By KWANG-TAE KIM,
Associated Press Writer Kwang-tae Kim,
SEOUL, South Korea – Former President Kim Dae-jung, who spent years as a dissident under South Korea's military dictatorship and later won the Nobel Peace Prize for seeking reconciliation with communist North Korea, has died. He was 85.
Kim, who had been hospitalized with pneumonia since last month, died shortly after 1:40 p.m. (0440 GMT, 12:40 a.m. EDT) on Tuesday, said Park Chang-il, chief of Severance Hospital in Seoul. He said Kim suffered respiratory distress, a pulmonary embolism and multiple organ failure.
South Korean leaders, from friends to former foes, had been paying their respects for days at the hospital to a man whose epic career spanned South Korea's evolution from a brutal military dictatorship to a full-fledged democracy and global economic leader.
Kim Dae-jung, then an opposition party leader and a presidential candidate, acknowledges his supporters during a campaign in Jeonju, south of Seoul, in this November 20, 1987 file photo below.
"We lost a great political leader," President Lee Myung-bak said in a statement. "His accomplishments and aspirations to achieve democratization and inter-Korean reconciliation will long be remembered by the people."Hundreds held a candlelight memorial service at a makeshift mourning site outside City Hall in Seoul, bowing, burning incense and leaving white chrysanthemums.
"I was filled with great sorrow when I heard former President Kim Dae-jung passed away," U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who served as a vice foreign minister in Kim's administration, said as he paid his respects at the hospital.
Chinese President Hu Jintao sent a telegram of condolence,
a Foreign Ministry statement said.
Kim built a reputation as a passionate champion of human rights and democracy who fought against South Korea's military dictatorships and survived several suspected assassination attempts, including a 1973 abduction in Tokyo hotel by South Korean agents.Once president, he was the architect of the "Sunshine Policy" — a novel approach to relations with North Korea that sought to bring the two wartime rivals closer as a way to encourage reconciliation.
His efforts led to an unprecedented thaw in relations with the North and culminated in a historic North-South summit — the first on the divided peninsula — in Pyongyang with leader Kim Jong Il in 2000.
And in 1973, Kim told investigators four men grabbed him
at a Tokyo hotel, blindfolded him and spirited him to a ship.
They wrapped his hands and feet with weights, declassified
diplomatic documents showed.
U.S. intelligence identified South Korean agents
as the culprits and quickly intervened, sending
an American military helicopter flying low over
the ship and forcing the would-be assassins to
abandon their plan.
Upon his return to Seoul, Kim was put under house arrest by the Park government and then imprisoned. His release came only after Park's assassination by his own spy chief in late 1979.Kim was pardoned a few months later.
But the drama did not end there.
Weeks after Park's death, military leader Chun Doo-hwan seized power. Five months later, tens of thousands in the southern city of Gwangju took to the streets to protest the junta's rule.
Tanks rolled in to suppress the uprising; the official toll was 200 dead but activists say the real count was far higher.
Accusing Kim of fomenting the uprising in his political stronghold, a military tribunal sentenced the opposition leader to death. Washington intervened again, and the sentence was commuted to life and later reduced to 20 years in prison.
A few months later, his sentence was suspended and
he left for exile in the U.S., remaining there until 1985.
After two more unsuccessful runs for the presidency,
Kim was elected to the nation's top office in 1997
at the age of 72. He served from 1998 to 2003.
Kim Dae-jung, then an opposition party leader, acknowledges his supporters during a rally in Seoul in this August 8, 1989 file photo. Former President Kim, a towering figure in South Korea's struggle for democracy who won the 2000 Nobel Peace Prize for seeking rapprochement with the communist North, died on August 18, 2009 at the age of 85. Picture taken August 8, 1989.The defining moment of the Kim Dae-jung's presidency was his historic meeting with North Korea's Kim in Pyongyang in 2000.
The summit eased decades of tensions and ushered in a new era of unprecedented reconciliation. Families divided for decades held tearful reunions, and South Koreans began touring North Korea's famed scenic spots.
His efforts won him the Nobel Peace Prize,
and he remains South Korea's only Nobel laureate.
"In my life, I've lived with the conviction that justice wins," he said in accepting the honor. "Justice may fail in one's lifetime, but it will eventually win in the course of history."
~ KIM DAE JUNG ~
A TOWERING FIGURE OF JUSTICE & DEMOCRACY
THUS GIVEN FORTH IN RESPECT TO A GREAT HONORABLE &NOBLE GRANDFATHER FIGURE, NOT ONLY FOR KOREA & ASIA
BUT ALSO FOR ALL THE MANY DIVERSE PEOPLES OF THE WORLD.
AND SO NOW AFTER ALL HIS MANY DIVINE,
NOBLE & HONORABLE EARTHLY STRUGGLES BE DONE
MAY HE THUS FINALLY R.I.P (REST IN PEACE)
Great spirits have always found violent opposition from mediocrities. The latter cannot understand it when a man does not thoughtlessly submit to hereditary prejudices, but honestly and courageously uses his intelligence and fulfills the duty to express the results of his thought in clear form.
Albert Einstein (1879 - 1955), quoted in New York Times
Men fear thought as they fear nothing else on earth -- more than ruin -- more even than death.... Thought is subversive and revolutionary, destructive and terrible, thought is merciless to privilege, established institutions, and comfortable habit. Thought looks into the pit of hell and is not afraid. Thought is great and swift and free, the light of the world, and the chief glory of man.
Bertrand Russell (1872 - 1970)
ONCE AGAIN A SILENT MOMENT OF APPRECIATION AND
RESPECT IS SO DEDICATED IN HONOR AND IN MEMORIAM
AS ALL PEOPLE WORLDWIDE PAY THEIR DEEPEST RESPECTS
TO A TRULY GREAT GENTLEMAN & HONORABLE NOBLE LEADER
~KIM DAE JUNG ~
DEDICATED ALSO TO HIS FAITHFUL LOVING WIFE, FAMILY & FRIENDS& TO ALL PAST MEMORIES OF TRUTH LOVE & JUSTICE WITH HIM...
& AS SO DESTINED FOR US ALL, WE ARE FOREVER BOUND TOGETHER
SILENTLY SURROUNDED BY SHADOWS OF THE GRAVE, THUS A PART
OF US GOES WITH HIM, FOR SOMETIMES WORDS HOLD NO MEANING
AND IN THOSE SACRED MOMENTS OF HONOR, SILENCE IS GOLDEN...
WHILE ETERNAL SHADOWS OF THE PAST, PRESENT & FUTURE
FOREVER LINGER ONWARD IN QUIET LONG AGO PAST MEMORIES
OF MOMENTS REVISITED & SO HELD DEEP WITHIN FOR ETERNITY.
THUS ONCE AGAIN AN ETERNAL SILENT MIRRORED REFLECTION'S
MOMENT THAT TRULY LIES DEEP WITHIN US ALL, SO SEEN SHINING
ON FOREVER AS A GUIDING BECKON OF LIGHT SHOWING US THE WAY
EVEN THROUGH THE DARKEST NIGHT & IN ENDLESS FATED WONDER
TRULY KNOW THAT THERE'S A GIVEN DESTINED MOMENT FOR US ALL
WHEN IT'S FINALLY "TIME TO SAY GOOD-BYE" & FADE TO BLACKSigned Gladly, Sadly & Tragically
At The Silent PassionSword Blades Edge
We Bitter Over Bitter Sweet Gladiators
Of The Society Of The Sacred PassionsWord
