Word: syngman
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...among those students throwing rocks at the police to protest the government of the late South Korean President Syngman Rhee. The tradition started 27 years ago has proved to be a healthy social phenomenon for the country. Every society needs a watchdog to keep an eye on the people who hold power. In the U.S. the Constitution satisfies that need at the spiritual level; the press does so at the functional level. In South Korea students have filled the vacuum and have become the watchdog group...
...instability, it has begun to chafe under the strict, sometimes repressive rule of South Korea's military-dominated government. Last week's convulsions did not amount to a full-scale rebellion or draw a massive government crackdown. But the disturbances recalled the fate of South Korea's first President, Syngman Rhee, who was unseated by massive student demonstrations in 1960. The virulence and ubiquity of the protests were enough to give South Korean leaders a first-rate scare. Said Hyun Hong Choo, a Democratic Justice Party member of the National Assembly: "If the violence continues, it threatens the economy...
Koreans have a history of student activism that dates back to 1919, when youths led mass demonstrations against the occupying Japanese. That tradition continued unabated after World War II. In 1960 student protests drove President Syngman Rhee from office after twelve years in power. Demonstrations frequently erupted throughout the 1960s and '70s. A student uprising claimed more than 100 lives in 1980 in the city of Kwangju. More recently, some 1,500 protesters were arrested during last October's unrest at Konkuk University. Many were sentenced to up to seven years in prison...
...south of Seoul, from the fleeing police. Rioting spread to 16 other towns of the province. After four days, more than 100 people had been killed and uncounted hundreds wounded. It was the most serious crisis in South Korea since the upheaval that brought down the regime of President Syngman Rhee in 1960 and began 19 years of military domination...
...April 1960 are popularly known as hak saeng uigo-the Righteous Student Uprising. During those turbulent days, the students of South Korea succeeded in doing what their country's politicians had failed to do: they brought down the entrenched, increasingly corrupt twelve-year-old government of President Syngman Rhee and sent the crusty old leader into exile. Today, even the official Handbook of Korea, published under the Park Chung Hee regime hails the uprising unreservedly. "The students," it declares, "had led the people into a democratic revolution...