KOREA ENCOUNTERS How Park Chung-hee used fall of Saigon to justify repression

Vietnamese refugee Tam Nguyen, second from right, wearing tag 1174, is interviewed by a journalist at the Busan refugee camp. Courtesy of Tam Nguyen

The fall of Saigon 50 years ago marked the reunification of Vietnam by the communist North and the end of the Vietnam War. Meanwhile, the collapse of South Vietnam also contributed to one of the most repressive eras in South Korean history.

After only narrowly defeating Kim Dae-jung in the 1971 presidential election, Park Chung-hee declared martial law in October 1972 and imposed the new Yushin ("revitalization") Constitution which neutered the National Assembly and all but made Park president for life.

Slowly, students, intellectuals and church leaders began to protest this suspension of democracy, to which the KCIA responded with stunning ferocity, arresting and torturing anyone who spoke out. Its most audacious act was kidnapping Kim Dae-jung from a Tokyo hotel with the intent of throwing him from a boat into the East Sea — a fate averted by the U.S. State Department condemning the kidnapping as an “act of terrorism” and U.S. Ambassador Philip Habib offering the Park regime the face-saving understanding that a “rogue KCIA faction” had carried out the abduction.

Under the realpolitik of Henry Kissinger’s State Department, however, official American intervention was rare. Instead, American missionaries on the ground in Seoul worked to smuggle information about repression in Korea out of the country, sending it to Tokyo, where it was edited together and published in the monthly magazine Sekai as “Letters from Korea,” a column written by Ji Myeong-gwan under the alias “T.K.”

In response to the student movement calling for abolition of the Yushin Constitution, in January 1974, Park issued Emergency Measures 1 and 2, which banned criticism of the Constitution and appointed military courts to try offenders. When students under the banner of the National Democratic Youth and Student Alliance (NDYSA) carried out protests nationwide on April 3, Park issued Emergency Measure 4, which banned the group and led to 1,000 arrests.

Headlines announced the enactment of Emergency Measure 4, published in The Korea Times April 4, 1974. Korea Times file

In July, several students, as well as poet Kim Chi-ha, were sentenced to death (later commuted), as were eight men said to be members of the People’s Revolutionary Party, a government-invented communist group portrayed as the puppet master controlling the NDYSA.

After Park’s wife was killed in an assassination attempt meant for him in August 1974, Park rescinded the Emergency Measures. In October, however, the Dong-A Ilbo decided to ignore government censorship rules and report on the activism and repression that was occurring. To bring the paper to heel, the government pressured its advertisers to pull their ads. In response, thousands of citizens from all walks of life bought subscriptions or purchased a tiny amount of ad space to express their support for the paper, such as one reading “Until the baton changes hands” sent in by “some students.”

As the new school year began in March 1975, Park called for unity and urged students to “clearly understand the true national situation, faced with constant threats from outside, and devote themselves to study.” When numerous demonstrations by thousands of students followed, Park declared Emergency Measure 7, which closed Korea University at gunpoint on April 8. Other university closures soon followed.

This was done in part to forestall protests coinciding with the Supreme Court upholding the death penalty for the eight supposed People’s Revolutionary Party defendants. The innocent men were hanged 18 hours later. In response, on April 11, Seoul National University student Kim Sang-jin read a statement at an on-campus demonstration urging the president to relent, saying, “It is self-evident that the people will carry on an eternal struggle to let the flower of democracy bloom, despite any and all oppression,” before publicly and dramatically committing suicide.

While all of this was happening, in March and April the front pages of newspapers featured headlines about the impending collapse of Cambodia and South Vietnam at the hands of Communist forces, accompanied by photos of fleeing refugees. Cambodia fell to Khmer Rouge forces on April 17, and the next day North Korean leader Kim Il-sung made a state visit to Beijing, leading to worries that an invasion of the South was being planned, a worry inflated by the discovery of two North Korean tunnels under the DMZ in November and March.

Though Beijing reined in the North’s enthusiasm for forceful reunification, this did not stop South Korean government-controlled media from insisting that the visit portended a real threat. Culture Minister Lee Won-kyung even suggested that, rather than pro-democracy impulses, it was in fact North Korean spies who were “instigating students, journalists, church men, and others.”

As April reached its end, it became clear the fall of Saigon was inevitable. On April 29, President Park gave a 43-minute-long televised speech claiming that invasion by the North was a real threat and that the time for divisive national politics was over. When Saigon fell the next day, Park was quoted as saying of South Vietnamese dissidents, “We should closely watch whether they can cry for freedom and human rights even under the Communist rule.”

Responding to government calls for unity — calls that were certainly not to be mistaken for requests — dozens of anti-communist rallies were held around the country “by the academic, religious, business, and entertainer circles.” Even at Korea University, thousands of students rallied and burned Kim Il-sung in effigy.

Numerous business and nationalist groups took out large ads in The Korea Times communicating their resolution for “total security,” with a 1,500-word tour de force published on May 10 by the Save the Nation Society standing out in particular. It explained how previous Korean kingdoms had defended their land, with the exception of Joseon, when “factionalism led to the disintegration of national unity and at last incurred a situation luring Japanese invasion rather than preventing it,” resulting in a war that “left the beautiful land devastated.” It also compared citizens who were “causing agitation about freedom, human rights, and democracy as if they were their personal belongings” to “fleas on lions” that were “likely to weaken the foundation of national power only to the advantage of the enemy.”

An ad by insurance underwriters announces their commitment to national defense, published in The Korea Times May 14, 1975. Korea Times file

On May 10, the government mobilized around 1.4 million people to attend a rally on Yeouido for “total security.” Three days later, Park issued Emergency Measure 9, which banned all dissent. A government pamphlet explained that the decree was issued “in response to public desire” seen at the rally the government itself had organized. T.K., writing from Japan, quipped that “The people thus are pictured as desiring repression that includes arrest without warrant, punishments that range from one year to death, and license to disband any organization or close any school. What an extraordinarily ‘judicious people!’”

A rally is held in Yeouido, published in The Korea Times May 11, 1975. Korea Times Archive

The same day Emergency Measure 9 was promulgated, South Vietnamese refugees evacuated by ROK Navy transports arrived in Busan, where they were greeted by thousands of mobilized Busan residents. As they began to settle into their refugee camp, government officials discovered the perfect role for some of the refugees: to explain to young Koreans what it meant to lose one’s country to communists.

Thi Huong Duyen Nguyen, who had arrived in Korea at age 18 with her three brothers and no possessions, remembered that she “gave a speech at a Busan high school assembly which was broadcast on Korean national TV in mid-1975.”

Thi Huong Duyen Nguyen stands with a Red Cross employee surnamed Cha at the Busan refugee camp. Courtesy of William Nguyen

Mary Nam, then 6, remembered going with her father, Rev. Thuan Quang Nguyen, to Seoul so he could speak at the June 7 multidenominational anti-communist rally in Yeouido organized by the Unification Church that drew 800,000 people. Unlike the older attendees, Nam remembered mainly that she “enjoyed many firsts” such as “staying in hotel rooms, riding in an elevator, eating oatmeal for breakfast, and drinking Coca-Cola.”

Rev. Thuan Quang Nguyen speaks at an anti-communist rally in Yeouido, June 7, 1975. Courtesy of Mary Nam

Tam Nguyen, a student, remembered that he “toured the country speaking at high schools and colleges accompanied by officials from the ministry of information” and Korean interpreters who “were exceptionally skilled and knowledgeable on both Vietnamese culture and history,” and whose Vietnamese language skills were “astonishing.” There he “talked about the threat of communism and their cruelty that I saw and lived through in my childhood and growing up.”

While these refugees warned of the perils of losing freedom at the hands of communists, the South Korean government was clamping down on liberty at home. Unlike the previously issued emergency measures, the ninth lasted for the rest of the decade, casting a pall of repression over what became known as the “winter republic.” In the name of “social purification,” the government also banned manifestations of Western influence such as long hair, marijuana and rock and folk music — ironically echoing the same puritanical crackdowns enacted by the communist regimes in Cambodia and South Vietnam.

Matt VanVolkenburg has a master's degree in Korean studies from the University of Washington. He is the blogger behind populargusts.blogspot.kr, and co-author of "Called by Another Name: A Memoir of the Gwangju Uprising."