Former Chief of Staff of the South Korean Army, he accesses power in 1980 and sets up a military dictatorship marked by the bloody repression of riots in the city of Gwangju. He will be forced to resign in 1988. He died on Tuesday at the age of 90.
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The General-President Chun Doo-Hwan, dead Tuesday, November 23 at the age of 90 in Seoul, according to the South Korean news agency Yonhap, established a military dictatorship marked by one of the episodes The most bloody in the history of South Korea since the fratricidal war with the North (1950-1953): the massacre by the elite troops, in May 1980 in Gwangju, hundreds of civilians following a popular uprising. He had succeeded another general, Park Chung-Hee, murdered in October 1979.
Born on January 18, 1931 in a modest family of Yulk-Myeon, a small municipality of the province of South Gyeongsang, Chun Doo-Hwan knew a difficult childhood. Korea was then under Japanese rule, and after moving to Daegu, his family had to flee in China, because of the unraveling of his father with the police. She returned to Daegu only as a result of the capitulation of Japan.
Graduate of the Military Academy in 1955, Chun Doo-Hwan was among the young officers who suppunged the Park Chung-Hee military putsch in May 1961. He quickly climbed the steps of the military hierarchy to become, in 1969 , Special Advisor of Chief of Staff. Colonel, he commanded a regiment of the South Korean contingent fighting in Vietnam alongside the Americans.
Secret Club
Getting General, Commander of the First Infantry Division, he was appointed in 1979 at the head of the military security services. With the downstream of Park Chung-Hee, he had formed a secret “club” (baptized Hanahoe: the “group one”) bringing together officers from his promotion originating as he (and as Park) of Gyeongsang Province.
Following the murderer of Park Chung-Hee by Kim Jae-Kyu, Head of Secret Services (NCIA nicknamed, or “CIA Korean”), on October 26, 1979 during a presidential dinner, Chun Doo-Hwan was appointed by Chief of Staff, Jeong Seung-Hwa, at the head of the commission of inquiry. His first action was to place the SCIA under his authority – thus ensuring the control of the two most powerful security organizations of the country (military and civil).
In the weeks that followed, supported by his faithful of the “Club Hanahoe” which short-circuit the chain of command, Chun prepared his putsch. On December 12, he ordered the chief of staff, accused of complicity in the murder of Park – which will prove to be false for many years later.
A series of armed clashes took place in the night between the legalists and the rebels. But at dawn, they had control of the capital. On May 17, 1980, at the head of the junta, Chun Doo-Hwan extended the martial law to the whole country and made some twenty politicians arrest. A new military dictatorship was announced and demonstrations broke out in the province. In particular in Gwangju, capital of the South Jeolla (southwestern of the peninsula).
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