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- WORLD, Page 23World NotesSOUTH KOREAThe Charge Is Silence
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- Opposition leader Kim Dae Jung has spent seven of his 63 years
- in prison, and now the government hopes to lock him up again. Kim
- and two other members of his Party for Peace and Democracy were
- indicted last week for violating national-security and
- currency-control laws. According to the charges, they failed to
- report that one of their party colleagues, Suh Kyung Won, visited
- North Korea last year in violation of the ban on unauthorized
- contacts with the Communists. Kim, twice a presidential candidate,
- is also accused of failing to report that he accepted $10,000 Suh
- was given in Pyongyang.
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- The charges are "deliberate political persecution," says Kim.
- He knew nothing about the trip, he insists, until just before Suh
- was arrested last June. "I have nothing to fear," he told his
- supporters. But if he is convicted, Kim could spend up to 15 years
- behind bars.