Chun Doo-hwan

Chun Doo-hwan was a South Korean army general and military dictator who ruled as an unelected strongman from 1979 to 1980 before replacing Choi Kyu-hah as president of South Korea from 1980 to 1988. He was born on January 18, 1931, in a poor farming village in Hapcheon County, South Gyeongsang Province, during Japanese rule over Korea. He joined the military straight out of high school, working his way up the ranks until he was appointed a commander in 1979. Taking charge of the investigation into the assassination of President Park Chung-hee that year, Chun courted key military allies and gained control of South Korea's intelligence agencies to headline a December 12 coup. He established the highly authoritarian Fifth Republic of Korea on March 3, 1981. His eight-year rule was characterized by brutality and political repression, as well as growing economic prosperity. He was responsible for the suppression of the Gwangju Uprising in 1980, which resulted in the deaths of hundreds, possibly thousands, of civilians. He resigned from office amid a nationwide student-led democratic movement in 1987 demanding a direct electoral system. In 1995, he was charged with mutiny, treason and bribery and arrested after refusing to appear at the prosecutors' office and fleeing to his hometown. He was sentenced to death for his role in the Gwangju Uprising, but was pardoned the following year by President Kim Young-sam, on the advice of the incoming President-elect Kim Dae-jung whom Chun's administration had sentenced to death some 20 years earlier. He and his coup comrade and succeeding President Roh Tae-woo were fined $203 million and $248 million respectively, amounts that were embezzled through corruption during their regimes, which were mostly never paid. In his final years, Chun was criticized for his unapologetic stance and the lack of remorse for his actions as a dictator and his wider regime. He died on November 23, 2021, at the age of 90, from multiple myeloma, a blood cancer. He was cremated and his ashes were spread in border areas near North Korea, according to his last wish.