Kim Young-sam - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Kim Young-sam

Encyclopedia

Kim Young-sam is an East Asian geographic region that is currently divided into two separate sovereign states — North Korea and South Korea. Located on the Korean Peninsula, Korea is bordered by the People's Republic of China to the northwest, Russia to the northeast, and is separated from Japan to the...

:김영삼, Hanja

Hanja

Hanja is the Korean name for the Chinese characters hanzi. More specifically, it refers to those Chinese characters borrowed from Chinese and incorporated into the Korean language with Korean pronunciation...

:金泳三, born 20 December 1927) was a South Korea

South Korea

The Republic of Korea , , is a sovereign state in East Asia, located on the southern portion of the Korean Peninsula. It is neighbored by the People's Republic of China to the west, Japan to the east, North Korea to the north, and the East China Sea and Republic of China to the south...

n politician and democratic activist. From 1961, he spent 30 years as South Korea's leader of the opposition, and one of Park Chung-hee

Park Chung-hee

Park Chung-hee was a Republic of Korea Army general and the leader of South Korea from 1961 to 1979. He seized power in a military coup and ruled until his assassination in 1979. He has been credited with the industrialization of the Republic of Korea through export-led growth...

's most powerful rivals.

He was the first civilian President of South Korea

President of South Korea

The President of the Republic of Korea is, according to the Constitution of the Republic of Korea, chief executive of the government, commander-in-chief of the armed forces, and the head of state of the Republic of Korea...

since a series of dictatorships dating back to Syngman Rhee

Syngman Rhee

Syngman Rhee or Yi Seungman was the first president of South Korea. His presidency, from August 1948 to April 1960, remains controversial, affected by Cold War tensions on the Korean peninsula and elsewhere. Rhee was regarded as an anti-Communist and a strongman, and he led South Korea through the...

. Kim Young-sam was inaugurated on 25 February 1993 and served a single 5-year term. He presided over a massive anti-corruption campaign, the arrest of his two predecessors, and an internationalization policy called Segyehwa.

Life

Kim graduated from Seoul National University

Seoul National University

Seoul National University , colloquially known in Korean as Seoul-dae , is a national research university in Seoul, Korea, ranked 24th in the world in publications in an analysis of data from the Science Citation Index, 7th in Asia and 42nd in the world by the 2011 QS World University Rankings...

in 1952 with a B.A.

Bachelor of Arts

A Bachelor of Arts , from the Latin artium baccalaureus, is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate course or program in either the liberal arts, the sciences, or both...

in Philosophy

Philosophy

Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...

, and served in the South Korea

South Korea

n armed forces during the Korean War

Korean War

The Korean War was a conventional war between South Korea, supported by the United Nations, and North Korea, supported by the People's Republic of China , with military material aid from the Soviet Union...

. In 1954 he was elected to the National Assembly of South Korea

National Assembly of South Korea

The National Assembly of the Republic of Korea is a 299-member unicameral legislature. The latest general elections were held on April 9, 2008. Single-member constituencies comprise 245 of the National Assembly's seats, while the remaining 54 are allocated by proportional representation...

and served nine terms representing districts in Geoje and Busan

Busan

Busan , formerly spelled Pusan is South Korea's second largest metropolis after Seoul, with a population of around 3.6 million. The Metropolitan area population is 4,399,515 as of 2010. It is the largest port city in South Korea and the fifth largest port in the world...

. He was the youngest ever to serve in the National Assembly.

He resigned his National Assembly seat when Syngman Rhee

Syngman Rhee

attempted to amend the constitution of South Korea and became a leading critic, with Kim Dae-jung, of the military governments of Park Chung-hee and Chun Doo-hwan

Chun Doo-hwan

Chun Doo-hwan was a ROK Army general and the President of South Korea from 1980 to 1988. Chun was sentenced to death in 1996 for his heavy-handed response to the Gwangju Democratization Movement, but later pardoned by President Kim Young-sam with the advice of then President-elect Kim Dae-jung,...

. During Park Chung-hee's last year of reign (1979), Kim was elected as the head of the New Democratic Party, which won the 1978 election but did not come in power because of Yushin Constitution (1972) that Park ratified to guarantee perpetual dictatorship. Kim took the hardline policy of never compromising or cooperating with Park's Democratic Republican Party until Yushin Constitution was repealed and boldly criticized Park's dictatorship, which could be punished with imprisonment under Yushin Constitution. In August 1979, Kim allowed female workers at a wig company to use the headquarters of New Democratic Party as a place for their sit-in demonstration and pledged to protect them. Two thousand policemen raided the party headquarter and arrested the workers. In the process, one female worker died and many lawmakers trying to protect them were severely beaten, some requiring hospitalizations, which garnered widespread criticism and Kim's condemnation that Park's murderous dictatorship would soon collapse in a wretched way. After this incident, Park was determined to remove Kim from political scene like imprisoned Kim Dae-joong and instructed the Korean Central Intelligence Agency (KCIA) to engineer such move. In September 1979, the court ordered the suspension of Kim's presidency of New Democratic Party. When Kim called on the U.S. to stop supporting Park's dictatorship in an interview with New York Times, Park wanted to imprison Kim while the Carter Admnistration, concerned over increasing violation of human rights, gave a strong warning not to persecute the opposition party. When Kim was expelled from the National Assembly in October 1979, the U.S. recalled her ambassador to Washington and all 66 lawmakers of New Democratic Party submitted resignation to the National Assembly. When it became known that the government was planning to accept the resignations selectively, uprisings broke out in Kim's hometown in Busan, resulting in 30 police stations being burned. It was the biggest demonstration since the days of President Rhee Seung Man and spread to nearby Masan and other cities, with students and citizens calling for overthrow of the dictatorship. The crisis was one of the main causes for assassination of Park Chung-hee

Park Chung-hee assassination

Park Chung-hee, president of South Korea, was assassinated by Kim Jae-kyu, his security chief as the director of Korean Central Intelligence Agency , on Friday, October 26, 1979 at 7:41pm during a dinner at a KCIA safehouse inside Blue House presidential compound in Gungjeong-dong, Seoul. It is...

by KCIA Director Kim Jae-kyu in October 26, 1979. (Park told Director Kim that he himself would give an order to fire upon demonstrators if the situation got worse.)

The government's oppression on opposition parties continued under military dicatorship of Chun Doo-hwan, who seized power with a military coup in December 12, 1979. He was expelled from the National Assembly for his democratic activities and banned from politics from 1980 to 1985. In 1983, he undertook a 21-day hunger strike protesting the dictatorship of Chun Doo-hwan.

When the first democratic presidential election was held in 1987

South Korean presidential election, 1987

Presidential elections were held in South Korea on 16 December 1987, the first democratic election since 1971, and marked the beginning of the Sixth Republic. The result was a victory for Roh Tae Woo, who won 35.9% of the vote. Voter turnout was 89.2%....

after Chun's retirement, Kim Young-sam and Kim Dae-jung ran against each other, splitting the opposition vote and enabling ex-general Roh Tae-woo

Roh Tae-woo

Roh Tae-woo , is a former ROK Army general and politician. He was the 13th president of South Korea .Roh befriended Chun Doo-hwan while in high school in Daegu. In his younger life, Roh was a keen rugby union player....

, Chun's hand-picked successor, to win the election. In 1990, he unexpectedly merged his Peaceful Democracy Party with Roh's ruling D.J.P. (Democratic Justice Party). As the candidate of the center, he defeated Kim Dae-jung in the 1992 presidential election

South Korean presidential election, 1992

The 14th South Korean presidential election took place on 18 December 1992. This was the second democratic election since 1971. The voter turnout was 81.9%.-Results:...

. He was only the third civilian to hold the office, and the first since 1960.

The Kim Young-sam administration attempted to reform the government and economy. One of the first acts of his government was to start an anti-corruption campaign, requiring government and military officials to publish their financial records, precipitating the resignation of several high-ranking officers and cabinet members. He had Chun and Roh arrested on charges of corruption and treason, winning convictions against both. Kim also granted amnesty to thousands of political prisoners, and removed the criminal convictions of pro-democracy protesters who had been arrested during the Gwangju massacre

Gwangju massacre

The Gwangju Democratization Movement refers to a popular uprising in the city of Gwangju, South Korea from May 18 to May 27, 1980. During this period, citizens rose up against Chun Doo-hwan's military dictatorship and took control of the city...

in the aftermath of the Coup d'état of December Twelfth

Coup d'état of December Twelfth

The Coup d'état of December Twelfth or the "12.12 Military Insurrection" was a military coup d'état which took place on December 12, 1979 in South Korea....

(which is now officially described as a mutiny).

The anti-corruption campaign was also part of an attempt to reform the chaebol
Chaebol
Chaebol refers to a South Korean form of business conglomerate. They are global multinationals owning numerous international enterprises. The term is often used in a context similar to that of the English word "conglomerate"...

, the large South Korean conglomerates which dominated the economy. However, implication of corruption on the part of his second son, led to a loss of confidence; his new ministerial party, the DLP lost its narrow majority in the National Assembly in 1996. Kia Motors

Kia Motors

Kia Motors , headquartered in Seoul, is South Korea's second-largest automobile manufacturer, following the Hyundai Motor Company, with sales of over 1.4 million vehicles in 2010...

collapsed soon thereafter, setting off a chain of events which embroiled South Korea in the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis during the last year of his presidency. (South Korean presidents are limited to a single 5-year term according to the 1987 Constitution of the Republic of Korea

Constitution of the Republic of Korea

The Constitution of the Republic of Korea is its basic law. It was promulgated on July 17, 1948, and last revised in 1987.- History :...

.)

After his presidency, Kim promoted democracy throughout the world, speaking at events such as "Towards a Global Forum on New Democracies" in Taiwan

Republic of China

The Republic of China , commonly known as Taiwan , is a unitary sovereign state located in East Asia. Originally based in mainland China, the Republic of China currently governs the island of Taiwan , which forms over 99% of its current territory, as well as Penghu, Kinmen, Matsu and other minor...

in January 2007.

Personal life

Kim is a member of the Chunghyun Presbyterian Church

Presbyterianism

Presbyterianism refers to a number of Christian churches adhering to the Calvinist theological tradition within Protestantism, which are organized according to a characteristic Presbyterian polity. Presbyterian theology typically emphasizes the sovereignty of God, the authority of the Scriptures,...

and is fluent in Japanese

Japanese language

is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family, which has a number of proposed relationships with other languages, none of which has gained wide acceptance among historical linguists .Japanese is an...

. He is married to Son Myung-soon

Son Myung-soon

Son Myung-soon is the wife of South Korean President Kim Young-sam. She was the first lady when Kim Ys was in office 1993 to 1998.-References:...

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.

Life

Personal life

See also

External links