Former
South Korean president, Chun Doo-hwan, who presided over the infamous
Gwangju massacre during his iron-fisted eight-year rule, has died aged
90.
Chun had multiple myeloma, a blood cancer
which was in remission, and his health had deteriorated recently, his
former press secretary Min Chung-ki told reporters. He passed away at
his Seoul home early in the morning and his body will be moved to a
hospital for a funeral later in the day.
A former military commander, Chun oversaw the 1980 Gwangju massacre of pro-democracy demonstrators, a crime for which he was later convicted and received a commuted death sentence.
His
death came about a month after another former president and his coup
comrade Roh Tae-woo, who played a crucial but controversial role in the
country’s troubled transition to democracy, died at age 88.
Aloof
and ramrod-straight, Chun defended the coup at his mid-90s trial as
necessary to save the nation from a political crisis and denied sending
troops into Gwangju.
“I am sure that I would take the same action, if the same situation arose,” Chun told the court.
Chun
was born on 6 March 1931, in Yulgok-myeon, a poor farming town in the
south-eastern county of Hapcheon, during Japanese rule over Korea.
He joined the military straight out of high school, working his way up the ranks until he was appointed a commander in 1979.
Taking
charge of the investigation into the assassination of President Park
Chung-hee that year, Chun courted key military allies and gained control
of South Korea’s intelligence agencies to headline a coup in the
December.
“In front of the most powerful
organisations under the Park Chung-hee presidency, it surprised me how
easily [Chun] gained control over them and how skilfully he took
advantage of the circumstances. In an instant he seemed to have grown
into a giant,” Park Jun-kwang, Chun’s subordinate during the coup later
told journalist Cho Gab-je.
Chun’s eight-year
rule in the presidential Blue House was characterised by brutality and
political repression. It was, however, also marked by growing economic
prosperity.
Chun resigned from office amid a nationwide student-led democratic movement in 1987 demanding a direct electoral system.
In
1995, he was charged with mutiny, treason and was arrested after
refusing to appear at the prosecutors’ office and fleeing to his home
town.
At what local media dubbed the “trial of
the century”, he and coup co-conspirator and successor as president, Roh
Tae-Woo, were found guilty of mutiny, treason and bribery. In their
verdict, judges said Chun’s rise to power came “through illegal means
which inflicted enormous damage on the people”.
Thousands
of students were believed to have been killed at Gwangju, according to
testimonies by survivors, former military officers and investigators.
Roh
was given a lengthy jail term while Chun was sentenced to death.
However, that was commuted by the Seoul high court in recognition of
Chun’s role in the fast-paced economic development of the Asian “Tiger”
economy and the peaceful transfer of the presidency to Roh in 1988.
Both
men were pardoned and freed from jail in 1997 by then-president Kim
Young-sam, in what he called an effort to promote “national unity”.
Chun
made several returns to the spotlight. He caused a national furore in
2003 when he claimed total assets of 291,000 won ($245) of cash, two
dogs and some home appliances – while owing 220.5 billion won in fines.
His four children and other relatives were later found to own large
swaths of land in Seoul and luxurious villas in the United States.
Copyright2021olympithecus
