Word: chun
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...direct election of South Korea's next President, thereby acceding in a single stroke to the principal demand of thousands of protesters who had turned cities throughout the country into scenes of nightly combat during the three previous weeks. What is more, said Roh, he would recommend that President Chun Doo Hwan agree to a list of other democratic reforms, including freedom of the press, the release of political prisoners and self-government for universities. Said one incredulous leader of the Democratic Justice Party: "I thought he was reading the opposition's platform...
...bombshell caught nearly everyone by surprise. The government- controlle d television network, which was broadcasting a cooking show at the time, hastily cut away to air the last part of the 22-minute speech. Journalists who called Chun's office seeking reaction found they had to fill in the presidential press secretary about what had just happened before the spokesman could respond. Newspapers rushed extra editions into print...
...television address two days later, Chun endorsed the reforms, virtually guaranteeing National Assembly approval of those that require it. "Our politics must now cast aside its old shabby ways, which are incongruous with our level of economic development, and thus achieve an advanced form of democracy that we can proudly show to the world," said Chun. "The general public has an ardent desire to choose the President directly...
Reaction to Chun's about-face ranged from unreserved jubilance to dark skepticism. "This is the year of the political miracle," said Kim Young Sam, leader of the Reunification Democratic Party, the principal opposition group. "I think he has given us all that we wanted." The other major opposition leader, Kim Dae Jung, was more reserved. Having spent most of the past seven years in prison, under house arrest or in exile, Kim would go no further than to declare that "people's power has brought this about." Park Chan Jong, chairman of the main opposition party's policy committee...
...most intriguing question was precisely how such an "opening" was engineered by two men who had previously ruled it out. On April 13, Chun had abruptly decreed an end to debate on constitutional reform until after next year's Summer Olympics in Seoul. That move was effusively endorsed by Roh, a classmate of Chun's at South Korea's military academy and a fellow ex- army general. Paying tribute to Chun's "keen perception of history," Roh on June 10 was formally chosen as the Democratic Justice Party's candidate for President in a national election set for later this...