Chun Doo-hwan

Chun Doo-hwan (born 18 January, 1931) was a Korean military officer and the President of South Korea from 1980 to 1988. He established an authoritarian constitution. Sentenced to death in 1996, Chun was later given pardon by President Kim Dae Jung whom he himself sentenced to death some 20 years earlier.

The road to power

Chun was a graduate of the eleventh class of the Korean Military Academy in 1955. As head of the Army Security Command, he was in charge of the investigation into the assassination of President Park Chung-hee. On 12 December 1979, in what became known as the Coup d'état of December Twelfth, Chun ordered the arrest of Army Chief of Staff General Chung Sung Hwa (정승화, 鄭昇和) without authorization from then-President Choi Kyu-ha, alleging involvement in the assassination. This led to a bloody shoot-out at the Army Headquarters and the Ministry of Defense. By the next morning, Chun and his fellow eleventh class military academy graduates Roh Tae-woo and Jeong Ho-yong were in charge of the Korean military.

Related Topics:
1955 - Park Chung-hee - 12 December - 1979 - Coup d'état of December Twelfth - Chung Sung Hwa - Choi Kyu-ha - Roh Tae-woo

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On 17 May 1980, Chun expanded martial law to the entire country and dissolved the National Assembly. Many politicians were arrested, including opposition politician Kim Dae-jung, who was later sentenced to death despite protests from the U.S. Later, Chun commuted Kim's sentence in return for U.S. support. Protests across the nation were ruthlessly suppressed, most brutally in Gwangju, where hundreds -- by some accounts thousands -- of demonstrators were killed in the Gwangju Massacre.

Related Topics:
17 May - 1980 - Martial law - Kim Dae-jung - Gwangju - Gwangju Massacre

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Chun was the de facto leader of South Korea by then. In August, an embattled Choi had resigned; in February 1981, Chun was elected president under a revised constitution, having resigned from the army after promoting himself to four-star general.

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