP
, reduced to just 15, was almost eliminated as a serious political contender. The independents captured 68 seats. Collectively the independents might have maintained a balance of power between the ruling party and opposition forces, but divisions among the members prevented them from wielding such collective power. Desperate to maintain their local constituencies, many independents succumbed to bribery and cajolery by the Liberal Party, so that the Liberals almost acquired the two-thirds majority necessary for another constitutional amendment that would permit Rhee a third term as president in 1956.

At this point, Rhee lacked the statutory two-thirds majority by a mere fraction of one vote. At first the constitutional amendment to abolish the two-term limitation on the presidency was declared to be defeated on 28 November 1954, when 135 of 203 members voted for it and carrying the bill lacked just 0.3 vote (actually 1 vote). But the next day it was announced by the Liberal Party that the amendment had indeed passed, on the grounds that the number of affirmative votes required for passage, 135.3, could be rounded down to the next whole number (135.0). This questionable and unconstitutional move angered and unified all of Rhee’s opposition. The Democratic National Party and anti-Rhee independent legislators, with more than 60 assemblymen, united to form the Association for the Preservation of the Constitution, the organization that eventually, on 18 September 1955, fathered the Democratic Party. Rhee’s existence in power was all that united the fragmented anti-Rhee forces. In the years to come, the Democratic Party would seek Rhee’s removal from power, and once it was achieved, the party would disintegrate.

With Rhee still in power, opportunities for education during the postwar recovery rapidly expanded and a new urban culture based on Western democratic values took hold. This ultimately eroded the foundations of Rhee’s dictatorship, particularly in Seoul and other major cities. South Koreans, especially the urban masses, became more politically aware. Higher education provided the youth with greater political understanding, especially given the strong emphasis on democratic values and the views of teachers and intellectuals. For the first time Korean youth were provided with unrestricted access to Western democratic ideas at school and through the mass media. While these Western ideas functioned as the norm against which to judge the government in power, the press frequently exposed government ineptitude and corruption and attacked Rhee’s authoritarian rule. The opposition Democratic Party capitalized on these opportunities.

The presidential election on 15 May 1956 provided the first strong indication of a rapidly changing political mind-set. Rhee was reelected, gaining 70 percent of the popular vote. Although Rhee dominated the electoral process and his main opponent, Sin Ik-h
ŭ
i of the Democratic Party, died of a heart attack during the campaign, his real electoral support fell far short of his expectations. Moreover, in the separate vice presidential election, the Democratic Party’s candidate, Chang My
ŏ
n (John M. Chang), defeated Yi Ki-bung, Rhee’s former personal secretary, protégé, and anointed successor. Chang won 41.7 percent of the vote, and Yi won 39.6 percent.
⁴
Chang was supported mostly by the urban population discontent with economic hardship, particularly the spiraling inflation, and the Rhee government’s maladministration and corruption. His victory demonstrated a steep decline in Rhee’s popularity and that of his Liberal Party, especially in urban areas. The possibility that the opposition vice president would succeed the aging Rhee made the ruling party very uneasy.

Faced with the new threat to its power, the Rhee government again resorted to severe repression. The first victim was Cho Pong-am, Rhee’s first minister of agriculture and forestry and now leader of the Progressive Party, with a “social democratic” platform that included peaceful reunification with North Korea. Representing the moderate Left in South Korean politics, Cho ran for the presidency in 1952 and 1956, obtaining an impressive 30 percent of the popular vote in 1956, thus posing a significant threat to Rhee. In the “Progressive Party Incident” in February 1958, the Rhee administration banned Cho’s party, indicted him on charges of spying and violating the National Security Law, and executed him on 31 July 1959. Cho’s guilty verdict had been based on false charges of collusion with North Korean agents. In truth, he had never engaged in espionage but was the victim of a president who would remove his political foes by any means necessary.

The National Assembly elections on 2 May 1958 clearly demonstrated the continuously declining support for the Rhee government. The Liberal Party obtained only 38.7 percent of the vote despite extensive electoral fraud, and the Democratic Party, though at a severe disadvantage, won 29.5 percent. Under the single-member constituency system, the ruling party won 126 of 233 seats, the main opposition party took 79 seats, and the independents 27 seats. The two-party system began to take shape, and the major cities emerged as bastions of the opposition party. As the election resulted in the formation of a stronger opposition coalition to Rhee in the National Assembly, Rhee responded with
further repression, culminating, on 24 December 1958, with the passage of a new National Security Law that made South Korea a virtual police state. In the course passing the law, the dignity and sanctity of the National Assembly were once again compromised. Outnumbered in the legislature, the opposition staged a sit-down strike in the National Assembly building to block passage of the legislation. In response, the Rhee government mobilized the police force to clear the hall of the opposition. The Liberal Party then rushed through 22 bills, including the new draconian National Security Law. Immediately after the passage of this measure, Rhee organized the Anticommunist Youth Corps, in January 1959 to forcibly and effectively frustrate the opposition’s resistance against him.

Under the terms of the new security law, anyone who criticized the president or the Speaker of the National Assembly or the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court was subject to a charge of libel. The law also provided for the extended detention of individuals suspected of crimes and for the arrest of civilians by agents of the armed forces intelligence agencies.
⁵
Simply put, the law aimed to muzzle any and all anti-Rhee news media and suppress antigovernment activities and rhetoric. A striking example of this was the government’s closing of the
Ky
ŏ
nghyang sinmun,
or Capital and Country Newspaper, a Seoul-based daily that openly supported Vice President Chang My
ŏ
n, in April 1959.

Because the Rhee regime had lost much of its popular support by the time of the presidential election in March 1960, the only means for Rhee and his party to achieve victory was electoral fraud on a massive scale. Rhee was left unopposed on the ballot when, as occurred in 1956 with Sin Ik-h
ŭ
i of the Democratic Party, his chief opponent, Cho Py
ŏ
ng-ok of the Democratic Party, died, in this case of cancer while undergoing treatment at Walter Reed Hospital in Washington, D.C., in February 1960. Therefore, had the Rhee regime been content with another term for the presidency, it would have retained power. Foolishly, however, it failed to recognize the public sentiment of the time and chose to heavily rig the elections to ensure Vice President Chang My
ŏ
n’s defeat. Because of Rhee’s advanced age (then 85 years old), the vice presidential contest became very important. In the election on 15 March 1960 Rhee was declared elected with “100 percent” of the vote, and Yi Ki-bung defeated Chang My
ŏ
n for the vice presidency. The Liberal Party had actually lowered the percentage of votes Yi obtained from 100 percent to 79 percent. As heavy vote rigging was brought to light, waves of violent protest followed. Thousands of university students protested in the streets. The turning point came when police, defending
the presidential mansion in Seoul, fired into a crowd of students on 19 April, killing more than 100. Soon the protest escalated into an insurrection in the capital city. Other major cities were also in the throes of a popular revolution that took the lives of an estimated 400 students. The April Student Revolution put an end to the Rhee regime.

After the incident on 19 April, Rhee belatedly declared martial law but without success, as army troops refused to fire on people in the streets. The United States persuaded Rhee not to act against the people’s wishes. Finally Rhee resigned on 26 April and three days later left South Korea for exile in Hawaii, where he died in 1965 at the age of 90. On 28 April a caretaker government was formed, and Yi Ki-bung and his family committed suicide. As Rhee’s dictatorial rule came to an end, the First Republic and the Liberal Party collapsed swiftly and silently.