Rebels Without a Pause

Divided but persistent, the opposition awaits its moment

While unrest was sweeping South Korea last week, Kim Dae Jung, the country's most famous opposition politician, stayed home. He had no choice: for the past ten weeks Kim has been under house arrest, his modest two-story residence in a Seoul suburb surrounded by 500 to 600 police. He and the eight aides confined with him can use the telephone and receive domestic newspapers, but no visitors are allowed inside. That isolation is an apt emblem of the country's weak and divided political opposition. A foe of virtually every regime since the South Korean republic was founded, the dissident parties have...

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