President Jung Hee Park(1917.11.14~1979.10.26)
He was an ex-President of South Korea for 18 years since 1963. He was born on November 14, 1917 in Sun-San, Gyeongsangbuk-do as the lastborn of the family. Also, he was born of a poor family instead of well-matched rich family for a president. After he graduated a college of edudation, he was an elementary shcool teacher for 3 years. Then, he went over to Japan to study at Japan military academy in 1944 and became a soldier. In that time, Korea was falling under Japanese imperialism. After independence of Korea, he came back to Korea and became a Korean military officer. He has consecutively filled various and high-rangking military posts about 15 years. He and his political fellows brought a political change in Korea military setup in May 16, 1961. Finally, He became a president in 1963. With the fact that he was a president for 18 years, we can see that he was a dictator. Therefore, all of Korean was under his conservative dictatorship. All of man couldn’t let thier hair grow long and all of women couldn’t wear short skirt with over knee high. Many of them resisted against unlawful oppression but, it was really hard to act in that situation. That’s why they wanted that Korea became a democratic country. From this point of view, President Park was a vicious dictator in Korean history.
However, I don’t think that he was bad in all points. When he was a president, Korea was an underdeveloped country. Many people were poor and most industries were not developed. The President Park organized Saemaeul Movement which was a community development all over the country. It was sucessful and help the country to be modernized. Also, his program for economic development helped emerge from poverty of Korea. Nevertheless, he was killed by an assassin in October 26, 1979. Though he was a dictator, we can see he was great commander. Some old people still think that he was the great president in korean history. Also, they say that we need a president as strong as him because of recent bad economic conditon. His daughter, Geun Hey Park, is also influential figure in politics. She has many political fans because of her good image from her father. Considering this fact, I could see that President Park is still influential person in Korea.
