The Surging News reporter Wang Xinran
On the morning of November 23, 2021, former South Korean President Jeon Doo-hwan died at his home in Seoul at the age of 90.
Former South Korean President Jeon Doo-hwan. People's Vision Infographic
From being born poor to winning the admiration of former President Park Chung-hee, from seizing power in a coup to unfolding dictatorship. As a former president of South Korea who was sentenced to death and had his home raided, Chun Doo-hwan is closely associated with South Korea's previous military dictatorship and subsequent democratization movements.
As the 11th and 12th President of The Republic of Korea, although he achieved the economic development of the Republic of Korea during the Period of the Fifth Republic (1980-1988), he also successfully hosted the 10th Asian Games in 1986 and successfully bid for the 1988 Summer Olympic Games.
However, Chun Doo-hwan was also criticized for the Gwangju Affair and subsequent dictatorship, and until a few months before his death, he appeared in court on suspicion of misrepresenting and denying the facts in his memoirs and defaming the deceased and his family.
The beginning of the road
Chun Doo-hwan was born in 1931 to a peasant family in Shaancheon-gun, Gyeongsangnam-do province, North Korea during the Japanese rule era, and although his family was poor, his father, Jeon Sang-woo, was a "rural intellectual" who knew Chinese characters, so he was elected as the village chief at the time. In 1939, when Chun Doo-hwan was 8 years old, Quan Sang-woo fell off his ancestral land because he provided debt guarantees to gamblers in the same village, after which Jeon Sang-woo pushed the Japanese inspector-in-chief off a cliff during his pursuit by the local police, and then Jeon Sang-woo fled with his family to Jilin, China.
South Korea's "JoongAng Ilbo" reported that Chun Doo-hwan's family fled to Jilin for 2 years before returning to China to settle in Daegu, and because of this experience, Chun Doo-hwan graduated from elementary school two or three years later than his peers. In 1947, Chun Doo-hwan entered Daegu Industrial High School and three years later entered Daegu Industrial High School. Although his academic performance is not very good, due to the influence of his father, Chun Doo-hwan also has the "first mentality" of being ahead of others in everything.
After the outbreak of the Korean War, Chun Doo-hwan, a high school graduate, entered the Daegu Army Non-Commissioned Officer School and met many of his peers. These people later became prominent figures in South Korean politics, including the 13th President of South Korea, Roh Tae-wook. In September 1955, Chun Doo-hwan graduated from the school and enlisted as a second lieutenant, officially beginning his military career. He served as a platoon leader for several years on the front line of the Korean military demarcation line (38th line), and was promoted to lieutenant in 1958. In the same year, Chun Doo-hwan joined the newly formed Airborne Troops and was sent to the United States the following year to receive five months of psychological warfare education.
In 1960, as one of the first reserve instructors for the Korean Paratroopers, he was again sent to the United States for training, and returned to Japan as an instructor in the Reserve Officer Training Corps at Seoul National University.
On April 19 of the same year, South Korean high school students, university students, and laborers protested because of fraud in the election of the fourth president of South Korea, Syngman Rhee. Under pressure, Rhee was forced to step down. The Second Republic, led by the Democratic Party, was established in August 1960.
Due to infighting between the old faction of the Democratic Party, represented by then-President Yoon Yoon-sun, and the new faction represented by then-Prime Minister Jang Myeong-mi, the Second Republic not only failed to bring about the stability expected by the people, but also the South Korean economy deteriorated. Due to the government's incompetence, people's strong dissatisfaction with the government has continued to erupt in South Korea, and the political and economic situation has been chaotic. In just 9 months in the Second Republic, 950,000 people took part in 1,836 demonstrations.
In this extremely turbulent social situation, on May 16, 1961, Major General Park Chung-hee, deputy commander of the Second Army of the South Korean Army, and others launched a military coup to seize power. Against the backdrop of Park Chung-hee's quest for support from the military, Chun Doo-hwan judged the situation and led more than 800 army cadets to a parade and rally in Seoul (present-day Seoul). This move consolidated and appreciated Park Chung-hee's political base, and Chun Doo-hwan was appointed secretary of the Civil Affairs Office of the President of the Supreme Council for Reconstruction, and then returned to the army, successively serving as chief of the personnel section of the Central Intelligence Department and deputy head of the First Airborne Special Operations Division.
In August 1967, Chun Doo-hwan went to work at Park Chung-hee as the commander of the 30th Brigade of the Capital Police Command, responsible for the protection of the perimeter of the Blue House. In March 1979, Chun Doo-hwan became the commander of the military security department and began to take over the power.
The only presidential candidate
Chun Doo-hwan's "Presidential Path" began with the "emergency" of 1979. On October 26 of that year, Park Chung-hee, Then Director of the Presidential Police Office, Cha Ji-cheol, and Then Head of South Korea's Central Intelligence Department, Kim Jae-gyu, had dinner at a secret ballroom of the Central Intelligence Agency. Due to the continuous deterioration of the relationship between Kim Jae-gyu and Cha Ji-cheol for a long time before, the former was accused by Cha Ji-che in front of Park Chung-hee at the banquet, Kim Jae-gyu was angry and shot and killed Cha Ji-cheol, and Park Chung-hee, who had condemned Kim Jae-gyu at the banquet, was also shot by the former.
After park Chung-hee was assassinated, the South Korean government issued martial law on all areas except Jeju Island, and Acting President Choi Gyu-ha and martial law commander Jung Seung-ho established the Joint Search Headquarters the next day and appointed Chun Doo-hwan as the Director of the Joint Search Headquarters.
"Choi Gyu-ha, a career diplomat, does not control the military department, and in the absence of power, he cannot avoid the power struggle within the military department from turning into a new military coup." The book "History of Contemporary Korea", written by Cao Zhongping and Zhang Lianjie, points out that in this struggle, the new military forces headed by Chun Doo-hwan are in a favorable position, but to seize the supreme power of the state, it is necessary to first seize control of the military department, that is, to remove Zheng Sheng and the general who hold the actual power of the army.
On December 12, 1979, Chun Doo-hwan, Roh Tae-woo, and others staged a coup d'état to kidnap Jeong Seung-ho and force Choi Gyu-ha to confess to his pursuit. However, due to the many democratization movements that had taken place under the Park Chung-hee dictatorship, the new military department did not immediately overthrow Choi Gyu-ha and his cabinet in the face of national resistance to the military. Since then, a large number of pro-democratizer activists have "regained their freedom," and a wave of democratization has quietly and foreshadowed in South Korean society.
"At the time, most people thought that the dictatorship would come to an end and democratization was coming. Hopeful people called the beginning of 1980 the 'Seoul Spring' and the 'Spring of Democratization after the End of the Winter Republic'. For this trend of the democratic movement, the South Korean website "5.18 Democratization Movement Record Museum" described it this way. In March of the same year, activities led by the Seoul National University General Student Union, mainly university students, gradually spread to all parts of the country.
Since then, the South Korean workers' and student movement has sprung up on a large scale, with the most active figures including the future 14th President of South Korea, Kim Young-sam, and the 15th President of South Korea, Kim Dae-jung, and the current President of South Korea, Moon Jae-in, who also joined the student movement at that time. In May 1980, South Korean college students officially launched the struggle of "lifting martial law" and "guaranteeing the three rights of labor" and began to go out of school. In the same month, as the wave of demonstrations widened, pro-democracy forces took aim at Chun Doo-hwan, demanding his removal and lifting of martial law.
Amid growing opposition, on May 17, Chun Doo-hwan announced the expansion of martial law nationwide, the "White Terror" hung over the streets, all political and congressional activities were suspended, and universities were suspended.
From May 18 to 27, 1980, under martial law, there was an unprecedented demonstration in Gwangju, the capital of South Jeolla Province, South Korea. Chun Doo-hwan was transferred back from near the 38th Parallel to Gwangju to suppress the situation, where the Martial Law Cut Off contact with the outside world and opened fire on demonstrators for fear that the situation was out of control. Official statistics say at least 200 innocent people were killed.
Known as the May 18 Gwangju Incident, Kim Dae-jung was arrested, Kim Young-sam was placed under house arrest, and Choi Gyu-ha stepped down under pressure. On August 27 of the same year, Chun Doo-hwan, as the sole candidate, won an overwhelming victory with 99.9% of the vote in the election of the Unified Subject National Assembly, and was elected the 11th president of South Korea, beginning his dictatorship for more than seven years.
Despite Chun Doo-hwan's successful rise to power after the Gwangju incident, many believe that the Gwangju incident was very important to the Democratization Movement in South Korea. "Although brutally suppressed, it is still considered a pivotal moment in the struggle for democracy in South Korea during the long dictatorship after the Korean War." The BBC wrote in its report that some believe the effects of these democratization movements can still be felt inside and outside South Korea. The Korea Broadcasting Corporation (KBS) also reported that the Gwangju incident was arguably the saddest event in South Korea's modern history, which accelerated the arrival of democracy in South Korea.
A society controlled by the government
After Chun Doo-hwan came to power, at the domestic political level, he committed himself to stabilizing the economy and achieved considerable results. According to a previous report by Xinhua News Agency, from 1981 to 1987, South Korea entered a mature period of industrialization, and after 1985, the Chun Doo-hwan government began to gradually implement the three measures that had been legislated before, such as universal medical insurance, national annuity and minimum wage, focusing on the comprehensive construction of a social security system.
The JoongAng Daily also reported that the Chun Doo-hwan government abandoned the previous government's policy of taking growth as the most important goal, and introduced a series of policies that prioritize maintaining stable growth rates, such as low prices, low interest rates, low exchange rates, and cracking down on real estate speculation. Thanks to this, South Korea's price level remained stable while achieving a trade surplus.
In addition, after the success of the 1981 Olympic bid, Chun Doo-hwan also innovated under a series of policies that Park Chung-hee had planned, and transformed many aspects of Seoul, including large-scale civil engineering projects for the comprehensive development of the Han River and large-scale redevelopment projects in the central area of Seoul, which had an important impact on the development of Seoul.
In 1983, Chun Doo-hwan and then-U.S. President Ronald Reagan at the Blue House at the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration
But at the same time, more deep-seated problems have also snowballed in South Korea: the labor-capital distribution gap and the urban-rural gap have further widened during the Chun Doo-hwan administration, and South Korea's foreign debt problem has also intensified; the government's control has made the operation of large enterprises more favorable, the formation of chaebols and monopolies has made it difficult for small and medium-sized enterprises, and the interests of ordinary people have also been affected; excessive government interference has also led to the breeding of political and business collusion and corruption, from the "Jang Lingzi-Lee Hee-chul fraud case" to the "Nikko Foundation Fraud Case" and then to the "Later" The Rights of Power Movement case", etc., Chun Doo-hwan or his family have been involved in it, and have been criticized.
In addition, during the Chun Doo-hwan administration, there was a marked regression in the party system, and the control of media regulation and popular speech and activities was also quite serious. Despite this, the democratization movement was not completely suppressed, and opposition forces stepped up their offensive.
In May 1984, democracy activists who had been lifted from restrictions by the Chun Doo-hwan regime formed the "Council for the Promotion of Democratization," and early the following year, the Shin-Korea Democratic Party was formed and jumped to the largest opposition party in the Diet. With the goal of direct popular participation in elections, the party advocates the open implementation of a directly elected presidential system, and in the face of the government's strong pressure, it has carried out a series of mobilization activities throughout the country.
In 1987, mass protests erupted in South Korea after the torture to death of Park Jong-chol, a student at Seoul National University (now Seoul National University), who had participated in the protests. According to the JoongAng Ilbo, chun Douhuan refused to ask for a constitutional amendment and democratization and issued the "4.13 Constitutional Protection Announcement." The proclamation stated that, under the Constitution of the Fifth Republic, the President would transfer power to the next Government in February 1988 and that presidential elections should be held during the year. The democratization movement sparked by the announcement immediately spread throughout South Korea, with hundreds of thousands of people in dozens of cities taking part in demonstrations, and under great pressure, the Chun Doo-hwan regime was in jeopardy.
In June 1987, Chun Doo-hwan's cronies and his chosen successor, then a South Korean congressman, issued the June 29 Declaration under pressure, which included eight measures, including amending the Constitution and implementing direct presidential elections. Chun Doo-hwan then expressed "full acceptance" of the manifesto and resigned as party leader, and in February 1988, Chun Doo-hwan stepped down as president and peacefully transferred power to Lo Tae-woo.
In his later years, he carried multiple sentences
In the 1988 congressional election of the Republic of Korea, the three opposition leaders of the then-parliamentary members Kim Dae-jung and Kim Young-sam and former Prime Minister Kim Jong-bi, who were known as the "three golds," all entered the National Assembly, and the total number of seats in the Congress of the three major opposition parties exceeded the seats of Roh Tae-woo's Democratic Justice Party. Opposition parties have urged the Roh Tae-woo government to investigate and deal with some of the wrongful incidents during the Fifth Republic period and for responsibility for the "Gwangju Incident" and to punish those responsible.
This situation made Lu Tae-woo and Chun Doo-hwan have a "solid relationship" to become "intolerable", and the East Asia Daily reported that Roh Tae-woo "liquidated" Chun Doo-hwan and "drove him" to The Baektan Temple, forcing Chun Doo-hwan and his wife Lee Soon-hwan to "live in seclusion" in the temple for two years, and the relationship between Roh Tae-woo and Chun Doo-hwan was thus alienated.
However, this is not enough to quell the anger of South Korean public opinion against Chun Doo-hwan. At the end of 1989, Chun attended a joint meeting of the Special Committee on the Fifth Republic and the Special Committee on the "Gwangju Incident" in Parliament, when he was reprimanded by opposition lawmakers and had to accept written accountability for as many as 125 questions.
In 1993, after taking office, South Korea's 14th president, Kim Young-sam, emphasized "creating a new Korea" and called for "change and reform." Since then, taking the exposure of The Secret Funds Incident of Lu Tae-woo as an opportunity, the investigation of Chun Doo-hwan and Roh Tae-woo has been fully launched, and the two and a number of important figures in the political, military, and financial circles have been sent to the trial stage. Known as the "Trial of the Century," Chun Doo-hwan was arrested and imprisoned that year for leading the 12/12 coup, bloody suppression of the May 18 Gwangju Democratization Movement, and allegedly misappropriating hundreds of billions of won in funds. It is worth mentioning that although Chun Doo-hwan and Lu Tae-woo had previously been at odds, when they appeared in court for trial, Chun Doo-hwan held Lu Tae-woo's hand tightly, and the latter did not shake off.
In August 1996, Chun was sentenced to death, but the following year he was commuted to life in prison and fined 220.5 billion won (the New York Times reported that the money was the result of bribes he had taken from large corporations during his administration), but in December 1997, Chun received an amnesty from President-elect Kim Dae-jung and was released in early 1998.
After being pardoned, Chun Doo-hwan's life seemed to "return to calm.". In 2011, several South Korean journalists said that Chun Doo-hwan and his family were still under the dual protection of the national police and the Seoul regional police agency, and one document showed that between 2006 and 2010, Chun's security expenses amounted to 3.4 billion won. It was not until 2019, after the petition of the South Korean people, that the South Korean government finally withdrew the security personnel around it.
To this day, the trial of Chun Doo-hwan has not stopped. According to Yonhap News Agency, because Chun Doo-hwan was passive about paying fines, prosecutors applied to the court in 2003 for a property disclosure order and used it to confiscate his residential home and furniture for auction. At the time, Chun Doo-hwan said he only had about 290,000 won in cash, which was reviled by the public. Since then, South Korea's Control Agency has conducted several raids on illegal funds, but as of this year, Chun Doo-hwan's fines have not been recovered.
In addition, Chun Doo-hwan was also investigated in 2018 for allegedly defaming the deceased. In his memoirs published in April 2017, Chun Doo-hwan claimed that the late priest Cho Pius had witnessed false testimony that "military planes shot at the people" and criticized Him as a "shameless liar who blasphemes his duty," according to Yonhap News Agency. In November 2020, the Gwangju District Court pronounced a first-instance judgment on the case, sentencing Chun Doo-hwan to eight months in prison and two years' probation, but prosecutors protested on the grounds that the sentence at the first instance was too lenient.
In the second-instance trial in early August this year, Chun Doo-hwan remained silent in response to questions about "whether he denied ordering the shooting of the public" and "whether he intended to apologize to the citizens and survivors of Gwangju", and after only 25 minutes of the trial, he withdrew from the court due to physical discomfort and has not attended since.
On November 23, Chun Doo-hwan died at 8:40 a.m. at his home in Yeonxi-dong, Seodaemun-gu, Seoul. An unnamed South Korean medical community official said on August 21: "Chun Doo-hwan found cancer during a blood test, and judging from various test results, it should be multiple myeloma." ”
Kim Yong, a commentator at the JoongAng Ilbo, pointed out that for the previous presidents, 1980 was the starting point for "forming contradictions" between them: if Chun Doo-hwan's forces of the new army had not taken power, there would have been no Kim Dae-jung arrest and the subsequent Gwangju incident; if there had been no Gwangju bloodshed, Kim Yongsan would not have ordered a retrial of the "12.12" coup; as a successful coup, the parties to the "12.12" incident were prosecuted mainly because of the subsequent Gwangju bloodshed If there is no new trial, then Chun Doo-hwan and Roh Tae-woo will not be sentenced to death, and the contradictions between these two people and Kim Yong-sam will not be as deep as they are now; not only that, if there is no new military force, then the competition between Kim Yong-sam and Kim Dae-jung will be more relaxed; without the burden of single candidates, the two are likely to become presidents through competition.
From this point of view, the dividing line of Korean modern history is 1980, and Chun Doo-hwan is a key figure in this middle.
Looking back on Chun Doo-hwan's life, he went from gaining park chung-hee's appreciation to the peak of power, promoting the development of the Korean economy in office, to stepping down under great pressure due to suppressing the democratization trend, and being tried for many cases after leaving office. The Associated Press reported that the 1979 "12/12 coup" and the Gwangju incident were two of the darkest chapters in South Korea's modern history. For many Koreans, the name Chun Doo-hwan is forever associated with the Gwangju incident, and he has left indelible scars on the Korean people in several historical events that will be remembered forever.
Responsible editor: Zhang Wuwei Photo editor: Shen Ke
Proofreader: Zhang Liangliang