Green Left Weekly, Issue #426
November 1, 2000
SOUTH KOREA: What went wrong with O20?
SEOUL : The protests against the Asia-Europe parliamentary meetings (ASEM) on
October 20 (O20) in Seoul were very lively, youthful and colourful (see GLW
#425). However, they also reflected the most pressing problems facing the
South Korean left movement.
In Europe, Australia and the United States, the rise of a new movement
against the global neo-liberalism has begun. A new generation of energetic
radicals are jettisoning the passivity of their forebears. In the process,
they have begun to inspire older layers of working people and are reawakening
the sense of solidarity with the oppressed people of the countries of the
Third World.
It is different in South Korea. A radicalisation of the student and
democracy movements culminated in the great upsurge of 1987, which drew in
the mass of industrial workers and began today's democratic labour movement.
But just as the movement was ascending, giving rise to vigorous discussions
on political strategy and party organisation, the collapse of Eastern Europe
brought chaos.
Retreat
The majority of the left retreated politically, while remaining within a
labour movement that was continuing to win major gains. This was in no small
part due to the intervention of a layer of class-struggle militants and
revolutionaries.
Instead of a new mass political formation, the movement in 1995 produced the
Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU), which brought together the
militant democratic unions that had mushroomed since 1987. This was also the
fruit of hard work by the militant and revolutionary minority in the workers'
movement.
The KCTU's first major test was the general strike of winter 1996-97
against the revision of labour laws. The defeat of the general strike
clarified the political differentiation that had taken place within the left.
The reformist majority drew the conclusion that they needed friendly
forces in parliament. In contrast, the advance of the labour movement to a
general strike inspired the revolutionaries, who concluded that what was
needed more than ever was a political leadership of the mass economic
struggle.
These differences hardened further with the beginning of the economic
crisis in late 1997 and the inauguration of the liberal-populist Kim
Dae-jung regime shortly afterwards. With no strategic alternative to
capitalism, the KCTU leadership began to compromise with the International
Monetary Fund (IMF) and its structural adjustment program.
The political differentiation came to be expressed organisationally. In early
1999, the parliamentarist Democratic Labour Party (DLP) was formed, primarily
to contest the general elections. In August 1999,
revolutionaries and militants regrouped with the formation of Power of the
Working Class (PWC).
Following the 1987 downfall of military rule, a liberal citizens' movement
began organising to transform many of the deeply conservative and repressive
features of South Korean society and culture. Its fundamental political
character immediately drew it to the Kim Dae-jung regime and a cozy
relationship has developed. The liberal citizens' groups have gained
influence and legitimacy through participation in government institutions,
while the regime has used the citizens' groups as cheerleaders for its
program of social consensus and economic liberalisation.
Problems
This year, the KCTU's DLP leaders have flirted with the citizens' movement in
their search for wider support outside the working class to cover their
retreat. For instance, both movements opposed the right of doctors to strike
in July.
O20 was organised by an alliance of the People's Rally Committee (PRC), which
was the largest component; Citizens' Action Against the WTO and Investment
Treaties; and the ASEM Non-Government Organisation Forum (Mingan), a peak
body of the liberal citizens' movement and non-government organisations
(NGOs)
In reality, the leadership of O20 was in the hands of the DLP-oriented
leadership of the KCTU, which was the largest force in the PRC. The KCTU tops
were reinforced by their liberal allies in Mingan (in which the KCTU also
participates).
Problems resulted because the KCTU leadership has an ambiguous attitude
toward the Kim Dae-jung regime, while Mingan has an ambiguous attitude to
ASEM and is fully behind Kim Dae-jung.
Mingan views ASEM as a qualitatively different institution to the IMF and the
World Trade Organisation. It believes ASEM can accommodate the wishes of NGOs
to an extent that the others cannot. Thus, it supported a policy of critical
intervention in the ASEM process and opposed the tactic of blockading the
ASEM meeting.
This led the KCTU to also, in effect, oppose the blockade, while paying lip
service to it. The turnout of less than 1000 at the conference venue on the
morning of October 20 and the feebleness of the action clearly revealed the
brakes that had been applied by the KCTU.
The KCTU's true intentions were revealed in a manoeuver at a media
conference on October 16. There, Mingan and the KCTU unilaterally decided and
publicised ?that the main O20 action would be a rally at Olympic Park, far
from the ASEM venue. They had the prior agreement of the PRC and Citizens'
Action for this announcement.
There was a naked material basis for this. As the PWC explained its
October 19 statement: The NGO Forum [Mingan] clearly showed what the
`critical intervention' line is all about their acceptance of sponsorship of
more than 120 million won (A$200,000) from the German and other European
governments, and more than 150 million won (A$250,000) from the Kim Dae-jung
regime, for the opening of the NGO Forum [meeting with the ASEM
representatives] which, to them, is the all-important event.
This statement caused great strife within Mingan but the KCTU staunchly chose
to remain compromised. In the PWC's words:
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