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Ex-President Of South Korean, Roh Tae-woo Dies At Age 80

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Roh Tae-woo

South Korean former president Roh Tae-woo, a adorned conflict veteran who performed a pivotal however controversial function within the transition to democratic elections from rule by authoritarian leaders, has died, a Seoul hospital confirmed.

 

Roh Tae-woo, who dominated South Korea as president from 1988-1993, died of problems from numerous sicknesses after his situation worsened whereas coping with a degenerative dysfunction, Kim Yon-su, head of Seoul Nationwide College Hospital, instructed a information convention.

 

Roh Tae-woo was a key participant within the December 1979 navy coup that made his military good friend and coup chief Chun Doo-hwan president after their mentor, dictator Park Chung-hee, was assassinated following 18 years of rule.

 

Roh Tae-woo led his military division into Seoul and joined different navy leaders for operations to grab the capital. Within the following 12 months, the navy beneath Chun and different coup leaders launched a bloody crackdown on pro-democracy protesters within the southern metropolis of Gwangju, killing about 200 folks, in one of many darkest moments in South Korea’s turbulent trendy historical past.

 

Roh Tae-woo was Chun’s hand-picked successor, which might have assured him the presidency in a simple oblique election. However a large pro-democracy rebellion in 1987 pressured Roh Tae-woo and Chun to just accept a direct presidential election that was thought to be the beginning of South Korea’s transition to democracy.

 

Roh Tae-woo

Regardless of his navy background, Roh Tae-woo constructed a average and genial picture through the marketing campaign, calling himself an “common particular person.” He ultimately received the hotly contested election in December 1987, largely because of a break up in liberal votes between opposition candidates Kim Younger-sam and Kim Dae-jung, who each later grew to become presidents.

 

Throughout his five-year time period, Roh Tae-woo aggressively pursued ties with communist nations beneath his “Northward Diplomacy” as communism fell in Japanese Europe and the Soviet Union dissolved.

 

South Korea was then deeply anti-communist due to its rivalry with North Korea, however beneath Roh Tae-woo it opened diplomatic relations with a communist nation for the primary time — Hungary in 1989, the 12 months when the Berlin Wall fell and communism crumbled throughout Japanese Europe.

 

Roh’s Tae-woo authorities established relations with the Soviet Union in 1990 and with China in 1992. Relations with North Korea improved beneath Roh, with the 2 sides holding their first-ever prime ministers’ talks, adopting a landmark joint assertion on denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula and becoming a member of the United Nations on the similar time.

 

Earlier, Roh Tae-woo oversaw the internet hosting of the 1988 Summer season Video games in Seoul, the ultimate Olympics of the Chilly Battle period that confirmed how South Korea had rebuilt itself from the ashes of the 1950-53 Korean Battle. North Korea boycotted the 1988 video games.