Mourners carry a portrait of the former President before a memorial service in Gwangju, south of Seoul (Jang Duk-jong)August 18, 2009
Richard Lloyd Parry
Times Online (UK)
Kim Dae Jung, the former South Korean President whose "Sunshine Policy" of engagement with North Korea briefly promised an end to the confrontation between the divided states, died yesterday at the age of 85.
Mr Kim, who narrowly escaped murder or execution three times at the hands of South Korea’s former military dictators, died of heart failure in a hospital in Seoul after a long bout of pneumonia. His record of stubborn resistance to successive military governments made him a hero to many Koreans, and his summit meeting with the North Korean leader, Kim Jong Il, won him the Nobel Peace Prize, although the achievement was later tarnished by scandal.
“We lost a great political leader today,” said the current South Korean President, Lee Myung Bak, a conservative who has rejected the Kim policy of engaging North Korea with material and financial aid. “His accomplishments and aspirations to achieve democratisation and inter-Korean reconciliation will long be remembered by the people.”
The French foreign minister, Bernard Kouchner, said: “Kim Dae Jung was respected not only in Korea but also across the whole world by all those engaged in the defence of these essential values. I salute the memory of a statesman, a man of bravery and peace, a tireless campaigner for human rights, who all his life led a courageous fight for freedom and democracy.”
As an opposition leader, Mr Kim had a death sentence revoked, and survived two assassination attempts — once when his car was run off the road by a lorry, and once when he was kidnapped by South Korean spies from a hotel in Tokyo and taken out into the deep ocean on a boat. His captors were discussing the best way of weighing down his body when an American military plane flew overhead — under US pressure, the order came through to spare him.
Mr Kim, who narrowly escaped murder or execution three times at the hands of South Korea’s former military dictators, died of heart failure in a hospital in Seoul after a long bout of pneumonia. His record of stubborn resistance to successive military governments made him a hero to many Koreans, and his summit meeting with the North Korean leader, Kim Jong Il, won him the Nobel Peace Prize, although the achievement was later tarnished by scandal.
“We lost a great political leader today,” said the current South Korean President, Lee Myung Bak, a conservative who has rejected the Kim policy of engaging North Korea with material and financial aid. “His accomplishments and aspirations to achieve democratisation and inter-Korean reconciliation will long be remembered by the people.”
The French foreign minister, Bernard Kouchner, said: “Kim Dae Jung was respected not only in Korea but also across the whole world by all those engaged in the defence of these essential values. I salute the memory of a statesman, a man of bravery and peace, a tireless campaigner for human rights, who all his life led a courageous fight for freedom and democracy.”
As an opposition leader, Mr Kim had a death sentence revoked, and survived two assassination attempts — once when his car was run off the road by a lorry, and once when he was kidnapped by South Korean spies from a hotel in Tokyo and taken out into the deep ocean on a boat. His captors were discussing the best way of weighing down his body when an American military plane flew overhead — under US pressure, the order came through to spare him.
1 comment:
what does hun sen want us to remember after he dies?
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