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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.