Honorable Settlement

In a face-saving deal likely to raise incredulous eyebrows in both countries, South Korea and Japan last week moved to bury the affair of Kim Dae Jung. The case involved the leading opposition spokesman, whose abduction from a Tokyo hotel room had been eroding ties between the two countries for the past three months.

After a week of intensive negotiations, South Korea dispatched Prime Minister Kim Jong Pil to Japan to bow and offer an apology for the kidnaping to Prime Minister Kakuei Tanaka. Under the terms of the compromise, the government of President Chung Hee Park conceded that the chief "suspect" in the kidnaping was Kim Dong Woon, the former first secretary of the Korean embassy in Tokyo and a suspected agent of South Korea's Central Intelligence Agency. South Korea, though, insisted that whatever Kim Dong Woon might have done was not in any way an official act, but entirely private. That distinction was essential to the compromise. The government of Prime Minister Tanaka had stated earlier that Japanese sovereignty would have been violated only if it turned out that the kidnaping was an "official" act of the Seoul government.

As for Kim Dae Jung, Korea's Foreign Minister said that he had been freed from protective custody in Seoul. South Korea would waive any action against Kim for past activities if he did not repeat his "crimes"--presumably public opposition to the Park regime.

Passing Blame. The deal reflected the eagerness of both governments to end the affair, if only for economic reasons. The South Koreans are heavily dependent on the Japanese economically, while the Japanese were getting jittery about their vast investments ($350 million) in South Korea, which are now greater than those of the U.S. The settlement cleared the way for a long-delayed ministerial conference to decide on new Japanese aid commitments. Moreover, it allowed the Park regime to pass the blame to an expendable underling, and permitted the Japanese government to find "cause for congratulation" that "the victim of the crime has regained his freedom."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.