Former S Korean premier dies
92-YEAR-OLD PASSED AWAY FROM NATURAL CAUSES
>> SEOUL: Kim Jong-pil, the founder of South Korea’s spy agency whose political skills helped him also serve twice as prime minister, first under his dictator boss and later under a man his agency kidnapped, has died at the age of 92.
Kim was declared brought dead on arrival at Seoul’s Soonchunhyang University Hospital from his home yesterday, said hospital official Lee Mi-jong. The cause of death is being described as age-related complications.
South Korea’s presidential office released a statement saying Kim’s “fingerprints and footprints have marked South Korea’s modern political history and will not be easily erased’’.
A retired lieutenant colonel, Kim was a key member of a 1961 coup that put army Maj Gen Park Chung-hee in power until his assassination in 1979. Park was the father of Park Geun-hye, South Korea’s first female president who was ousted from office last year over an explosive corruption scandal and is now serving a 24-year prison term.
After the senior Park seized power, Kim created and headed the Korean Central Intelligence Agency, a predecessor of the current National Intelligence Service.
Park Chung-hee used the spy agency as a tool to suppress his political rivals at home, including then-opposition leader Kim Dae-jung, who became South Korea’s president in the late 1990s.
A government fact-finding panel said in 2007 that KCIA agents kidnapped Kim Daejung from a Tokyo hotel in 1973, days before he was to start a coalition of Japan-based South Korean organisations to work for their country’s democratisation. It was the first official confirmation of one of the most notorious KCIA operations to stifle dissent.
Kim Jong-pil didn’t direct the agency at the time of the 1973 kidnapping, and 25 years later he joined forces with Kim Dae-jung and helped him win the 1997 presidential election. He served as Kim Dae-jung’s prime minister from 1998-2000 under a power-sharing plan.
The 2007 panel report did not draw a clear conclusion on whether the kidnapping was ultimately aimed at killing Kim Dae-jung, who said his abductors nearly dumped him from a ship at sea before they stopped when a US military helicopter made a low pass over the vessel.
Related to Park by marriage, Kim Jong-pil was his No 2 man for much of his rule. But after Park was gunned down by his intelligence chief during a late-night party in October 1979 and a new military junta led by Maj Gen Chun Doo-hwan seized power through a coup, Kim was accused of corruption and surrendered property worth millions of dollars before moving to the United States.
Kim returned to South Korea after Mr Chun, bowing to weeks of massive public protests, allowed a free, direct presidential election in 1987, which marked South Korea’s transition toward a genuine democracy. Kim founded his own conservative party and ran for the hotly contested 1987 election to compete with Mr Chun’s army buddy and government candidate Roh Taewoo, Kim Dae-jung and another opposition leader Kim Young-sam.
Mr Roh won the election largely thanks to a split in opposition votes, and Kim Jong-pil placed fourth. The three opposition candidates came to dominate South Korean politics in the so-called “era of the three Kims’’.
Kim Jong-pil had enjoyed a strong support from his home turf in central Chungcheong province and people who valued the rapid economic development during Park’s rule. But he never reached a level of support to seriously contend for the presidency and instead became a kingmaker by exercising his political leverage in presidential races.
In 1990, he and Kim Young-sam merged their parties with Mr Roh’s ruling party in a landmark three-way alliance, which eventually helped Kim Young-sam win the 1992 presidential election. The merger of pro-democracy fighters and former coup members invited long-running criticism that it dampened democracy.
After supporting Kim Dae-jung’s successful 1997 presidential bid, Kim Jong-pil and his conservative party members were given several cabinet posts in the new government. But their coalition fell apart in 2001 because of a dispute over Kim Daejung’s famous “sunshine policy’’ of engaging North Korea with aid and exchange programs. Kim Dae-jung won the 2000 Novel Peace Prize for his efforts to reconcile with North Korea and promote democracy in South Korea.
Dubbed as the “perennial No 2 man’’, Kim Jong-pil served as a member of the National Assembly nine times. He quit politics in 2004 after his now-defunct United Liberal Democrats suffered crushing defeats in parliamentary elections.
“I’ve been completely burned to ashes,’’ he said in a retirement news conference.
Kim is to be buried at a family cemetery in central South Korea after five days of mourning, according to South Korean media.