Former president Kim Young-sam, who formally ended decades of military rule in South Korea and accepted a massive worldwide bailout during the 1997-1998 Asian financial crisis, died Saturday at a hospital in Seoul.
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Kim died this morning from what is believed to be acute heart failure and a blood infection after being hospitalised Nov 19 for high fever, Oh Byung Hee, chief of Seoul National University Hospital, said at a televised briefing.
North Korea warned on Sunday of “merciless” attacks on South Korean border islands if Seoul stages live-fire drills near the maritime border on the fifth anniversary of Pyongyang’s deadly shelling attack. It was an unprecedented apology from the North – though it said the sub drifted into southern waters while on a routine training exercise. Kim also launched a popular anti-corruption campaign and vowed not to receive any political slush funds, though this was later tarnished when his son was arrested on charges of bribery and tax evasion.
Kim was born on December 20, 1927 on Koje Island off the southeastern tip of the Korean peninsula.
The funeral ceremony is slated to be held at 2:00 p.m., with President Park Geun-hye, high-level politicians and foreign delegates in attendance at a plaza in front of the National Assembly in Yeouido, central Seoul. During the Korean war, he anchored a defence ministry propaganda radio programme.
Kim was elected in 1954 as the youngest member of the National Assembly.
A leading figure in the pro-democracy movement, Kim was twice placed under house arrest for a total of two years in the early 1980s.
Mr. Kim’s travails continued when Mr. Park was replaced by Chun Doo-hwan, an army major general who engineered a coup to fill the power vacuum left by his patron’s death.
Kim lost his first run for the presidency in 1987, but he won in the 1992 elections.
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But a few months later, he broke with the ruling regime over a constitutional issue and joined the opposition – a move that was followed by decades struggling against military rule.
