Mourners carry a portrait of the former President before a memorial service in Gwangju, south of Seoul to not show enlarge option. (Photo: Jang Duk-jong)By Richard Lloyd Parry
Times Online
Kim Dae Jung, the former South Korean President whose "Sunshine Policy" of engagement with North Korea briefly promised an end to the confrontation between the divided states, died yesterday at the age of 85.
Mr Kim, who narrowly escaped murder or execution three times at the hands of South Korea’s former military dictators, died of heart failure in a hospital in Seoul after a long bout of pneumonia. His record of stubborn resistance to successive military governments made him a hero to many Koreans, and his summit meeting with the North Korean leader, Kim Jong Il, won him the Nobel Peace Prize, although the achievement was later tarnished by scandal.
“We lost a great political leader today,” said the current South Korean President, Lee Myung Bak, a conservative who has rejected the Kim policy of engaging North Korea with material and financial aid. “His accomplishments and aspirations to achieve democratisation and inter-Korean reconciliation will long be remembered by the people.”
No comments:
Post a Comment