SEOUL, South Korea — Chun Doo-hwan, a one-time authoritarian ruler of South Korea who came to power in a military coup and oversaw a brutal crackdown of democratic protestors during his reign in the 1980s, died Tuesday. He was 90.
The former dictator's legacy is shaped as much by the ruthlessness of his actions as by his unapologetic denials and lack of any expressions of regret long after the country became a thriving democracy. In the mid-1990s, he was prosecuted and sentenced to death for his power grab and bloody military repression. Chun was later pardoned.
Chun, who was diagnosed earlier this year with multiple myeloma, collapsed in his Seoul home early Tuesday, according to his former spokesman. At the time of his death, he still owed more than $80 million in restitution that prosecutors have said were the ill-gotten proceeds of corruption. He refused to pay, claiming at one point that he had just 291,000 won — less than $250 — to his name, but prosecutors have continued to pursue and find assets, including some hidden away in the U.S.
Chun remains for many South Koreans a defiant emblem of a painful chapter of South Korea's modern history. He was part of a military junta that seized control of the country in 1961 under army general Park Chung-hee, and served in key roles during Park's two-decade dictatorship over the country until his assassination in 1979. After Park's death, Chun took control of the military, declared martial law and assumed the presidency.
The years under Park and Chun were also a time of meteoric economic growth and industrialization for South Korea, the country's industry thriving and its exports increasing. At the same time, under their authoritarian rule, dissidents and student activists calling for democratic reforms were kidnapped, tortured or disappeared.
His most enduring notoriety is for the military's violent suppression of a civilian uprising in the city of Gwangju in May 1980. Troops under his command opened fire on masses of protesting citizens, many of whom were students, killing hundreds. The U.S.'s lack of intervention and tacit approval of Chun's rule set off a wave of anti-American sentiment and protests, which continues to reverberate to this day.
"His rule was marked more by illegality and violence than any other president," said Choi Jin, who runs Seoul-based Institute of Presidential Leadership and reported on the civilian deaths in Gwangju as a journalist in the late 1980s. "To his last days, there wasn't a personal apology, much less a political one. There were so many casualties, but not even an expression of regret."
Chun was born in 1931 in Hapcheon, in the southeast of the Korean Peninsula, to a poor but educated family. He graduated from the Korea Military Academy, and later spent a year in American military schools as a young officer.
During Park's dictatorship, he was intimately involved in Park's security and created a small group of fellow military academy graduates that later helped him usurp power.
In May 1980, months into his reign, Chun declared full martial law, arrested opposition figures and student leaders and shut down the National Assembly. Protests demanding free elections and an end to authoritarian rule cropped up around the country; in Gwangju, in the home province respected opposition leader Kim Dae-jung, who would later go onto become president and a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, the measures ignited passionate protests that spilled out into a central square. Military special forces lay siege to the city and swept in, opening fire on citizens in a bloody crackdown.
Despite the repression, street demonstrations and student activism calling for democracy continued to mount throughout Chun's years in power. In 1987, after his announcement for indirect elections for his hand-picked successor touched off particularly wide-spread and vigorous protests, Chun acquiesced and allowed for direct elections, marking a watershed turn in South Korea's path to democracy.
In 1995, he was indicted for charges relating to the coup, the killings in Gwangju and bribery, along with Roh Tae-woo, a former military general who also took part in the coup and won the popular vote in 1987 to succeed Chun as president. Chun's eventual death sentenced was lowered to life in prison, then later pardoned.
Despite his conviction before the country's highest court, Chun maintained into his final years that the crackdown in Gwangju was a legitimate military operation and he did not order indiscriminate killings. He wrote a three-part memoir with such denials in 2017, and was prosecuted for defamation for refuting a late priest's statement that protesters were fired upon from a helicopter. He was found guilty but received a suspended sentence.
His public stance has been in contrast to Roh, who has largely remained out of public view and paid his respects to those killed in Gwangju through his son. Roh died in October.
"Through continued lies and distortions, Chun has deluded the Korean people and legal system, insulting and disparaging the dead with his memoir rather than remorse or apology," an association of those who lost family members in Gwangju said in a statement Tuesday. "He's consistently offered only pathetic excuses and evaded responsibility."
Chun is survived by his wife, three sons and a daughter.
