South Korea’s last dictator who ultimately acceded to the clamour for democracy
Chun Doo-hwan, who has died aged 90, was the last dictator of South Korea. Ruling between 1980 and 1988, he presided over an era of growing economic prosperity while brutally repressing his political opponents.
In May 1980 supporters of the suppressed political leader Kim Dae-jung rose up in Gwangju, chanting, ‘‘Down with Chun Doohwan’’. Chun sent in troops and armoured vehicles. According to official figures, 191 people were killed, including 26 soldiers and police officers, but the death toll was thought to be much higher.
Three months later the army officer who had risen through the ranks during the long dictatorship of
Park Chunghee had declared martial law and been elected president as the only candidate. His dictatorship playbook was textbook. Political parties were outlawed, restrictions on press freedom extended, political opponents purged and tens of thousands of citizens dispatched to so-called ‘‘purification camps’’.
Despite these abuses of power, Chun scored two foreign-policy triumphs in 1981. He became the first foreign leader invited to visit the US under the Reagan administration – a diplomatic coup in fact engineered by the Americans to persuade him not to proceed with the execution of the opposition leader Kim Dae-jung (who was spared) and to dissuade Chun from developing long-distance missiles. He returned with pledges from Reagan to retain US ground troops and aircraft in South Korea.
Later that year Seoul controversially won its bid to host the 1988 Olympic Games.
His rule was also boosted by ‘‘tigerish’’ economic growth, while inflation was tamed. Chun personally enriched himself amid rapid property and infrastructure development. He continued to persecute dissidents but ultimately could not ignore popular clamour for democratic reform.
In 1985 he relaxed curbs on opposition political movements. One of these, the New Korea Democratic Party, did well in elections in 1986, and lobbied for a people’s vote to elect the president. Chun, whose seven-year term was soon to expire, preferred to nominate fellow military officer Roh Tae-woo as his successor.
In June 1987, in the face of fresh riots, Roh expressed support for direct presidential elections, as well as other liberal reforms. On July 1 Chun gave in and a democratic presidential election was held in December. Both Kim Dae-jung and Kim Young-sam were candidates, splitting the liberal vote and allowing Roh to win with just a third of the vote. Chun left office in February 1988 and became increasingly dogged by allegations of corruption and financial mismanagement. Several years later he would be indicted.
He was born in 1931, the seventh of 10 children, in Hapcheon County in South Gyeongsang Province towards the southern tip of the Korean Peninsula. At this time Korea was under Japanese control and, after Chun’s father attacked a Japanese police officer, the family were obliged to flee to Manchuria. They eventually returned to the southern Korean city of Daegu, where Chun attended school.
His mother had high expectations of him and after being told by a fortune teller that her three front teeth were an obstacle to her son’s progress she extracted them with tongs.
After the outbreak of the Korean War in 1950 Chun was accepted by the Korean Military Academy and served as a cadet until 1955, when he was commissioned as a second lieutenant. He further enhanced his career prospects by marrying Lee Soon-ja, the daughter of a general, in 1958. They had three sons and a daughter.
In 1960 a revolution overthrew the autocratic regime of Syngman Rhee, who had governed South Korea since the country’s establishment in 1948. His government was replaced by a fragile democracy, but in 1961 the army officer Park Chung-hee took power.
By then a captain, Chun supported the coup. Park rewarded him with a senior secretarial post. By the time of Park’s assassination in October 1979 by Kim Jae-kyu, head of the intelligence agency, Chun was chief of the Defence Security Command, charged with maintaining internal security within the military.
Park’s regime was replaced by another fragile interim administration, under the liberal Choi Kyu-ha. Chun was charged with investigating Park’s death and on May 17, 1980, South Korea’s tentative steps to democracy were stilled as Chun declared martial law. On August 27 an obedient electoral college handed him the presidency. In contrast to Park, Chun announced he would serve only a single seven-year term.
After Kim Young-sam finally became president in 1993 he launched an investigation into wrongdoing by his two predecessors, Chun and Roh, who were put on trial in 1996. Indicted for his role in the 1979 coup and the Gwangju massacre, Chun was sentenced to death; Roh received a lengthy prison sentence. On appeal, Chun’s sentence was reduced to life imprisonment.
He was pardoned in 1997 at the request of the president-elect Kim Dae-jung, who had himself narrowly escaped execution under Chun’s rule.
Chun personally enriched himself amid rapid property and infrastructure development.