The former South Korean president Chun Doo-Hwan, a figure harshly criticized by the coup of State that led him to power and the brutal repression that orchestrated against the uprising in the city of Gwangju (southwest of the country), died today at 90 years of
age.
Chun died at his home of the district of Seodaemun in Seoul early on Tuesday for myeloma-related complications recently diagnosed, reported representatives of his office.
Born in 1931 in the county of Hapcheon, in the southeast of the country, he joined the age of 20 at Korea’s Military Academy (KMA).
There he met figures like Roh Tae-Woo or Jeong Ho-Yong, with whom he would found the Hanahoe Association, which agreed mainly at the South-East Military and would end up playing a key role in the future of the nation.
With Chun in front, the Hanahoe group carried out a stubbornness shortly after the murder of President Park Chung-Hee in 1979 that would end up placing him as Head of State until 1988.
The next year Chun ordered repressing brutally a popular rebellion in the city of Gwangju (260 kilometers south of Seoul) that left at least 200 dead and some 1,800 injured.
After designing ROH as his successor, the protests pro democracy extended throughout the country in the spring of 1987 and the Chun military junta ended up accepting the celebration of democratic presidential elections six months later.
Both he and Roh, who would end up imposing in these presidential and rule until 1993, were convicted in August 1996 by corruption and his role in the 1979 state coup and repression in Gwangju in 1980. Chun was sentenced to life perpetual but
He received presidential forgiveness in 1997.
Exmilitar barely showed repentance for his role in the repression of Gwangju, and even ended up receiving in 2020 a condemnation in suspended two years in prison by defaming one of the witnesses of the massacre.
Chun resorted by the sentence and held for the last time before the Court in the Appeal process in August of this year, showing difficulties breathing and understanding what was said.
