By Bae Ji-sook
Staff Reporter
Kim Hong-il, 61,the eldest son of the late former President Kim Dae-jung, showed up at the memorial hall for his late father, Tuesday, blank faced and in a wheelchair. He was barely able to speak or move, with his haggard face showing he was suffering from a serious illness.
His close aides confirmed that Hong-il has been suffering from Parkinson's Disease, and so his brother Hong-up took over the role of chief mourner to greet visitors. Photos posted on Web sites revealing the stark difference between his current and past appearances took most Internet users by surprise.
According to secretaries, on Monday, ,just before his father died, Kim managed to say, "I apologize to you." He also spelled out "Father" at the memorial hall. Kim came to the Severance Hospital to see his sick father three times, when he wasn't fully able to move by himself.
"Hong-il used to look just like his father - well built, round-faced and had a vibrant aura. But the disease took it all. He is now skinny and looks very tired and blank," one aide said.
According to Choi Kyung-hwan, the deceased former President's press secretary, the disease may be an aftereffect of the torture he went through in 1980, when his father was wrongfully accused of scheming against the Chun Doo-hwan military junta.
"Hong-il was forced to call his father a communist, but refused. He was said to have been beaten a lot which could have affected his nervous system decades later," he said. Hong-il was a son from the late Kim's first marriage.
His father had long regarded his eldest son as a comrade in the anti-dictatorship struggle in the 1970s and '80s. He was tortured at least twice in 1971 under the Park Chung-hee regime and again in 1980 under Chun Doo-hwan.
Hong-il could not find a job because his father had been in jail, in exile, or on the streets leading the pro-democracy movement. When his father was in jail, it was he and his mother who took care of him.
According to the American Medical Association, the disease is caused by the slow progressive loss of dopaminergic neurons in the substantia nigra of the brain, resulting in motor symptoms such as resting tremors (bradykinesia) and postural rigidity, which in its later stages results in postural instability. Kim is also reportedly suffering from hypertension and diabetes.
Kim ran in the 2004 general election in Mokpo, where his father held a strong political base. However, he was involved in a bribery scandal and lost his seat in 2006. The late former President is said to have undergone extreme stress as a result.