The news of former Prime Minister Lee Hae-chan’s passing on Sunday has left me unable to steady my emotions for days. Many share my grief, probably because he was a national leader who served seven terms in the National Assembly and as prime minister. But I have an additional reason that cuts much deeper. He passed away at the age of 74, and it was too early to leave this world. I think his early death is related to his sacrifice for democracy and that is why I am so sad.

Many people contributed to South Korea’s democratization, thousands, perhaps millions. Yet only a few deserve to be called giants in the national context. Aside from great figures such as Kim Dae-jung and Kim Young-sam, such men are rare. Lee was one of them. What makes his story particularly tragic is that his sacrifice did not end when South Korea began its democratic transition. The scars remained. I believe the illness he acquired from torture during his youth was one of the main reasons he died earlier than he should have.

I personally felt the weight of that sacrifice in January 1996. At the time, South Korea was approaching its 15th National Assembly elections. I was a political reporter covering the National Congress for New Politics, then the main opposition party. Lee, then in his mid-40s, served as the party’s chief election strategist. Every morning, he briefed reporters, and through those briefings I came to learn what kind of person he was.

He was exceptionally intelligent. He displayed an almost astonishing memory for polling data and economic indicators. He argued with discipline: calm, sharp and grounded in facts rather than prejudice or propaganda. His logic was clear, and his credibility was rarely questioned. Yet he also carried a strong hostility toward the conservative camp, shaped by decades of struggle. And he maintained a guarded, often suspicious posture toward journalists. His communication style was not warm or accommodating. It was cautious, disciplined and sometimes confrontational.

Even so, something else stood out more than his communication style. I noticed that when he spoke, his hands trembled subtly. He occasionally stuttered. I was startled. Later, people around him explained the reason: the aftereffects of harsh torture inflicted by the security authorities in the 1970s. Two decades passed. I met him again after he had stepped away from the front line of politics. His condition had worsened. He struggled to walk properly. The tremors were stronger, and his speech was more difficult. I felt a lump in my throat at the realization that my freedom was owed to his suffering and sacrifice.

That memory of trembling hands resurfaced the moment I heard the news of his death. And behind those trembling hands, I could hear something else: the silent scream of a young university student who had to endure torture, not because he committed a crime, but because he demanded democracy. How can we possibly repay a person who was tortured for democracy and spent his entire life suffering from the physical and psychological wounds inflicted by the state, only to leave the world too soon?

Lee’s death also calls back another painful memory: former Minister of Health and Welfare Kim Geun-tae, who died in 2011. Born in 1947, Kim devoted his entire life to the cause of democracy from the turbulent decades of the 1960s and 1970s through the historic year of 1987, when South Korea finally began to secure the democratic foundations it holds today.

Like Lee, Kim served multiple terms in the National Assembly and later became a Cabinet minister. Yet, like Lee, he carried the consequences of torture until the end of his life. Kim died at 64 — far too early. In 1985, he was arrested for organizing a democratic movement and tortured by the police. Over 22 days, he reportedly endured more than 10 sessions of torture, including waterboarding and electric shocks. It was so brutal that the period came to be remembered as "the time of beasts." Even under such inhuman conditions, he did not surrender his hope for survival and democracy. Some of his fellow victims never recovered. One suffered from severe mental illness until his death at 67.

Kim served time in prison. Yet after South Korea democratized in 1987, he was freed and entered politics. Still, freedom did not mean full recovery. Kim lived with chronic pain caused by torture. He could not lie down comfortably to sleep, forced to rest in awkward positions. He suffered post-traumatic stress disorder so severe that the sound of an electric drill could trigger terror. He endured lifelong breathing difficulties caused by chronic sinus problems.

When we remember Lee Hae-chan and Kim Geun-tae, we are reminded that democracy was achieved at a tremendous and cruel cost. In essence, South Korea’s democratic foundations were built because citizens broadly embraced democratic values and ideals. But values alone do not defeat dictatorships. Belief alone does not shut down torture chambers. If there had not been people like Lee and Kim — citizens who were willing to be arrested, beaten and tortured on behalf of the cause, then to spend the rest of their lives enduring the aftermath — it is difficult to know when South Korea’s democracy would have arrived.

Their lives tell us an uncomfortable truth: Democracy is sustained not only by institutions and elections, but also by the moral courage of individuals, and by sacrifices that are often invisible once freedom becomes routine. That is why Lee Hae-chan’s passing demands more than ordinary condolences. It demands reflection. And above all, it demands a renewed commitment to protecting human dignity — so that no young people, in any future crisis, will ever again be forced to pay for democracy with their bodies.

May he rest in peace.

And may the sacrifices that made our democracy never be forgotten.

Wang Son-taek

Wang Son-taek is an adjunct professor at Sogang University. He is a former diplomatic correspondent at YTN and a former research associate at Yeosijae. The views expressed here are the writer’s own. — Ed.


khnews@heraldcorp.com