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South Korea mourns dissident who became president
AFP - Wednesday, August 19
SEOUL (AFP) - - Kim Dae-Jung, a tireless democracy campaigner who survived assassination attempts and a death sentence to win South Korea's presidency and the Nobel peace prize, died on Tuesday aged 85.
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Kim was a towering figure in the country's decades of struggle for democracy against army-backed autocrats.
During his 1998-2003 presidency he held South Korea's first-ever summit with communist North Korea, in 2000, and was awarded the Nobel prize later that year.
He was admitted to hospital on July 13 with pneumonia and related complications.
"We lost a great political leader today," President Lee Myung-Bak said in a statement.
"His accomplishments and aspirations to achieve democratisation and inter-Korean reconciliation will long be remembered by the people."
The government announced it was setting up mourning altars for the late leader in Seoul and provincial cities, as an outlet for national grief.
The presidential office said it would respect the family's wishes over whether to hold a state funeral, and would not stop North Korea sending a delegation to the funeral if it wishes.
Past leaders, including the man whose government condemned Kim to death, also paid tribute.
"I hope former President Kim, who underwent a stormy political life, will rest peacefully in the bosom of God," former leader Chun Doo-Hwan told reporters of the devoutly Catholic Kim.
In May 1980, during Chun's army-backed rule, Kim was thrown into prison on charges of treason. He was sentenced to death by a martial law court but reprieved following strong US pressure.
He had an even closer brush with death in 1973 during the rule of dictator Park Chung-Hee. Agents of the Korean CIA kidnapped him from a Tokyo hotel and were preparing to dump him into the sea from a boat.
Swift intervention by Washington and Tokyo saved his life.
"A big tree has fallen in the country," said former president Kim Young-Sam, who spearheaded the democracy drive along with his namesake but later became politically estranged from him.
Mass street protests in 1987 ushered in democracy but Kim Dae-Jung won the presidency only in 1997 on his fourth attempt.
He took office the following February at the height of the Asian economic crisis, which ravaged South Korea and forced it to seek a 57-billion-dollar bailout from the International Monetary Fund.
The man once branded by opponents as a communist won praise for working with international financial bodies to revive the economy and launch major reforms and corporate restructuring.
Kim never wavered on the need for reconciliation with North Korea, even though his "sunshine" engagement and aid policy failed to halt the North's drive for nuclear weapons and its two atomic tests.
"This is the best way to end the national tragedy and make a reunified motherland," he said in his final speech in office.
"South Korea lost one of its greatest leaders today," the conservative ruling Grand National Party said in a statement.
The main opposition Democratic Party described Kim as "the great teacher of the age".
Hundreds of mourners including United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon paid last respects to Kim, whose body lay in a funeral hall at the hospital where he died.
The country had lost a "great leader," said Ban, a South Korean.
"He dedicated his life to developing democracy and helping the underprivileged, "said Seoul resident Park Oh-Seok, 61.
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