Re-Evaluation of Late President

By Choi Yearn-hong

What is the use of "re-killing" the already deceased former President Park Chung-hee? It seems to me that anti-Park political forces are trying to kill him again.

Their reason is that he was a Japanese Army lieutenant in the last phase of the Japanese colonial rule over Korea. He had been an elementary school teacher in Mungyeong, North Gyeongsang Province, before he left for Manchuria to enlist in the Army.

Later, he became a communist or, at the very least, a sympathizer to the movement. I knew his life. Many Koreans do.

Why are people just bringing his early life to light; why are they criminalizing him as being a pro-Japanese traitor in the year 2009? Do some modern Korean people want to sentence him to death for his military service in the Japanese Imperial Army?

I don't understand anti-Park political forces' motives. Do they praise Kim Il-sung as a patriotic partisan leader in Manchuria fighting against the Japanese invaders? Do they want to contrast Park and Kim?

My view of Park has evolved over the years. I hated him when I was a college student, because he stopped the democratically-elected Chang Myon government.

I did not accept his military coup that wound up hampering the growth of a young democratic government and society in the early 1960s.

While I was enrolled in Indiana University's graduate program, he was changing the Constitution so that he could run for a third term. I wrote an article against the move in a major daily newspaper in Indiana.

I continued my protest against his authoritarian leadership as a college professor in the United States in the 1970s. My anti-Park political activities continued until his death in 1979. I could not return to Korea freely until 1987.

My critical view of Park softened during my stay in Seoul from 1996 to 2006. His brilliance as a systematic thinker toward the nation's economic development impressed me and changed my view of him from negative to positive.

All in all, I value him as a ``necessary evil" for the nation. To state the obvious, he was not the most democratic leader. But he had many qualifications to lead the nation out of poverty and hunger. Today's affluent society owes a lot to him.

I knew firsthand two famous Kims: Kim Young-sam and Kim Dae-jung, who were both brilliant politicians; however, they did not possess the brain power to develop the nation systematically or comprehensively.

I once assumed that the five-year economic development plans were designed by economics professors and bureaucrats. My assumption was not valid.

Park himself asked the economists and bureaucrats:

1. Where are the scientists and engineers to lift the nation to an advanced one?

2. Where do we get the necessary capital to vitalize the nation's primitive economy?

3. Where do we get the water to supply the farming and factory operations?

4. Where do we get the energy to operate the factories?

For 1, he created the Korean Institute of Science and Technology.

For 2, he himself traveled to Germany to ask for loans. He made a tearful speech in front of Korean nurses and mining workers in Germany, which moved the then-German President Heinrich Lubke in 1964. This was just one example. He created so many touching stories.

For 3, he created the Korean Water Corporation in Daejeon and built dams on major rivers.

For 4, he constructed the first nuclear power plant, in Gori, just outside Busan.

Wall Street laughed at the idea of a steelmaking factory in Pohang, North Gyeongsang Province, in the 1970s. Many foreign experts thought Park was a wishful thinker and dreamer when he planned to construct the factory. However, it was Park who had the last laugh.

It became a symbol for miracles. The success of Pohang Iron and Steel Co. (POSCO) made Korea's heavy industries possible; Automobiles and ships advanced the Korean economy to an industrial powerhouse and export-oriented economy.

In the beginning, Korean business leaders were against manufacturing cars and ships. They were forced to start the heavy industries by President Park. Park deserves praise for Korea's miraculous economic development that freed Korea from hunger and poverty.

He ruled the country for 18 years, but his rule made the middle class emerge in Korea, a group that led to the so-called democracy movement in the 1980s. His actions overcame the shortage of grain in the 1960s. Without him, Korea might still remain as a poverty-stricken country.

Look at North Korea. Look at the Philippines. China's Deng Xiaoping reformers looked into Park's series of five-year economic development plans. Many new leaders in Asia, South America and Africa study Park's achievements.

A great majority of Korean people are grateful to Park's leadership. No one liked his long authoritarian rule. We can be critical of it, but, at the same time, we must be fair to his outstanding performance as the nation's president.

Once, I was a dreamer and dissenter. I have come to see many Koreans as being both in 2009. I wish and hope they become realistic and analytical when they look back at history.

In a poverty-stricken country, democracy is a distant dream. Democracy is realistically possible only after a great majority of people can enjoy three meals a day.

Recently, one famous dissenter confessed that Park hurt 30,000 people, but, in turn, saved 300 million. That is a fairly accurate description of Park's presidency, even if the numbers aren't exact.

I hope the Korean people can cast aside their petty grievances, and be mature when they review history.

Dr. Choi is a political scientist retired from his long teaching career in the United States and Korea. He can be reached at yearnhc@hanmail.net.