Roh Tae Woo
(b. 1932), president of South Korea. Roh Tae Woo was president of South Korea from 1988 to 1993. Roh was born in Talsong, near Taegu, in North Kyongsang Province, the son of a minor local official. He joined the South Korean Army in 1951 and soon after attended the Korean Military Academy. While there, Roh met fellow classmate Chun Doo Hwan. He graduated in 1955, whereupon he received his commission in the South Korean Army as a second lieutenant.
During his career in the military Roh attended the U.S. Special Warfare School at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, and graduated from the South Korean War College in 1968. Roh served with South Korean forces in Vietnam during the Vietnam War (1954–1975). He was eventually promoted to the rank of brigadier general. Roh helped engineer the coup d'etat that brought Chun Doo Hwan to power in December 1979 and succeeded Chun as commander of the Defense Security Command. Roh retired from the army to become minister of state for political and security affairs. He held various governmental posts and as minister of sport was instrumental in bringing the Olympics to Seoul in 1988.
Roh succeeded Chun Doo Hwan as president in the first peaceful transfer of power in South Korean history. Roh was elected president in 1988 and served until 1993, when he did not stand for reelection. He instituted political and economic reforms, including more local autonomy, more freedom of the press, and more influence for labor unions, and in 1991 saw that South Korea was accepted into the United Nations.
In 1995–1996, Roh and Chun were found guilty of treason, mutiny, and corruption in what was treated in South Korea as the trial of the century. The trial stemmed from charges that the men had stashed enormous slush funds while in office and from their roles in the Kwangju massacre by the military in 1980. Roh and Chun claimed that the trial was politically motivated. Roh was sentenced to 22.5 years in prison and fined $350 million. In 2002, an appeals court reduced the sentence to seventeen years.
Further Reading
Cotton, James, ed. (1993) Korea under Roh Tae-Woo: Democratization, Northern Policy and Inter-Korean Relations. Sydney: Allen & Unwin.
Oberdorfer, Don. (1997) The Two Koreas: A Contemporary History. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley Longman.
Sigor, Christopher J., ed. (1992) Democracy in Korea: The Roh Tae Woo Years. New York: Carnegie Council on Ethics and International Affairs.
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