A memorial for Syngman Rhee
No politician is without controversy. Opinions range broadly, no matter the time or the place. The first president of the Republic of Korea, Syngman Rhee, is no different from the rest. The challenge is that there is no objective way to approach the past. In many respects, as one pundit put it, “History is the lie we all agree on.”
The recent move to fund and build a memorial to Syngman Rhee is a case in point. Public opinion in Korea and the rest of the world is divided. Of course, as the first president of the newly founded Republic of Korea in 1948, he has earned a place in history. His connections in his youth in Seoul with various Western missionaries propelled him into circles of American society that few people have ever enjoyed.
Rhee’s benefactors in the United States promoted him as a democratic hero against the increasingly draconian rule of the Japanese Empire. The United States government provided Rhee with free air travel from the U.S. to Seoul in 1945. The Americans made it quite clear that he was their choice moving forward. Americans knew little or nothing of the myriad other members of the Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea and the thousands of independence activists, nor their decades-long efforts in freeing the Korean people from the noose of oppression.
When it came down to it, there were only a few viable possibilities for leadership of the newly forming Republic of Korea in the aftermath of the Japanese defeat. Kim Gu had a huge standing among Korean independence advocates who, like Rhee, had served decades in the provisional government. Unfortunately for Kim, the dominant power to replace the Japanese was the United States, and they were having none of Kim’s chats with “communists,” fearful that Kim might take the Korean Peninsula into the realm of the true enemy, the Soviet Union.
When free speech, a cherished principle of democracy, was suppressed on Jeju Island, and later Yeosu and Suncheon in South Jeolla Province, Rhee’s true colors were brutally displayed. Because people in Jeju were demonstrating against United Nations-sponsored elections to be held only in the southern half of the peninsula, they were branded as “communists.” The cruelty of what happened on April 3, and later, in Jeju, went far beyond that of Japanese Imperial rule, but few want to discuss that in modern-day Korea.
After Rhee was elected during the south-only balloting, he fully brought the infant Republic of Korea into the American circle through various official and unofficial acts. Rhee perhaps had imperial airs as well. His ancestors were of the Joseon royal family, after all.
Statues of Rhee were erected throughout the country in schoolyards and other places. His face appeared on the money in circulation. In one design of the Korean currency, Rhee’s image was placed in the center of the bill, matching the design of the United States $1 note depicting George Washington. However, because people folded the money, a crease appeared in Rhee’s picture, and he ordered a redesign.
When the armistice ending hostilities was signed with North Korea, China and the United Nations in 1953, Rhee refused to sign. Instead, he demanded that the country be reunified by force. When Rhee’s second term in office ended, he pushed through an amendment that removed the term limit from his continuing as president. Those who protested the move were labeled “communists” and imprisoned. Some were executed. Rhee made good use of the former Japanese prison at Seodaemun. Rhee banned opposition parties and democratic rallies. His lackeys in the police and security departments did to Koreans what the Koreans accused the Japanese of having done.
Popular protests erupted when it became clear in March 1960 that Rhee had rigged the election. Some who protested were killed; police brutality was covered up. When the protests finally broke out in Seoul in April 1960, the police were given orders to shoot to kill. Hundreds died, and many more were wounded. My dear friend, the late Ms. Oh, was a high school girl at the time and was involved in the protests. Some of her friends were killed or maimed. She lived to tell the tale.
In the aftermath of Rhee’s exit from power, dozens of his cabinet ministers and other government officials were tried and convicted of heinous crimes against the Korean people. Many of the convicted government officials were executed by hanging at Seodaemun prison. Only Rhee’s exile in Hawaii prevented him from being tried as well. His vice president, Lee Ki-poong, was killed by his own son, along with all the family members. The son then committed suicide.
Rhee’s terms as president of the Republic of Korea were marked by corruption, cronyism, electoral irregularities, absence of economic development and violence against political opposition. His actions in office destroyed whatever positive legacy he might have left, especially toward the end when he desperately rigged the election in March 1960. The reign of Syngman Rhee is one of the dark chapters in the history of the Korean people.
Many people claim that we should focus on the good. The blemishes are humiliating. It’s hard to find a balanced approach to the legacy of Syngman Rhee. No matter, a new memorial monument to him is unwarranted and unnecessary. Let his imperial-style tomb at the National Cemetery in Dongjak, built at a considerable cost, be sufficient to remember Rhee and all he did for Korea, good and bad.