Yun Isang and the East Berlin Case of fifty years ago
By Kyung Moon Hwang
.jpg?w=728)
A deep sadness spread around the world last week with the death of Liu Xiaobo, the longtime Chinese dissident who had been incarcerated since 2008, when he helped draft an online statement calling for basic democratic reforms. He was widely admired for his courage in the face of oppression and in 2009 was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, which he was not allowed to accept in person.
In fact the Chinese authorities immediately condemned the Norwegian government, as if it could somehow revoke a decision made by the Nobel committee, and pressured foreign governments not to publicly support Liu as he rotted away in jail. Even after he was given a medical parole a month ago for terminal cancer, very few officials in established democracies dared call for a complete release for his final days, and likewise world leaders have stayed silent after his death.
Such circumstances invite comparisons to the plight of a Korean intellectual, the noted composer Yun Isang, from a half-century ago. In the summer of 1967, Yun, along with the poet Cheon Sang-byeong, painter Yi Eungno, and scores of other innocent people, were jailed, tortured, and forced into confessions of communist subversion in what became known as the East Berlin Case.
Yun had been one of several Korean students in western Europe and West Germany at the time who took advantage of the relative freedom of movement and association by interacting with North Koreans stationed in East Berlin. The North Koreans of course had an interest in using these occasions to spread propaganda, and Yun even accepted an invitation to visit North Korea in 1963. He saw this as an opportunity to see some of the celebrated Goguryeo wall paintings that could inspire his music, a blend of Korean and Western conventions.
The East Berlin Case was triggered in May 1967 when another such visitor, Im Seokjin, decided to turn himself in directly to the South Korean president, Park Chung-Hee (who had just been re-elected), and to reveal details of the relationships centered in the North Korean embassy in East Berlin.
The sensationalistic incident that exploded two months later showed well South Korea’s ongoing descent into authoritarian rule. That dictatorship, however, would not arrive in full form until the 1970s, and this might explain why Yun did not suffer the same fate as Liu. Most important, perhaps, was the role of international actors, whose influence appears to have been far greater with the South Korean government at the time than with today’s Chinese government.
This was because, incredibly, Park’s security forces had reached into sovereign foreign countries, notably France and West Germany, to nab dozens of expatriate Koreans through deception, coercion, or outright kidnapping (the current Chinese government has done something similar). They were among approximately two hundred people rounded up in July 1967 for even the slightest connection to the situation in Germany.
Even with the mechanisms of an autocratic state working against them, however, the lack of evidence led to the early dismissal of charges against most defendants, although several, including Yun, were convicted and given harsh sentences. But the violation of state sovereignty in the South Korean government’s kidnappings, as well as the violation of core principles of justice, brought forth a public outcry and pressure from the West German government, civic organizations in Europe, and renowned artists around the world.
It is difficult to determine which of those interventions played a greater role in convincing Park to change his mind, but eventually every single one of the arrested Koreans was released, including Yun Isang, who in 1969 was granted a “pardon” but forced to leave the country.
South Korean history is scarred with many such episodes from the dictatorship era, and some, including the East Berlin Case, were formally investigated after democratization. According to the government’s exhaustive 2006 report, the entire affair, while sparked by Im’s “confession,” was concocted by the notorious Korean Central Intelligence Agency in the frenzy of anti-communism. None of the Koreans arrested was actually guilty of spying, subversion, or even North Korean sympathies. Those who had taken trips to North Korea harbored no political motivation beyond curiosity and nationalist idealism.
Documents also showed that the Park regime pursued its case very publicly in order to intimidate into silence the growing protests, led by students, against the irregularities of the parliamentary election of June 1967. The apparent victories that Park’s party won in this election provided enough seats to pass a referendum, two years later, to amend the constitution to allow Park to run for a third consecutive presidential term.
All of this, in short, was part of a process toward implanting firmer dictatorial rule. In this sense, despite the differences with the Liu Xiaobo case, the larger commonalities are just as important.
Because he refused to accept the original verdict that had branded him a spy, Yun Isang, who was born a century ago on the south-central coast, never stepped foot again in South Korea before his death in 1995. He was buried in Berlin, and earlier this month South Korea’s current first lady, a former music student, visited his grave to offer her respects, but no official expression of remorse.
We will have to wait for this formal apology, just as we will have to see whether China will ever undergo the fundamental changes for which Liu Xiaobo had fought and died.