Korean History- So fascinating

So I've been meaning to make my blog a lot more educational and interesting. But I have no idea if anyone really reads this other than my sister and my now un-anonymous reader Shauna. Oh well, here it goes.

So there was a President named Park Chung Hee who was Korea's longest serving president, from 1961-1979 which he gained in a blodless coup. He is still revered by many as Korea's greatest President despite his awful human rights record. His long reign as President was not due to free elections, rather it was due to his firm grip on power and intention to keep it that way.

The reason he is held in such positive light is that he began the transition that turned the post-Korean-war-poverty-striken-South into the 11th largest economic powerhouse it is today. He focused the country's efforts on export, ship building, and technology. To his credit, he did an outstanding job in that regard.

Of course, there were many people who didn't like him. A good number of those people were North Koreans, who tried twice to assinate him. In their first attempt in 1968 they dressed up as South Korean soliders and passed several security checkpoints on their way inside the Blue House. Fortunatley for Mr. Park, not all the South Korean guards were fooled, and the assassins were stopped and questioned. Some were killed on the spot, but many fled and escaped only to be hunted down and killed days later. Around 30 North Koreans were involved.

The second assination attempt occured on August 15, 1974, a national holiday in Korea celebrating the 29th anniversary of independence from Japanese rule. This was perfromed by a sole assassin, Mun Se-gwang who was sitting in during a ceremonial speech. At one point, the gunman stood up but in a panic shot a bullet into the ground. Confusion ensued immediatley and the panicked hit man pointed the gun and aimed it at the stage. He missed the President but succeded in hitting his wife. The President completed his speech. His wife was taken to the hospital where she died.

In the last assination attemp on Oct 26, 1979, it wasn't the North Koreans but the head of the KCIA, Kim Jae-kyu who led the way. Seemingly Mr Kim was unhappy with the President's relentless grip on power and treatment of student protesters and dissidents. He later claimed in court "I did it for the democracy of this country, nothing more, nothing less".

While having dinner together, along with two female companion singers, Mr Kim excused himself to go upstairs. He returned with a gun after telling his bodyguards that if they heard shots inside to kill all the President's bodygaurds outside. Mr Kim entered the room and first killed one of the Presidents bodyguards. He shot the President as well, but not enough to leave him dead before the gun jammed. Mr Kim went back upstairs and reloaded the gun to finish the dying President off. After two failed attempts, the President had been assinated.

I tell you this family is like the Kennedy Family of Korea; such strange misfortunes with family members seemingly always in the spotlight. Currently one of the leading candidates for the next Korean election is none other than Ms Park Geun-hye, daughter of Park Chung Hee. Last year while campaigning to gain support for her Grand National Party during local elections, a distraught middle-aged man sliced part of her face with a box cutter knife. She required 60 stiches but recovered quite quickly and as a result her party won an even larger majority in the elections than expected.

Crazy shit.

Links and more info here


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Park_Geun-hye

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Park_Chung_Hee