Korea, South

For the history of the Korean Peninsula before it was partitioned into North and South Korea, see Korea. The Republic of Korea was proclaimed on August 15, 1948. Its first president was Syngman Rhee, who was elected by a legislature formed by popular elections conducted in May of that year by the U.S. occupation authorities and officially observed by United Nations (UN) representatives. Left-wing groups had boycotted these elections, and virtually all the legislators were firm anti-Communists, as was their chosen president. Syngman Rhee and the Second Republic From the republic's beginning, the main business of the government was the suppression of leftist groups, some of them independent but many supported by North Korea. The North Korean leader, Kim Il Sung, sought to unify the entire Korean Peninsula under Communist rule. To this end, Kim launched a full-scale military attack in June 1950, which began the Korean War. The war totally disrupted South Korean life and politics, and Rhee began to lose the support of the legislature. Rhee used troops to force the legislature to provide for popular election of the president, and he was then elected to a second term in 1952. Recovery from the war was slow. Rhee was unable to produce any significant economic development despite much U.S. aid. He won reelection handily in 1956 and 1960, but blatant manipulation of the 1960 elections led to a nationwide protest that culminated in Rhee's forced resignation on April 27, 1960. The moderate government of John M. Chang followed with liberalizing reforms in many areas, but economic development still lagged. Military elements, fearing growing instability and wary of student agitation for talks with the north, staged a coup on May 16, 1961, ending the Second Republic. Park Chung Hee's Third Republic The military ruling group, led by Park Chung Hee, governed by decree until October 1963, when Park was narrowly elected president. He launched energetic economic reforms and, despite widespread opposition from students and others, concluded a treaty with Japan in 1965, dropping Korean demands for war reparations in return for economic aid. Japanese capital soon began to flow into Korea. The country also earned foreign exchange by sending troops and contract workers to aid the United States during the Vietnam War (1959-1975). The consequence was a dramatic spurt of industrialization and export growth. Little was left to chance in Park's government. Politics were dominated by his Democratic Republican Party, which by its control of funds and patronage easily overwhelmed all opposition groups. In addition, the Korean Central Intelligence Agency (KCIA), responsible for intelligence and anti-North operations, carried out surveillance and intimidation of domestic dissidents. In 1972 Park declared martial law and introduced the new yushin ("revitalizing") constitution, allowing him to stay in office indefinitely. In the following months, numerous emergency measures restricted civil liberties and removed political opponents. Under these controls the economy achieved spectacular growth, and South Korea's exports flooded Western markets. Nevertheless, dissatisfaction with Park's rule increased. Chun Doo Hwan In 1979 demonstrations in the cities of Pusan and Masan were met with violent suppression. In the midst of this tense situation, Kim Jae Kyu, director of the Korean Central Intelligence Agency (now known as the Agency for National Security Planning), assassinated Park on October 27, 1979, and plunged the country once more into traumatic political change. Premier Choi Kyu Hah succeeded Park as president, but General Chun Doo Hwan, head of the martial law investigating unit, emerged in a position of dominance. In December 1979 he ousted senior military officers, took control of the army, and subsequently thwarted efforts toward constitutional liberalization. In May 1980 leading opposition politicians were arrested and opposition demonstrations were suppressed with great violence. Chun then eased President Choi aside and secured his own election as president. A new constitution, providing for a single seven-year presidential term but also retaining many of the yushin-type control mechanisms, went into effect in April 1981, creating the Fourth Republic. President Chun's regime scored a diplomatic coup when the International Olympic Committee designated Seoul as the site for the 1988 Summer Games. Another success for South Korea was a visit to Seoul in January 1983 by the Japanese prime minister Nakasone Yasuhiro, who pledged $4 billion in low-interest loans to help finance South Korea's 1982 to 1986 development plan. In the early morning hours of September 1, 1983, a Korean Air Lines jet, en route from New York City to Seoul, was shot down when it strayed over Soviet territory; all 240 passengers and 29 crew members were killed. The South Korean government demanded a formal apology from the USSR and held mass demonstrations to protest the incident; the Soviets countered that the airplane had been on a spy mission. (In October 1992 Russian President Boris Yeltsin released information from KGB files that tended to support South Korea's contentions.) Also in the early 1980s, relations between North and South Korea, which were tense during the late 1960s and at times during the 1970s, continued to be troubled. On October 9, 1983, President Chun's official visit to Burma (now known as Myanmar) was cut short after 4 of his cabinet officers and 13 other South Koreans were killed by a bomb planted in Rangoon, Burma (now known as Yangon, Myanmar), by North Korean commandos. Relations between the two countries began to improve in the mid-1980s. In 1986 the border with North Korea was opened to allow family visits for the first time since the end of the Korean War. Democratic Reforms Following a series of mass protest demonstrations in 1987, President Chun promised democratic reforms, including a direct presidential election. That election, held on December 16, was won by the candidate of Chun's party, Roh Tae Woo. A new constitution, approved in 1987, took effect in February 1988. In elections held in April, opposition parties captured a majority of the National Assembly. Later that year, South Korea hosted the Summer Olympics. In March 1991 the first local elections in 30 years were held. Candidates of the ruling Democratic Liberal Party (DLP) won a majority of posts even as antigovernment demonstrations by students intensified. In September 1991, North and South Korea were admitted to the UN as separate countries, and three months later, the two countries signed a nonaggression pact. Japanese Premier Miyazawa Kiichi visited South Korea in January 1992 and apologized for actions against the Korean people that took place during the Japanese occupation of the Korean Peninsula between 1910 and 1945. In 1992 Roh stepped down as leader of the Democratic Liberal Party amid allegations that his party had bought votes in the March elections. In the national elections of December 1992, South Korea elected Kim Young Sam, a former dissident who had joined forces with the DLP in 1990. Soon after taking office, Kim launched an anti-corruption reform program that included publicizing the assets of politicians, senior civil servants, and some judiciary and military members. Resignations followed from many people whose publicized wealth was clearly disproportionate to their income levels. In December 1993 the government agreed to open the heavily protected Korean rice market to imports. The resulting public outcry, which included violent demonstrations in Seoul, led to the resignation of Prime Minister Hwang In Sung and his cabinet, although the decision to allow rice imports was not reversed. Kim then appointed Lee Hoi Chang as prime minister. Lee's attempts to change the mostly symbolic role of the prime minister to one of real authority over the cabinet led to disagreements with President Kim. Lee left office in April 1994, claiming he was resigning in protest, and Kim appointed Lee Young Duk to replace him. However, Kim replaced 15 of his 22 cabinet members and his prime minister in a major cabinet reshuffle in December 1994. He named Lee Hong Koo, head of the agency responsible for inter-Korean affairs, as the new prime minister. In late 1995 Kim's anticorruption campaign resulted in the arrest of his predecessors, Chun and Roh. Both former presidents were subsequently indicted and put on trial for their alleged roles in the 1979 military coup that brought Chun to power and the May 1980 military crackdown in the city of Kwangju, in which several hundred prodemocracy demonstrators were killed. In addition, they were separately put on trial on charges they had each accepted hundreds of millions of dollars in bribes from business interests while they were in office. Dozens of South Korea's most prominent business leaders also were implicated in the scandal. Chun and Roh were eventually convicted in 1996 of mutiny, sedition, and corruption. Chun received the death sentence while Roh received 22 1 (years in prison; however, in December, their sentences were reduced to life imprisonment and 17 years, respectively. Meanwhile, Kim denied allegations from the opposition that he had personally received money for his 1992 presidential campaign from Roh's stash of illegal funds. In December 1995 Kim renamed the DLP the New Korea Party (NKP) in an effort to distance the party from its association with the military regimes of Chun and Roh. In another move to the same effect, Kim later that month replaced Prime Minister Lee Hong Koo with Lee Soo Sung, the president of Seoul National University. In January 1996 Kim admitted in a televised address to the nation that before he became president he had accepted political donations from business interests; however, he denied the funds were bribes for political favors. In late March 1996 Kim's former aide of 20 years, Chang Hak Ro, was arrested on bribery charges, casting doubt on Kim's anticorruption campaign just weeks before the April parliamentary elections. The NKP lost control of the National Assembly in the elections; shortly thereafter, however, it was able to recruit 11 independent legislators to regain its 150-seat majority. Recent Developments In 1994 allegations about North Korea's possible nuclear-weapons development program strained relations with South Korea. In June North and South Korea agreed to hold high-level talks. In July, however, the death of North Korea's president, Kim Il Sung, interfered with the talks. In 1995 South Korea became a key member in a U.S.-led international consortium that was formed to hold further high-level talks with North Korea. In December 1995 the consortium and North Korea signed an agreement in which South Korea would finance 70 percent of the $4.5-billion cost of constructing two modern nuclear reactors in North Korea; in exchange, North Korea agreed to halt its suspected nuclear-weapons program. North Korea agreed to repay South Korea at no interest over 20 years. Announcing it no longer would abide by the armistice that ended the Korean War, North Korea in early April 1996 sent heavily armed troops into the demilitarized zone between the two countries. In response to the incursions, which lasted for three consecutive days, South Korea and the United States jointly proposed four-party peace negotiations, with China and the United States acting as mediators. In a further bid to open dialogue with a reluctant North Korea, South Korea approved a $19.2-million investment package involving three joint-venture projects in North Korea. It also announced it would engage in unconditional talks with North Korea on emergency food aid, which was desperately needed in the north after massive summer floods destroyed much of the country's farmland. Although major talks were still pending by mid-1997, South Korea committed food aid to North Korea, where the famine crisis had worsened. In 1997 the South Korean government was rocked by further scandals, this time involving fraudulent loans, which resulted in a cabinet reshuffle.