Occurring in the closing years of the Cold War, the boycott represented a fracturing of the Eastern Bloc alliance, with a preponderance of Bloc countries choosing to attend the Seoul Olympics rather than supporting North Korea.[2] The following year North Korea hosted its own sporting event, the 13th World Festival of Youth and Students in Pyongyang, in July 1989.
Leadup to boycott
'Co-hosting' role
Cognizant of the enmity existing between the two Koreas and wishing to prevent any actions which might undermine the Games' organization, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) decided early on to make ensuring North Korean participation in the Games a priority.
The idea of co-hosting the Olympics did not originate with the IOC; rather, the idea first came from Italian Foreign Minister Giulio Andreotti, who suggested to South Korean Foreign Minister Lee Won Kyong on June 27, 1984, that one way of assuring a "smooth running of the Games" in Seoul was for South Korea to consider ceding a particular number of sporting events and locations to the North, who would act as co-host for those segments.[3] That idea was similarly suggested by Cuban President Fidel Castro, who, on November 29, 1984, had sent a letter to the president of the IOC, Juan Antonio Samaranch, where Castro criticized the IOC's choice of Seoul for the Summer Games and requested that the Games be split between North and South Korea.[4]
The South Koreans and the IOC were categorically opposed to the idea of having a 'co-host' for the Games, however, they were prepared to allow the North to serve as a site for a minimal number of athletic segments from the Games. The precedent for carrying out an Olympic Games' athletic events in two separate countries was previously set at the 1956 Summer Olympic Games, when Australia hosted the majority of events in Melbourne while equestrian events were held in Stockholm.[5]
In order to explore how this arrangement might work, the IOC proposed coordinating a series of joint meetings beginning in 1985 in order to help facilitate North Korea's participation in the Games. The meetings between the North and South Korean NOCs and members of the IOC would take place at the IOC's headquarters in Lausanne, Switzerland.
North and South to jointly host the Games and field a single team
Renaming the Games to the Korean Olympic Games
North and South to split evenly all athletic events
Opening and Closing Ceremonies held in Pyongyang and Seoul
A "Joint Organizing Committee" to take the place of the SLOOC
Kim Jong-ha, President of the South Korean National Olympic Committee (then known as the Korean Amateur Sport Association or KASA), responded by describing the legal contracts which the IOC had entered into with the South Korean NOC and the Republic of Korea, and that this "established fact" would preclude them from agreeing to many of the items on the North's list,[8] save for two modified elements: That the two Korean teams enter the stadium during the Opening Ceremonies together in one instance, and that a location within North Korea serve as a partial site for an athletic competition, perhaps one of the cycling events. After two days of meetings, the first round was adjourned until the second round, scheduled for January 1986.
Meeting of the Eastern Bloc ministers of sport
In the time between the first two joint sessions, Samaranch traveled to Hanoi on November 14–16, 1985, to attend the 34th Annual Meeting of the Eastern Bloc Ministers of Sport in order to gauge the level of support North Korea might receive from the ideologically socialist-oriented countries. Upon his arrival, Samaranch was disappointed to learn that North Korean Minister Kim Yu-sun was using his time in Hanoi to lobby other countries' participants into adopting a categorical resolution against the Games occurring only in Seoul. Despite this lobbying, only Cuba at this early stage appeared to be so-strongly supportive of North Korea's proposals that it was considering a boycott, with Cuban Minister of Sport Conrado Martinez using his speech time to effectively deliver what Samaranch called "a diatribe" against the IOC and the 1988 Games.[9]
The other nations present offered only cautious support when discussing the matter, seemingly avoiding any commitments to a boycott. Czechoslovak Minister of Sport Antonín Himl supported the idea of organizing some events in North Korea, while Romanian Minister of Sport Lia Manoliu merely reaffirmed her support of the Olympic Movement and the IOC. East German Minister of Sport Gunther Heinz spoke highly of the IOC's first joint session with the two Korean NOCs, stating that it demonstrated the possibility for positive results. Bulgarian Minister of Sport Trendafil Martinski mentioned his country's wish to avoid the boycotts that affected 1980 and 1984, while Soviet Minister of Sport Marat Gramov was not particularly insistent upon any course of action. Polish Minister of Sport Marian Renke advanced his belief that nothing about Seoul's being chosen could be changed, no matter what North Korea was hoping for, while the Mongolian Minister of Sport expressed only mild support for North Korea.[10]
The second joint meeting between the IOC and North and South Korea occurred on January 8–9, 1986, in Lausanne. The IOC offered three events consisting of soccer, table tennis and archery.[11] One request the IOC was now willing to accept wholesale was for changing the name of competitions to be held in Pyongyang to The XXIVth Olympic Games in Pyongyang.[12] However, the number of events requested by the North remained stubbornly high at eight events, far more than the South and the IOC were prepared to accept.[13] By March 1986 that number had dropped to six events.[14] By the third round in June 1986, North Korea had agreed in principle to host table tennis, archery, preliminary-round soccer, and a 100-km cycle race from Pyongyang to Seoul. However, in February 1987, North Korean demands for athletic competitions to host had increased once again to 8 events.[15] Samaranch stated that "I think the offer we made to the North Koreans was both historic and very generous. There could be minor changes, but we cannot go beyond that".[16]
North Korean applications for Soviet influence
On May 16, 1986, Hwang Jang-yop, Secretary of the Central Committee of the Workers' Party of Korea, met in Moscow with his Soviet counterpart Alexander Yakovlev, where Hwang pressed the Soviets to continue to place pressure on the South to provide concessions regarding the Games' allocations, stating "our adversary began making concessions to us when the Soviet Union and other socialist countries put it under pressure. ... However, when this pressure weakened, the adversary tried to regain the lost ground".[17] Hwang also called out members of the Eastern Bloc who were failing in their support of the North, lamenting that "unfortunately, some of our friends are hurrying with the agreement to go to Seoul for participation in the Olympic Games", and that the North would like instead "for all socialist countries to take firm class-based positions and undertake joint actions to expose the plans of the adversary and to support our proposals on the joint organization of the Games".[17] Hwang repeated his request to Yakovlev along with one particular suggestion:
"It is desirable that the fraternal Soviet Union put the adversary under pressure. This will create favorable circumstances for the realization of our goals at the talks in Lausanne. The Soviet comrades could, for instance, declare that if the proposal of the DPRK about joint organization of the Games were not accepted, the Olympic Movement would face a dangerous crisis, that the South Korean side must shoulder full responsibility for the separatist holding of the Olympic Games in Seoul."[17]
In October 1986 North Korean leader Kim Il Sung met with Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev, who informed Kim of his belief that attendance at Olympic events with one's opponents would prove more influential than boycotting them, saying "the Olympics is a huge channel for cooperation, for influencing in the needed direction". When the discussion turned to the possibility of a boycott by the Eastern Bloc in support of North Korea achieving its aims, Gorbachev said, "if we took this road, we would do injury to ourselves, and to our policy". Gorbachev's response to Kim indicated that he had "realized that sports and politics were mutually intertwined, and that by associating the USSR with Pyongyang’s intransigent attitude he could sabotage his own broader foreign policy goals".[2]
The death of a Korean activist, Park Chong-chul, in January 1987, while undergoing interrogation at the hands of South Korean police, led to mass protests being held across South Korea in April, 1987.[18] The further death of a university student in July, and concerns over South Korea's Presidential election system, exacerbated the protests against the government, leading commentators around the world to question South Korea's ability to successfully orchestrate the coming Summer Games. A speech given by Roh Tae-woo, the candidate for President of South Korea at the next election, was viewed positively as resolving the protests.[19][20]
Meanwhile, the fourth round of joint meetings began on July 14, 1987.[21] Despite Samaranch's previous claim from February 1987 that the proposals offered in June 1986 were likely the last, best offer to the North, the offer being discussed in July 1987 was an "improved proposal":
Full men's and women's table tennis competitions
Full men's and women's archery competitions
Part of the soccer tournament
Part of the women's volleyball competitions
Part of the cycle road race
Additional considerations, including allowing those events to be conducted entirely in North Korea, and scheduling for a fifth series of meetings where they would discuss the formation of a new Organizing Committee in the North to coordinate only those activities being held there, as well as ensuring television coverage, were also to be granted.[22] As long as the North agreed to withdraw their request to "co-host" the Games, comply with the Olympic Charter, attend the Opening and Closing Ceremonies (which would only be held in Seoul), participate in the Games, and allow guaranteed unrestricted travel across their border.[23] The offer on its face was historic in nature, in that the concessions the IOC was proposing went against the principles laid down by the Olympic Charter.[24] Samaranch described the proposals as "exceptional and unprecedented" and urged the North to make a timely reply. Inexplicably, the North, showing much prevarication, failed to accept the newer proposals.
Failure of the joint meetings
IOC Vice President Richard W. Pound described the different positions of the North and South and the inability to meet in the middle as "the very heart of the political problem". The peculiar manner in which the two Koreas communicated with each other also complicated their search for middle ground. Samaranch referred to this as the Olendorf Method, which involves "responding to any statement or question with something entirely off‑point and completely unrelated to the topic at hand", the resulting chaos being "often a feature of the[ir] negotiations".[25]
It was noted that only part of the soccer tournament was being offered by the time of the fourth round (when earlier it had been offered in full) and that if only Samaranch had offered it in full along with archery and tennis, perhaps an agreement could have been reached. By the time of the fourth round of meetings however, with the Soviet Union and other Bloc countries' attendance practically certain and North Korea's demands for sport increasing yet again to six events, Samaranch found that he "needed talks more than he needed an agreement".[26] This provided the IOC with a silver lining as Pound saw it, with the more radicalized, eternally‑shifting positions of the North eventually working against them realizing their own goals while working for the South and the IOC in realizing theirs:
"In the end, the likelihood of inter-Korean cooperation on the scale necessary to coordinate the logistical aspects of the Olympic Games was, at best, illusory. The South wanted it to be clear that it was the host nation and that anything it might give to the North should be seen as just that — an accommodation made by the official host of the Games. The North, on the other hand, was desperately afraid of being maneuvered into a position that would be manifestly subservient to the South. Placed in the middle, the IOC wanted to keep pressure on the North and to continue to give them more opportunities to isolate themselves. The more it could appear that the IOC was doing everything to be reasonable in the face of unreasonable conduct, the more likely it was that the [other] NOC's would be sympathetic to its [the IOC's] efforts. The more irrational and unreasonable the DPRK could appear to be, the better it would be for this process. North Korea resolutely took advantage of every such opportunity to lose the backing of those who might otherwise have been inclined to support its position."[27]
With the failure of negotiations, the destruction of Korean Air Flight 858 in November 1987—and North Korea's apparent culpability in the bombing[28]—left it even more isolated, with "such support as they might have garnered, even among the socialist countries, evaporating significantly thereafter".[29][30][31]
Boycotting countries
North Korea
Pak Song-chol, Vice President of North Korea, was instrumental in garnering Cuban and Nicaraguan support of the boycott
With the North Koreans refusing to accept the IOC's 'historic' proposals, and no more joint meetings on schedule that might have offered North Korea additional room to maneuver, on January 12, 1988, the North announced it was boycotting the Games. The Korean Central News Agency reported on the announcement made by the North Korean NOC, saying "we will not participate in the Olympic Games to be singly hosted by South Korea".[33]
Cuba
On February 4, 1986, the Cuban Communist Party Third Congress began in Havana, with Cuban President Fidel Castro hosting the majority of Cuban government officialdom along with a variety of foreign Communist and socialist dignitaries, among them, North Korean Vice President Pak Song-chol and Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega.
On February 6, North Korean Vice President Pak made a speech to the other assembled dignitaries where he urged them to "wage a dynamic struggle" for North Korea to get a share of the 1988 Summer Olympic Games. In response, Castro offered his guarantee that Cuba would boycott the 1988 Games unless North and South co-hosted the event.[32] Castro's stance was prompted in part by Cuba's loss to Ecuador as host of the 1987 Pan American Games,[b] with "Castro's support for Kim Il Sung in the dispute over the Seoul Olympics thus complementing his own set of grievances about the state of the international Olympic movement".[35]
On January 15, 1988, Cuba reiterated that it would boycott the Games in Seoul owing to "North Korea not being invited to co-host the event with South Korea". The official Cuban news agency Prensa Latina, reporting on an announcement made in Havana by Cuban Olympic Committee President Manuel González Guerra, said Cuba "will not register for, nor will it commit itself to participating in the Olympic Games", adding that Cuba "would be prepared to reconsider its decision if there were co-sponsorship of the Games".[36] Castro, in a letter sent to Samaranch on January 13, 1988, implored the IOC not to levy sanctions against Cuba for its decision, saying "even though we deeply regret this unavoidable decision, our people and our athletes, who abide by deep ethic norms and a great sense of honor, will not be discouraged and will continue to participate in the Olympics of Barcelona in 1992, if we are not sanctioned for maintaining a dignified behavior."[37]
Nicaragua
On February 7, 1986, during the final day of the Cuban Communist Party Third Congress, North Korean Vice President Pak met privately with Nicaraguan President Ortega, where Pak repeated his exhortations for Nicaraguan support of North Korea co-hosting the Olympics. As Castro had done earlier, Ortega pledged Nicaragua's support, saying that his country would not participate in the Seoul Games if North Korea's proposal to co-host did not come about.[32]
On September 15, 1986, while visiting North Korea, Ortega repeated this pledge at a banquet hosted by Kim Il Sung, with Ortega affirming that "Nicaragua will not participate in the Games if the co-hosting proposal of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea is not realized".[38]
On May 20, 1987, Nicaraguan Olympic Committee (NOC) President Moisés Hassan restated his country's plan of action that "if the 1988 Olympics are not carried out in Pyongyang and Seoul, the two Korean capitals, Nicaragua will not attend this event".[39]
Despite these three prior pronouncements on Nicaragua's boycott intentions, on January 16, 1988, in a telex explaining Nicaragua's non-participation sent by Nicaraguan OC President Hassan to IOC President Samaranch, there was no mention made of North Korea.[40] Instead, Hassan claimed a 'lack of concentration on sport' due to hostilities in Nicaragua, non-qualification of their best athletes through the Pan American Games, and a 'bad economic situation'[41] as causing Nicaragua's non‑attendance. Samaranch dismissed these reasons as false, calling Hassan's telex "a feeble rationalization of a political decision not to participate",[40] and reminded Hassan in a reply telex that the Nicaraguan OC would not share in any of the Olympic Solidarity funds for the period of 1988–1992 if it failed to participate in the Seoul Games, "seeing as they will not have contributed towards raising the funds which we subsequently distribute".[42] Samaranch also told Hassan that he found it strange that Nicaragua would have participated in the Olympic Games in Los Angeles, the Central American and Caribbean Games, and the Pan American Games the year before, seeing as how the country at the time of those events was still "in the same circumstances as the present".[43]
Ethiopia
On December 18, 1985, in an address given before the Association of National Olympic Committees of Africa, President of the Ethiopian Olympic Committee and Commissioner for Sports and Physical Culture, Tsegaw Ayele, warned of an Olympic boycott in 1988 if the Games were not co-hosted by North Korea.[44] According to Samaranch, Ayele's address signaled that the internal decision for Ethiopia to boycott was likely already made by the Ethiopian Communist Party Central Committee two years before being announced. Unfortunately for Ethiopia and its athletes Samaranch surmised, their decision failed to take into account the directional changes made by the other socialist members of the Eastern Bloc, which by a later point were moving away from boycotts and towards participation in the Seoul Games.[45]
Nevertheless, on January 20, 1988, Ethiopia publicly announced that it would boycott the 1988 Summer Olympics in solidarity with North Korea, saying "At a time when the Korean people, who are divided against their will, are struggling for peaceful negotiations, Ethiopia strongly objects to the Olympic Games being conducted in South Korea, which further strengthens disunity", adding that Ethiopia would participate "if the decision to keep the Games in South Korea were reversed".[46]
Madagascar
Between June 23–26, 1988, Samaranch tasked a UNESCO official, Charles Randriamanantenasoa, with paying a visit to Madagascar during celebrations for the twenty-eighth anniversary of Malagasy Independence. During this visit, Randriamanantenasoa met with various government officials as well as Malagasy President Didier Ratsiraka, to whom Randriamanantenasoa had delivered a plea for allowing "the young people and the athletes" of Madagascar to attend the Seoul Games. Ratsiraka replied that the position adopted by the Malagasy Joint Ministers/Supreme Councillors of the Revolution Committee was that they would only participate if North Korea were allowed a co-hosting role. Randriamanantenasoa reported back to Samaranch that "although certain Malagasy officials were not in favor of the decision, none dared to make any other suggestion to the President, who alone appeared to have the final word".[47]
Despite Ratsiraka's apparent intransigence, Madagascar had mistakenly responded positively to the initial invitation to attend, but later corrected itself, withdrawing from the Games in support of North Korea, as it had earlier said it would. This reason was noted by the SLOOC in their official report on the Games released in 1989.[48]
Albania
Albania did not publicly offer a reason for their boycott,[42] but the country was generally believed to have subscribed to a policy of isolationism at the time. The 1988 Summer Olympic Games represented the fourth Summer Games in a row which Albania had boycotted.
Seychelles
The Seychelles did not publicly offer a reason for their boycott.[42]
Non-boycotting socialist countries
The following members of the Eastern Bloc and other related socialist countries did not join the boycott and participated in the 1988 Summer Olympic Games:
China(CHN) publicly indicated that it would attend the 1988 Games on January 14, 1988.[51] Chinese paramount leader Deng Xiaoping had already privately told North Korea in November 1985 that China intended to participate in the Seoul Games.[52]
East Germany(GDR) along with Hungary, became the first two Eastern Bloc countries to announce that they would attend the 1988 Summer Olympic Games on December 21, 1987.[53] East German leader Erich Honecker had already indicated to Samaranch on November 14, 1986, that his country intended to participate, telling Samaranch East Germany was "preparing for the 1988 Olympic Games at Seoul".[2]
Hungary(HUN) along with East Germany, became the first Eastern Bloc nations to accept their invitations to the 1988 Games on December 21, 1987.[54]
Poland(POL) accepted its invitation to the Games on January 5, 1988, saying "the Polish Olympic Committee approved an invitation of the International Olympic Committee to take part in the Olympic Games".[55]
Romania(ROM) indicated that it would attend the 1988 Seoul Games on January 8, 1988.[50] Romania had been the only European Eastern Bloc country to attend the 1984 Summer Olympic Games in Los Angeles.
Soviet Union(URS) had indicated to the IOC as early as the summer of 1985, during a visit Samaranch made to Moscow, that it was "ready to take part in the Games" and that they were "not worried regarding the position of North Korea".[14] According to Samaranch, the Soviets became agreeable owing in part to their desire at fostering interest in having the 1994 Winter Olympics hosted in Leningrad.[56] The Soviet Union made its public announcement on January 11, 1988, that it would be attending the Seoul Games. With their announcement, Marat Gramov, of the Soviet NOC, conceded that the political boycotts that have "tarnished" the Summer Olympics since 1976 were counterproductive. "From my point of view, it is not the best page in the history of the Olympic Games."[57]
A large scale sporting event, the 13th World Festival of Youth and Students—billed by North Korea as a counterpart to the 1988 Summer Olympics—was held in Pyongyang on July1–8,1989(1989-07-01– 1989-07-08).[58] The event was attended mostly by members of the Eastern Bloc and other socialist nations of the Non-Aligned Movement.[59]
Notes
↑While Madagascar, Nicaragua, and the Seychelles were—and still are—official members of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), Albania was never formally part of that group.[1]
↑Radchenko (2011, p.148) "The IOC had reconsidered the proposal put forward at the close of the third round of talks and was prepared to put forward an improved proposal as follows: men’s and women’s archery competitions, men’s and women’s table tennis competitions, one group of the football tournament, the cycle road race and the women’s volleyball competitions would be organized in the territory of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. Should the NOC accept this proposal, the IOC would call a fifth meeting in order to discuss other issues such as free circulation, formation of an Organizing Committee in Pyongyang, television coverage and so forth."
↑Bonilla, Oswaldo (May 20, 1987). "Nicaragua Conditions Its Attendance at Olympic Games". UPI. Moises Hassan, Nicaragua Olympic Committee president, told the El Nuevo Diario newspaper the problem was a 'political question' and that Nicaragua 'fully' backed North Korean demands. ... 'If the 1988 Olympics are not carried out in Pyongyang and Seoul, the two Korean capitals, Nicaragua will not attend this event,' Hassan told the newspaper.
↑Janofsky, Michael (January 16, 1988). "Nicaragua Says No". The New York Times. Archived from the original on October 27, 2022. Moisés Hassan said that the decision was based on athletic and financial considerations, and that it was not politically motivated. He said that solidarity with North Korea, which is boycotting the Games, was not a factor.
Mousset, Kilian; Violette, Louis; Épron, Aurélie (July 3, 2023). "The Failure to Co-Host the Seoul 1988 Summer Olympics: A Diplomacy 'Of Small Steps' Influenced by International Opinion (1985–88)". International Journal of Sport Policy and Politics. 15 (3): 387–399. doi:10.1080/19406940.2023.2239821. S2CID260223076.
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