Word: chun
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South Korean President Chun Doo Hwan was running a few minutes late for the wreath-laying ceremony at the Martyrs' Mausoleum in Rangoon last Sunday. As they waited for his arrival, high-ranking South Korean officials chatted quietly with their Burmese hosts. Suddenly, an earsplitting explosion cracked through the one-story building, blowing the center of the roof skyward. Within seconds, a scene suffused with the orderliness of diplomatic protocol was transformed into bloody chaos: smoking ruins, survivors screaming hysterically, others racing frantically from the building to seek help. The toll of the blast, apparently caused by a bomb...
...Chun, whose visit to Rangoon was the first stop in an 18-day swing through six Asian and Pacific nations, was three minutes away from the memorial when the bomb, apparently meant for him, went off. His motorcade immediately turned away; soon afterward, the President cut short the journey and flew back to Seoul with his wife. Cabinet members who had not accompanied the President on the tour quickly convened in the South Korean capital, ordered the country's armed forces and police on special alert, and set up a task force of vice ministers to deal with...
...Rangoon attack decimated the senior leadership of Chun's Cabinet. Suh Suk Joon, 45, a U.S.-educated technocrat, was appointed Deputy Prime Minister last July; he also headed South Korea's economic planning board. Perhaps the biggest loss to Chun was the death of Foreign Minister Lee, 58, who had conceived and planned the foreign tour. A seasoned diplomat who once served as Ambassador to India (1976-80), Lee was given his portfolio in 1982. A cornerstone of his policy was to try to establish ties for South Korea with "nonbelligerent" socialist and Third World nations; thus, Chun...
...fated journey last week was also designed to burnish Chun's image at home; since seizing power after the 1979 assassination of Park Chung Hee and winning the election of 1980, the President has yet to emerge as a truly popular leader. The explosion in Rangoon, no matter who was responsible, was bound to bring South Koreans closer together-if only, once again, in anguish...
Although he is grateful to the U.S. government for saving his life. Kim has some reservations about its foreign policy. One of Kim's major criticisms of the Reagan Administration is its support of current dictatorships like that of Chun. He outlines three changes he would like to see in Reagan's current policy on Korea that U.S. should more openly advocate the American attitude of democracy in other countries: stop additional financial and to the Korean government and guarantee the neutrality of the Korean army in Korean politics...