Park Chung-hee regime pre-notified N. Korea of 1972 martial law imposition: document

By Kim Hyun
SEOUL, Sept. 24 (Yonhap) -- South Korea's Park Chung-hee government pre-informed
North Korea that it would impose martial law south of the border in the early
1970s, Eastern European dossiers acquired by a U.S. think tank said.

The documents, translated and made public by the Woodrow Wilson International
Center for Scholars, are the first to show that Park's authoritarian regime
sought to assure Pyongyang that its move -- which granted the South Korean leader
near-dictatorial powers -- did not mean to "offend" North Korea and would rather
"guarantee the peaceful dialogue."
Park, who seized power in a military coup in 1961, declared martial law on Oct.
17, 1972, dismissing the parliament and suspending the Constitution. His
government revised the Constitution later that year to lift term limits on his
presidency.
According to the Bulgarian foreign ministry that filed part of the dossier, South
Korea twice notified the North's Kim Il-sung government of its imminent
announcement of martial law; a day before the announcement and again one hour
earlier.
For the first notification, South Korea called a meeting at the truce village of
Panmunjom and said "some measures" were inevitable to root out opponents of
reunification.
A South Korean representative, whose name was not mentioned in the document,
"said that Park Chung-hee and Lee Hu-rak desire the reunification of the country,
but they have many opponents. That is why some measures were necessary for the
establishment of order in the country," the document said.
Lee was the president's special envoy who facilitated an inter-Korean
reconciliatory statement in July that year.
The representative further explained "a statement" will be announced the
following day. North Koreans quoted in the dossier said he "asked it be listened
to carefully on our (the North Korean) part."
One hour before the decree was announced, South Korea again informed the North
"by telephone that at 19 o'clock an 'Emergency Statement' from Park Chung-hee
would be released on the radio, and they asked that we listen to it," according
to the North Koreans.
A day after the martial law was imposed, the two Koreas met again. Asked by North
Korea to explain, the South Korean representative said "strong opposition" forces
prompted the Seoul government to invoke martial law so that it could modify the
Constitution "without chaos and disorder in the country."
The representative added that Park's emergency statement had "no points that
affected or offended the DPRK (North Korea)" and a new Constitution would
"guarantee the peaceful dialogue between the North and the South."
Park earlier revised the Constitution in 1969 to allow himself to run for a third
term. By declaring martial law and revising the Constitution again in 1972, he
removed term limits on his presidency. He was assassinated by his chief
intelligence officer, Kim Jae-gyu, in 1979.
Some opposition leaders have claimed the Park regime used the cause of
reunification as an excuse to permanently rule the country, but the claims had
not been substantiated.
Also in the early 1970s, North Korea launched extensive diplomacy toward its
communist allies in East Europe as it was improving relations with the South.
North Korea invited ambassadors from Eastern Europe in 1972, saying its "peace
offensive" toward South Korea's Park government was aimed at precluding U.S. and
Japanese influence on the South and eventually achieving reunification, according
to the document
Kim Il-sung also sent Jeong Jun-taek, vice-premier of the Cabinet, to Romanian
President Nicolae Ceausescu, in September 1972, saying the North has no intention
of invading the South.
"If we start a war in South Korea, it can turn into a world war," Kim said,
according to records filed by the Romanian foreign ministry. "What should we do?
Taking the current situation into account, we thought the best thing to do is to
launch a peaceful offensive."
In talks with Ceausescu a year earlier, 1971, Kim Il-sung argued North Korea had
to seize a U.S. military ship, USS Pueblo, three years earlier because it had
illegally entered its territory. The U.S. ship is now displayed along the main
river in the North Korean capital. Washington has called for its return.
If Americans "create situations like Pueblo ... then we are entitled to capture
them or to shoot them down. We keep our business to our territory, we don't do it
in the waters of the United States of America," Kim said.
hkim@yna.co.kr
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