South Korea: The Tale Behind a Suicide

By RICHARD HORNIK/SEOUL

On May 1, Chun Se Yong sounded like the last person who would set himself on fire as a political protest. Two university students had just immolated themselves to protest the beating to death of a student demonstrator by police on April 26, but Chun, a 19-year-old sophomore at Kyungwon University, near Seoul, questioned the wisdom of adding to the growing list of martyrs, or yolsa (Korean for honorable man of justice). "We need more dedicated fighters, not more yolsa," the left-wing activist told colleagues at the campus newspaper.

But something changed for Chun in the next 48 hours. About 3 p.m. on May 3, he walked out on a balcony near the university's main entrance, doused himself with paint thinner, ignited himself with a cigarette lighter, and then plunged 15 ft. to the pavement below. Alive, but with burns covering 95% of his body, Chun was rushed to a hospital. Seven hours later, he died.

Since Chun's self-immolation, five more protesters have turned themselves into human versions of the Molotov cocktails students throw with alarming regularity during South Korea's annual spring demonstration season. Although the suicides have failed to produce the massive demonstrations that pushed the previous regime from power in 1987, President Roh Tae Woo fired his hard-line Prime Minister last week and promised other reforms, hoping to end this season's violence. But street clashes continued, killing one more person at week's end.

With the exception of one or two unbalanced victims, the suicides have had the same motive: to galvanize demonstrators and rouse the general public to demand an end to what the students say are the injustices of the government of President Roh Tae Woo and of the corporate conglomerates that dominate the economy. The young political activists see themselves as the conscience of their nation. Enough reforms have occurred in the past four years to mollify much of the populace. That is the case with most students as well, and their apathy has frustrated radical activists, who have now turned to more desperate inspiration.

But just why Chun Se Yong changed his mind about suicide is a mystery to those who knew him. Friends and colleagues describe him as an intense, articulate young man, well-versed in the rhetoric of his cause. Raised by his grandmother after his taxi-driver father and his mother divorced several years ago, Chun was sensitive to the social injustices he saw around him.

He was also susceptible to the ideological blandishments of the radical left when he entered the university. Korean high school students come from an intensive, hot-house education in which they are expected to memorize without question everything they are told. In college they often join informal study groups for camaraderie, but many of these are thinly disguised political- indoctrination cliques dominated by older, left-wing students. Untrained in critical thought, the young students are easily turned into ardent converts.

Chun entered this political crucible eagerly. He drew cartoons dripping with political sarcasm for the school paper. One showed George Bush in military fatigues waving an American flag while marching over a field of skulls. With no money from home, he worked at odd jobs and slept in a succession of offices and friends' apartments. But his real vocation was activism: he was part of a 60-person "torch force" that led demonstrators into battle with police by throwing rocks and Molotov cocktails.

Yet the numbers in the rear ranks were dwindling. A friend remembers that Chun was upset when students at the junior college affiliated with his university refused to cancel their annual spring festival celebrations after the suicides. The day he died, Chun surprised a confidant by asking, "Don't you think we would have more fighting activists if someone else killed himself by immolation?" Says Seoul National University sociology professor Han Wan Sang: "Self-immolation is an extreme form of the ignition effect -- an attempt to ignite society. If after the first two suicides the masses had been ignited, Chun and the others would not have done it."

Chun left a note for fellow students: "Although there are many things remaining to be done, if you participate in fighting and shoulder my share of the responsibility, I will close my eyes peacefully." But in spite of his suicidal act, and the five since then, the fighting spirit of the students seems to be flagging. Three weeks after Chun's death, candles still burn at the shrine erected to his memory, but students mill around, sipping sodas and talking about exams. On the steps below the spot where he died, fewer than 40 people turned up last week for a demonstration against American imperialism, which the left blames for all of Korea's ills.

The deaths have forced an embarrassed government to acknowledge the sincerity of some of the student's demands. The Cabinet shake-up and an offer of amnesty to a limited number of political prisoners are mainly cosmetic responses; yet even these modest measures will make it more difficult for the radicals to mobilize opposition to what they call a fascist regime. Since taking their own lives has not produced the desired results, Korea's students may turn to even more drastic tactics. "The disturbing question," says a Western diplomat, "is, What is the next step?" Chun Se Yong's friends are still wondering why he took his last one.