SEOUL, South Korea (AP) – The widow of South Korea’s last dictator has briefly apologized for the “pain and scars” caused by her husband’s brutal rule when several relatives and former paramedics gathered at Seoul Hospital on Saturday to pay. final tribute to Chun Doo-hwan.
Chun, who took power in the 1979 plot and brutally crushed democratic protests a year before his incarceration in the 1990s, died at his Seoul home on Tuesday at the age of 90.
On the last day of the five-day funeral, the Chun family conducted a funeral service at Seoul’s Severance Hospital before taking his body to the memorial service for cremation. Chun’s widow, Lee Soon-ja, said during a medical emergency that her husband wanted to be cremated and that his ashes would be scattered across the border near North Korea.
Video: Former South Korean dictator Chun Doo-hwan dies
“Concluding the funeral today, I would like to extend my deepest apologies on behalf of our family to the people who suffered the trauma and scars of my husband while in office,” Lee said, not citing Chun’s mistakes.
Chun did not apologize for the atrocities he committed, which included the execution of hundreds of anti-democracy activists in the southern city of Gwangju in 1980, one of the darkest moments in the country’s modern history that came as he tried to strengthen his post-coup power. .
Cho Jin-tae, a senior member of Gwangju’s aggrieved party, said Lee’s vague words of regret were absurd and called on the Chun family to back down and take action, including joining forces and trying to find the truth about Chun’s serious wrongdoing.
“I don’t think anyone can be comforted by Lee Soon-ja’s comments today,” Cho told The Associated Press by telephone.
Lee Jae-myung, South Korea’s ruling party candidate for the March presidential election next year, said Chun’s widow’s comments “insulted Gwangju’s citizens and our people.”
He asked if Lee Soon-ja had deliberately excluded Gwangju’s victims from his apology by describing Chun’s tenure. When Chun’s coup took place in 1979, it was not until September 1980 that he made himself the prime minister, a few months after the assassination in Gwangju in May.
Chun was the army chief when he seized power in December 1979 with his military allies, including Roh Tae-woo, who later succeeded Chun as president after winning the country’s first direct election nearly 20 years in 1987. The two leaders died about a month ago. a real difference, Roh’s death comes on Oct. 26.
When Roh was given a state funeral, there was little sympathy for Chun, who was described as a “butcher in Gwangju.” Although Roh did not apologize directly for the crime, his son repeatedly went to Gwangju Cemetery to pay his respects to the victims and apologized on behalf of his father, who had been bedridden for 10 years before his death.
Chun’s invasion intensified military support for the country after the assassination of his adviser and former army chief, Park Chung-Hee, who had been in power since 1961. During the dictatorship, South Koreans suffered at the hands of civil rights. grew significantly from the ruins of the 1950-53 Korean War.
In addition to the bloodshed in Gwangju, the Chun government arrested thousands of other dissidents in the 1980’s, including future president and Nobel Peace Prize winner in 2000 Kim Dae-jung. Kim, who at the time was a rebel leader, was initially sentenced to death by a military tribunal for allegedly inciting the Gwangju riots. After the United States intervened, Kim’s sentence was commuted and she was eventually released.
In an effort to gain international recognition, the Chun government was able to push for the 1988 Olympics, a process that was followed by massive house cleaning and the siege of refugees and the homeless as officials tried to beautify the country for foreign visitors.
In an effort to strengthen ties with Western Democracy and reduce the amount of oral feeding at home, the Chun government also supported the establishment of Korean children, especially white families in America and Europe, making what is now the largest country in the world. More than 60,000 children were sent out during the Chun administration, many of them newborns to marginalized single mothers who are often forced to leave their babies.
Public outrage over his repressive regime eventually sparked major national protests in 1987, which forced Chun to accept a constitutional amendment to hold direct elections, which were seen as the beginning of South Korea’s transition to democracy.
Roh, a member of the ruling party, won a highly contested election in December 1987, mainly due to a split in the opposition between Kim Dae-jung and his main rival, Kim Young-sam.
After Roh stepped down in 1993, Kim Young-sam became president and both Chun and Roh were charged with felony criminal mischief. The two leaders were found guilty of plotting to overthrow the government and violating Gwangju’s laws, as well as corruption. Chun was sentenced to death and Roh spent 22 1/2 years in prison.
The Supreme Court later commuted the sentence to life imprisonment for Chun and 17 years for Roh. After serving almost two years in prison, Roh and Chun were released in late 1997 under a special amnesty granted to then-elected President Kim Dae-jung, who sought to reconcile with the country.
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