Exiled, shot, impeached, jailed: A history of South Korean presidents

미국 워싱톤포스트지의 2025년1월15일자 기사 제목(추방, 총살, 탄핵, 투옥의 한국 대통령 역사).

2024.12.3일 밤 10시27분 비상계엄을 선포한 윤석열대통령의 국회 탄핵가결로 한국의 대통령 흑역사를 소개한 것임.

Impeached President Yoon Suk Yeol is the latest in a long line of leaders to have their political careers marred by scandal or meet an otherwise unfortunate end.

South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol’s dramatic detainment Wednesday — following his impeachment and weeks of defiance in the face of insurrection charges he is facing over last month’s botched declaration of martial law — has deepened the nation’s recent political instability. Yet, while these recent developments are historic, they are just the latest chapter in South Korea’s scandal-ridden presidential history.

Since the country’s founding after World War II, nearly all of its presidents have faced serious allegations against them or their family members — some have faced impeachment, prosecution, prison or even assassination. Only a few presidents — such as the country’s most recent former leader, Moon Jae-in — have peacefully departed office.

“It has been the case that almost all South Korean presidents or their families have had a corrupt side. Almost all of them,” said C. Harrison Kim, an associate professor of Korean history at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. “But what is interesting is that the South Korean public cannot stand for that, and almost always, someone will have to pay — and it’s often the presidents themselves.”

“South Koreans have no qualms about taking down a leader,” he added.

Here’s a list of the South Korean leaders who have faced a dramatic end to their rule in the presidential office.

Exiled to Hawaii

Syngman Rhee entered office in 1948 as the first president of an infant republic created soon after World War II. But he was ousted from office in 1960 and forced into exile in Hawaii, where he died in 1965. He was a polarizing figure. His supporters point to his accomplishments. He helped his country survive the 1950-53 Korean War by fervently lobbying Washington to pledge U.S. ground troops in case of a North Korean invasion, before and after it actually happened. He was also the first modern Korean leader to name a woman to a cabinet post (Louise Yim). Rhee’s critics though, point to his authoritarian streak, including interference with free elections, corruption in his administration during the Korean War, the killing of innocent civilians on Jeju Island during an armed communist uprising and efforts to hamper the free press. By 1960, Rhee’s popularity reached a nadir. He resigned in disgrace in April that year as tens of thousands of protesters filled the streets of Seoul amid allegations that Rhee’s administration and party had fabricated the results of an election. Rhee left the country in May, and spent his remaining years in a cottage on Oahu with no income.

Assassinated by his top lieutenant

Park Chung-hee became president after taking power in a coup d’état in 1961, exploiting the political turmoil left by Rhee’s resignation the previous year. Park ruled the country until his death in 1979, when he was assassinated by a close adviser.

Park is credited with sowing the seeds of economic growth and creating a middle class. He granted cheap loans to now-famous conglomerates such as Samsung and Hyundai, encouraged exports and implemented a nationwide infrastructure buildup. This feat was hailed as the “Miracle on the Han River” — a term to describe the rapid, postwar transformation from one of the poorest nations in the world to a major global economy.

But this didn’t happen without costs to human rights. Park was an authoritarian, ruling with an iron fist and barely tolerating political dissent. During his last year of rule, Park reigned through “fear and terror,” The Washington Post reported in 1979.

In the end, Park was killed by the system he had created, The Post reported at the time. The chief of the KCIA — a now-defunct security agency that doubled as the country’s intelligence agency and Park’s secret police — shot Park during a dinner party.

Posthumously, Park is both reviled and revered by segments of the public, with a 2021 Gallup Korea poll showing that he was one of the most positively rated presidents in South Korean history.

“Every generation reevaluates the presidents, and given the current dire economic situation and the polarization among the classes, I think people are in a very strange way reminiscing and reevaluating Park as a strong leader,” C. Harrison Kim said. “Of course, this does not fully take into account the harsh, undemocratic, dictatorial kind of measures that he practiced, but sometimes these things are overlooked when your life is hard,” he added.

Ousted over authoritarian rule

Chun Doo-hwan and Roh Tae-woo were obscure army generals who gained power in yet another coup, taking advantage of the political turmoil created by Park’s abrupt demise in 1979. In December that year, the duo — buddies who had graduated from the South Korean equivalent of West Point in 1955 — led a swift insurrection that jolted them into power. The two consolidated their power after violently crushing a popular uprising against their rule in May 1980 in the southwestern city of Gwangju, where at least hundreds of citizens were killed, disappeared, arrested or tortured.

Chun crowned himself president in 1981. Roh succeeded Chun, after winning an election in 1987, although barely.

Once the pair had stepped down from power, they were charged with insurrection, corruption, graft and human rights abuses. In 1996, Chun was sentenced to death and Roh to a 22.5-year prison term. Kim Dae-jung, a former political rival whom Park had tried to kill, and whom Chun had jailed, pardoned the pair after winning the presidency in 1997 in a free election.

Died amid bribery allegations

Another president, Roh Moo-hyun, was investigated for bribery and died by suicide in May 2009, after he retired from the Blue House and was living a quiet life running a duck farm in his hometown.

As a human rights lawyer, Roh advocated for and legally defended student activists who had been tortured by the authoritarian government of the early 1980s. Posthumously, Roh has been admired by historians and many South Koreans, and events from his legal career were dramatized in the 2013 film, “The Attorney.” “He didn’t go to college, he learned the law on his own and became a civil rights leader and then, as president, he tried to bring balance to the political world,” C. Harrison Kim said.

Convicted of corruption

Park Geun-hye was the country’s first female president and the daughter of President Park Chung-hee, who was assassinated. She was impeached in 2016 and arrested in 2017 on charges of influence peddling, corruption and abuse of power. Mass protests, now dubbed the Candlelight Movement, swelled in downtown Seoul for weeks leading up to her impeachment.

Her predecessor, Lee Myung-bak, who left office in 2013, was arrested in 2018 on charges of bribery, tax evasion and embezzlement. The political climate of the time was already tense after Park’s downfall, and Lee’s arrest happened amid heightened public scrutiny of South Korea’s right-wing leaders.