Abstract
The government of Chun Doo Hwan, by putting Kim Dae Jung and the 23 others on trial for Gwangju, was exposed not only as non-democratic but also of dubious legitimacy. DJ had the full sympathy of the American establishment, including the U.S. Embassy and the State Department, which had sent a young diplomat to monitor every session. Had the U.S. government not taken such a strong position, first Park and then Chun would have presumably followed their instincts as military men and imposed still harsher dictatorship than the porous system in which opposition leaders were at times outspoken and demonstrators able to take to the streets in defiance of the severe punishment that many received and all risked.
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Notes
Don Oberdorfer, The Two Koreas: A Contemporary History (Addison-Wesley, Reading, Massachusetts, 1997), p. 136.
Donald Kirk, “Democracy without Dissent in Korea,” New Leader, Vol. 65, No. 5, March 8, 1982, pp. 5–6.
Kim Dae Jung, preface, Mass Participatory Economy: Korea’s Poad to World Economic Power, revised and updated edition (Center for International Affairs, Harvard University, and University Press of America, Lanham, New York, London, 1996), p. ix.
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© 2009 Donald Kirk
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Kirk, D. (2009). From Prison to Exile. In: Korea Betrayed. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230101845_6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230101845_6
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, New York
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