넬슨 만델라 전 남아프리카공화국 대통령과 덩샤오핑(鄧小平) 전 중국 중앙군사위원회 주석, 마거릿 대처 전 영국 총리, 루이스 이나시우 룰라 다 시우바 브라질 대통령, 김대중 전 대통령 등 11명이 ‘혁신적인 국가 개혁에 성공한 세계의 정치지도자(transformers)’로 선정됐다.

미국 시사주간지 뉴스위크는 22일 인터넷판에 강력한 지도력으로 짧은 기간에 사회 경제 정치 분야 개혁에 탁월한 성과를 이뤄낸 이들의 정치 역정과 개인사, 재임 중 업적을 소개했다.


○ 김대중 전 대통령

수십 년간의 독재 치하에서 유력한 야당 지도자로 명성을 얻었고 세 차례 대권에 도전했지만 패배했다. 하지만 1998년 한국 역사상 처음으로 평화적이고 수평적인 정권교체에 성공했고 최악의 경제위기를 이겨냈다. 1950년 6·25전쟁 이후 최초로 남북 정상회담을 이끌어냈다. 이런 업적의 뼈대가 된 햇볕정책으로 한국 정치지도자로서는 처음으로 노벨 평화상을 수상했으며 ‘아시아의 넬슨 만델라’로 알려져 있다.

동아일보 뉴스 기사중에서

Mikhail Borisovich Khodorkovsky

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikhail_Khodorkovsky

(Russian: Михаи?л Бори?сович Ходорко?вский; born June 26, 1963, USSR) is a Russian former Komsomol (Soviet youth) activist who became one　　 of Russia's oligarchs. In 2004, Khodorkovsky was the wealthiest man in Russia, and was the 16th wealthiest man in the world, although much of his wealth evaporated because of the collapse in the value of his holding in the Russian petroleum company YUKOS.^{[citation needed]}

On October 25, 2003, Khodorkovsky was arrested at Novosibirsk airport by the Russian prosecutor general's office on charges of fraud. Shortly thereafter, on October 31, the government under Vladimir Putin froze shares of Yukos because of tax charges. The Russian Government took further actions against Yukos, leading to a collapse in the share price. It purported to sell a major asset of Yukos in December 2004.

On May 31, 2005, Khodorkovsky was found guilty of fraud and sentenced to nine years in prison. The sentence was later reduced to 8 years. In 2003, prior to his arrest, Khodorkovsky funded several Russian parties, including Yabloko, the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, and even, allegedly, the pro-Kremlin United Russia.

In October 2005 he was moved into prison camp number 13 in the city of Krasnokamensk, Zabaykalsky Krai.

In March 2006, Forbes magazine surmised that Khodorkovsky's personal fortune had declined to a fraction of its former level, stating that he "still has somewhere below $500 m".^[1]

Contents [hide] 1 Entrepreneurship in Soviet Union 2 Political ambitions 3 The merger 4 Prosecution 5 Impact of arrest 6 Criminal charges 7 In prison 8 Release date 9 See also 10 References 11 External links

[edit] Entrepreneurship in Soviet Union

Khodorkovsky grew up in an ordinary Soviet Jewish^[2] family, in a two-room apartment in Moscow. The young Khodorkovsky was ambitious. He received excellent grades. He then attempted and succeeded in building a career as a communist functioneer. He became deputy head of Komsomol (the Communist Youth League) at his university, the Mendeleev Institute of Chemical Technology. The Komsomol career was one　　 of the ways to get into the ranks of communist apparatchiks and to achieve the highest possible living standards.^[3]

After perestroika started, Khodorkovsky used his connections within the communist structures to gain a foothold in the developing free market. He used the help of some powerful people to start his business activities under the cover of Komsomol. Friendship with another Komsomol leader Alexey Golubovich helped him greatly in his further success, since Golubovich's parents held top positions in the State Bank of the USSR.^[3]

With partners from Komsomol, and technically operating under its authority, Khodorkovsky opened his first business in 1986, a private cafe; an enterprise made possible by Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev's programme of perestroika and glasnost. In 1987 they opened a "Center for Scientific and Technical Creativity of the Youth" (which eventually allowed him to found the bank Menatep^[4]). In addition to importing and reselling computers, the "scientific" center was involved in trading a wide range of other products; French brandy, Swiss vodka. It is alleged that these goods were mostly counterfeit: "Swiss" vodka was produced in Poland, and the brandy was not French^{[citation needed]}.

By 1988, he had built an import-export business with a turnover of 80 million rubles a year (about $10 million USD).

Armed with cash from his business operations, Khodorkovsky and his partners used their international connections to obtain a banking licence to create Bank Menatep in 1989. As one　　 of Russia's first privately owned banks, Menatep expanded quickly, by using most of the deposits raised to finance Khodorkovsky's successful import-export operations.

Bank Menatep was also successful in forcing the government to award them the right to manage funds allocated for the victims of the Chernobyl nuclear accident. Because of its "exempt status", the bank allegedly might have been an extremely convenient vehicle for the evasion of tax and import duties. By 1990, critics suggest the bank was active in facilitating the large-scale theft of Soviet Treasury funds that went on at the time prior to and following the collapse of the USSR in 1991^{[citation needed]}.

In a prophetic statement of the time, Khodorkovsky is quoted as saying:^[3]

Many years later I talked with people and asked them, why didn't you start doing the same thing? Why didn't you go into it? Because any head of an institute had more possibilities than I had, by an order of magnitude. They explained that they had all gone through the period when the same system was allowed. And then, at best, people were unable to succeed in their career and, at worst, found themselves in jail. They were all sure that would be the case this time, and that is why they did not go into it. And I"--Khodorkovsky lets out a big, broad laugh at the memory--"I did not remember this! I was too young! And I went for it.

Khodorkovsky's connections with Komsomol and CPSU structures would prove critical in his success.

[edit] Political ambitions

Khodorkovsky also became a philanthropist, whose efforts include the provision of internet-training centres for teachers, a forum for the discussion by journalists of reform and democracy, and the establishment of foundations which finance archaeological digs, cultural exchanges and summer camps for children. Khodorkovsky's critics saw this as political posturing, in light of his funding of several political parties ahead of the elections for the State Duma to be held in late 2003.

He is openly critical of what he refers to as 'managed democracy' within Russia. Careful normally not to criticise the elected leadership, he says the military and security services exercise too much authority. He told The Times:

"It is the Singapore model, it is a term that people understand in Russia these days. It means that theoretically you have a free press, but in practice there is self-censorship. Theoretically you have courts; in practice the courts adopt decisions dictated from above. Theoretically there are civil rights enshrined in the constitution; in practice you are not able to exercise some of these rights."

[edit] The merger

In April 2003, Khodorkovsky announced that Yukos would merge with Sibneft, creating an oil company with reserves equal to those of Western petroleum multinationals. Khodorkovsky has been reported to be negotiating with ExxonMobil and ChevronTexaco about them taking a large stake in Yukos. Sibneft was created in 1995, at the suggestion of Boris Berezovsky, comprising some of the most valuable assets of a state-owned oil company. In a controversial auction process, Berezovsky acquired 50% of the company at what most agree was a very low price.^{[citation needed]}

When Berezovsky had a confrontation with Putin, and felt compelled to leave Russia for London (where he was granted asylum) he assigned his shares in Sibneft to Roman Abramovich. Abramovich subsequently agreed to the merger.

With 19.5 billion barrels (3 km³) of oil and gas, the merged entity would have owned the second-largest oil and gas reserves in the world after ExxonMobil and would have been the fourth largest in the world in terms of production, pumping 2.3 million barrels (370,000 m³) of crude a day. However, the merger had been recalled by the shareholders of Sibneft after the arrest of Khodorkovsky.

[edit] Prosecution

In early July 2003, Platon Lebedev, a Khodorkovsky partner and second largest shareholder in Yukos, was arrested on suspicion of illegally acquiring a stake in a state-owned fertiliser firm, Apatit, in 1994.^{[citation needed]} The arrest was followed by investigations into taxation returns filed by Yukos, and a delay to the antitrust commission's approval for its merger with Sibneft.^{[citation needed]}

Khodorkovsky was himself arrested in October 2003, charged with fraud and tax evasion. The Russian Prosecutor General's Office claims Khodorkovsky and his associates cost the state more than $1 billion in lost revenues.^{[citation needed]}

Subsequent to Khodorkovsky's arrest, Leonid Nevzlin gained a controlling stake in Yukos when Khodorkovsky handed him a 60% share in the holding company that controlled the firm.^[5] Nevzlin is himself now wanted in Russia and has since fled to Israel.^{[citation needed]}

On March 31st 2009, a new trial of Khodorkovsky and Lebedev began in Moscow for fresh charges on embezzlement and money laundering. The two men face up to 22 more years in prison.^[6] Both of them pleaded non guilty and denounce vague accusations.^[7]

[edit] Impact of arrest

Initially news of Khodorkovsky's arrest had a significant effect on the share price of Yukos. The Moscow stock market was closed for the first time ever for an hour in order to assure stable trading as prices collapsed. Russia's currency, the ruble, was also hit as some foreign investors questioned the stability of the Russian market. Media reaction in Moscow was almost universally negative in blanket coverage, some of the more enthusiastic pro-business press discussed the end of capitalism, while even the government-owned press criticised the "absurd" method of Khodorkovsky's arrest.

Yukos moved quickly to replace Khodorkovsky with Russian born U.S. citizen Simon Kukesas. Simon Kukesasan, who became the CEO of Yukos was already an experienced oil executive.

The U.S. State Department said the arrest "raised a number of concerns over the arbitrary use of the judicial system" and was likely to be very damaging to foreign investment in Russia, as it appeared there were "selective" prosecutions occurring against Yukos officials but not against others.

A week after the arrest, the Prosecutor-General froze Khodorkovsky's shares in Yukos to prevent Khodorkovsky from selling his shares although he retains all his rights to vote the shares and to receive dividends.

Khodorkovsky's arrest alarmed foreign investors and policymakers alike.

In 2003 Khodorkovsky's shares in Yukos passed to Jacob Rothschild under a deal they concluded prior to Khodorkovsky's arrest. ^[8][9]

[edit] Criminal charges

Prosecutors stated that they operated independently of the government appointed by President Putin. The Prosecutor-General Vladimir Ustinov was appointed by former President Yeltsin and was not seen as being particularly close to Putin, who onc　　e tried to remove him. However, he was politically ambitious and prosecuting Russia's most prominent and successful tycoon was perceived as a boost to his political career and intended candidacy for the Duma.

The criminal charges against Khodorkovsky read as follows:

In 1994, while chairman of the board of the Menatep commercial bank in Moscow, M. B. Khodorkovsky created an organized group of individuals with the intention of taking control of the shares in Russian companies during the privatisation process through deceit and in the process of committing this crime managed the activities of this company.

Khodorkovsky was charged with acting illegally in the privatisation process of the former state-owned mining and fertiliser company Apatit. It is alleged that the CEO of Bank Menatep and large shareholder in Yukos Platon Lebedev assisted Khodorkovsky. Lebedev was arrested and charged in July 2003.

According to the prosecution, all four companies that participated in the privatization tender for 20% of Apatit's stock in 1994 were shell companies controlled by Khodorkovsky and Lebedev, registered to create an illusion of competitive bidding that was required by the law. One　　 of the shell companies that won that tender (AOZT Volna) was supposed to invest about US$280 million in Apatit during the next year, according to their winning bid. The investment was not made and Apatit sued to return their 20% of stock. At this point, Khodorkovsky et al. had transferred the required sum into Apatit's account at Khodorkovsky's bank Menatep and sent the financial documents to the court, so Apatit's lawsuit was thrown out. The very next day the money was transferred back from Apatit's account to Volna's account. After that the stock was sold off by Volna in small installments to several smaller shell companies, which were, in turn, owned by more Khodorkovsky-owned companies in a complicated web of relationships. Literally dozens of companies were registered for these purposes in Cyprus, Isle of Man, British Virgin Islands, Turks & Caicos and other offshore havens. Volna actually settled the Apatit lawsuit in 2002 by paying $15 million to the privatization authorities, even though it did not own Apatit stock anymore at the time. However, according to the prosecution, that $15 million sum was based on the incorrect valuation which was too low. Allegedly, at the time Apatit was selling off the fertilizers it was producing to multiple Khodorkovsky-owned shell companies below market value, and, therefore, Apatit formally did not have much profit, lowering its valuation. Those shell companies then resold the fertilizer at the market value, generating pure profit for Khodorkovsky, Lebedev and others.

In addition, prosecutors conducted an extensive investigation into Yukos for offences that went beyond the financial and tax-related charges. Reportedly there were three cases of murder and one　　 of attempted murder linked to Yukos, if not Khodorkovsky himself.

One area of interest to the Prosecutor-General included the 1998 assassination of the mayor of Nefteyugansk in the Tyumen region, Vladimir Petukhov. Nefteyugansk was the main centre of oil production within the Yukos empire. Suspicions arose in Nefteyugansk because Petukhov had publicly and frequently campaigned about Yukos' non-payment of local taxes.

President Putin himself commented on this aspect of the investigation while questioned about the investigation into Yukos in September 2003. President Putin said:

The case is about Yukos and the possible links of individuals to murders in the course of the merging and expansion of this company...the privatizations are the least of the reasons for it...in such a case, how can I interfere with prosecutors' work?

The verdict of the trial, repeating the prosecutors' indictments almost verbatim, was 662 pages long. As is customary in Russian trials, the judges read the verdict aloud, beginning on May 16, 2005 and finishing on May 31. Khodorkovsky's lawyers alleged that it was read as slowly as possible to minimize public attention*.^[10]

Khodorkovsky was defended by Karinna Moskalenko, who now faces being disbarred by the Russian government for her alleged negligence in defending him. Khodorkovsky denies being dissatisfied with her conduct.

[edit] In prison

On May 30, 2005, Mikhail Khodorkovsky was sentenced to 9 years in a medium security prison. At the time, he was detained in Moscow prison Matrosskaya Tishina.

On August 1, 2005, a political essay written by Khodorkovsky in his prison cell, titled "Left Turn", was published in Vedomosti, calling for a turn to more social responsible state. He stated that: "The next Russian administration will have to include the Communist Party of the Russian Federation and the Motherland Party, or the historical successors to these parties. The left-wing liberals, including Yabloko, and right-wing Ryzhkov, Khakamada and others should decide whether to join the broad social-democratic coalition or to remain grumpy and without relevance on the political sidelines. In my opinion, they have to join because onl　　y the broadest composition of a coalition in which liberal-socialist (social-democratic) views will play the key role can save us from the emergence, in the process of this turn to the left turn, from a new ultra-authoritarian regime. The new Russian authorities will have to address a left-wing agenda and meet an irrepressible demand by the people for justice. This will mean in the first instance the problems of legalizing privatization and restoring paternalistic programs and approaches in several areas."^[11]

On August 19, 2005, Khodorkovsky announced that he was on a hunger strike in protest at his friend and associate Platon Lebedev's placement in the punishment cell of the jail. According to Khodorkovsky, Lebedev had Diabetes mellitus and heart conditions, and keeping him in the punishment cell would be equivalent to murder.

On August 31, 2005, he announced that he would run for parliament.^[12] This initiative was based on the legal loophole: a convicted felon cannot vote or stand for a parliament, but if his case is lodged with the Court of Appeal he still has all the electoral rights. This "loophole," or alternatively, ordinary provision of appellate procedure, is a common practice in US federal and state court. Usually it requires around a year to get somebody's appeal through the Appeal Court, so it should have been enough time for Khodorkovsky to be elected. To imprison a member of Russian parliament, the parliament should vote for stripping his or her immunity. Thus, he had a hope to escape from his prosecution. But the plans were flawed, as the Court of Appeal unusually took onl　　y a couple of weeks to process Khodorkovsky's appeal, reduce his sentence by one　　 year and invalidate any of his electoral plans until the end of his sentence.

As reported on October 20, 2005, Khodorkovsky was delivered to the labor camp YaG-14/10 (Исправительное учреждение общего режима ЯГ-14/10) of the town of Krasnokamensk near Chita.^[13] The labor camp is attached to a uranium mining and processing plant and during Soviet times had a reputation as a place from which nobody returned alive.^{[citation needed]} According to news reports, currently the prisoners are not used in uranium mining and have much better chances of survival than in the past. The second part of Khodorkovsky essay/thesis "Left Turn" was published in Vedomosti on November 11, 2005, in which he expounded his socialist manifesto.^[14]

On April 13, 2006, Khodorkovsky was attacked by a prison mate while he was asleep. It was speculated that a prison mate tried to disfigure his face but not to kill him. Jail sources told reporters that a fellow prisoner Alexander Kuchma attacked him after a heated conversation. Western media immediately accused the Russian authorities of trying to play down the incident. In January 2009, the same prisoner filed a lawsuit for 500,000 rubles (~$15,000) against Khodorkovsky, accusing him of homosexual harassment.^[15]

On February 5, 2007, new charges of embezzlement and money laundering were brought against both Khodorkovsky and Platon Lebedev.^[16] Khodorkovsky's supporters point out that the charges come just months before Khodorkovsky and Lebedev were to become eligible for parole, as well as just a year before the next Russian presidential election.^{[citation needed]}

On January, 28, 2008, Khodorkovsky started a hunger strike http://www.khodorkovsky.ru/speech/7762.html" HREF="http://www.khodorkovsky.ru/speech/7762.html" TARGET="_blank">[4] to help his associate Vasily Aleksanyan, who is ill and was held in jail and who was denied the necessary medical treatment. Aleksanyan was transferred from a pre-trial prison to an onc　　ological hospital on 8 February 2008,^[17] after which Khodorkovsky called off his strike.^[18]

In prison, Khodorkovsky announced that he would research for, and prepare, a Ph.D. dissertation on the topic of Russian oil policy.^{[citation needed]} The third part of Khodorkovsky's essay/thesis "Left Turn" with the subheading "Global Perestroika" was published in Vedomosti on November 7, 2008, in which he stated: "Barack Obama’s victory in the US presidential elections is not simply the latest change of power in one　　 individual country, albeit a superpower. We are standing on the threshold of a change in the paradigm of world development. The era whose foundations were laid by Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher three decades ago is ending. Unconditionally including myself in that part of society that has liberal views, I see: ahead ? is a Turn to the Left."^[19]

[edit] Release date

According to his official site, Khodorkovsky would have been eligible for early release, but an alleged conspiracy involving jail guards and a cell mate resulted in a statement that Mikhail had violated one　　 of the prison rules. The statement was false, but it was sufficient to make Kordorkovsky lose his rights, onc　　e the statement was logged in his file.^[20]

It is predicted that he might be released by the middle of 2011,^[21] although Khodorkovsky is currently awaiting trial on fresh charges of embezzlement and money laundering, which could lead to a new sentence of up to 27 years. He alleged that both cases were instigated by Igor Sechin. “The second as well as the first case were organized by Igor Sechin,” the tycoon claimed in an interview with The Sunday Times from a remand prison in the Siberian city of Chita, 4000 miles east of Moscow.^[20]

On August 22, 2008, he was denied parole by Judge Igor Faliliyev, at the Ingodinsky regional court in Chita, Siberia. The basis for this was in part because Khodorkovsky "refused to attend jail sewing classes".^[22]

KIM DAE-JUNG, 85

S. Korean Leader Won Nobel Peace Prize

Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, August 19, 2009

Kim Dae-jung, who overcame kidnapping, prison and a commuted death sentence in a tireless battle for democracy in South Korea and later won his country's presidency and a Nobel Peace Prize, died Aug. 18 in the capital city of Seoul after being hospitalized for pneumonia. He was believed to have been 85.

As president from 1998 to 2003, Mr. Kim reached out to North Korea with a "sunshine policy," flying to its capital for the first North-South summit with communist leader Kim Jong Il. He helped cement young institutions of democracy in South Korea and restore its economy after a 1997 financial collapse.

His final years brought him some frustration. Despite the summit's pledges of detente, tensions rose as the North detonated two nuclear test bombs and the engagement policy was abandoned. Mr. Kim's own standing suffered with disclosure of secret payments to the North before the summit and the corruption convictions of two of his sons.

Throughout his life, Mr. Kim pursued his goals with a single-mindedness that could startle enemies and friends alike. Over and over, he surmounted the insurmountable, onl　y to be undone by arrest or military coup, then picked himself up and went back for more. "The people must be treated as masters and must act like masters," he said.

As a dissident, Mr. Kim was aided at particular danger points by the U.S. government, which had strong influence in Seoul because of the presence of tens of thousands of U.S. troops in the Cold War flashpoint country. U.S. officials worked to shield Mr. Kim from military officers who viewed him as a dangerous, disloyal radical and wanted him dead.

Once the tables were turned and he entered South Korea's presidential mansion, known as the Blue House, he displayed a remarkable ability to make peace with former adversaries. Among the parade of South Korean dignitaries who called on him during his final illness in Seoul's Severance Hospital was retired general and former president Chun Doo-hwan, whose military court had sentenced him to death in 1980.

Mr. Kim was born Jan. 6, 1924, his presidential library's Web site says. Other records have shown his birth date as Dec. 3, 1925, with speculation that the change was made to avoid the Japanese draft as a young man. At the time, Korea was ruled by Japan as a colony. The son of farmers on an island off the Korean peninsula's southern coast, he obtained a high school diploma on the mainland and built a career in the local shipping industry around the time of independence in 1945.

In 1946, Mr. Kim married Cha Yong-ae and later had two sons with her. She died in 1960. In 1962, he married Lee Hee-ho, with whom he had one　 more son. Lee and his sons survive him.

According to Mr. Kim's presidential library, he joined and quit two political organizations in the 1940s after detecting left-leaning tendencies in them. Early in the 1950-53 Korean War, it said, he was captured by communist forces but escaped.

After the war, he was baptized a Roman Catholic, joining an influential Christian minority that has long been a force for change in Korean society. Mr. Kim would say later that his faith nurtured him during long periods of peril and incarceration.

"Let us persevere, then, praying always that God will help us to have the strength to love and forgive our enemies," he wrote a son from prison, according to an official account. "Let us together, in this way, become the loving victors."

Mr. Kim entered politics in the 1950s, making three unsuccessful runs for office. In 1961, he finally won a seat in the National Assembly but lost it three days after the vote when Park Chung-hee, an army general who would become his first military nemesis, staged a coup d'etat and dissolved the legislative body.
In elections that Park allowed in 1963, Mr. Kim again won a seat. He soon established himself as a rising figure in the opposition New Democratic Party. In 1971, as its presidential candidate against Park, he astounded the military and world by winning more than 46 percent of the vote.

Park later declared martial law; Mr. Kim continued his agitation. In 1973, agents of the Korean Central Intelligence Agency abducted him from a Tokyo hotel and took him by sea toward South Korea. He later said that his captors came close to throwing him overboard. U.S. officials had been urging urged his release, and he later went free in Seoul.

Park's assassination in 1979 brought on a brief period of openness in South Korean politics. Mr. Kim traveled up and down the country speaking out for democratic rule. But a new group of soldiers led by Gen. Chun soon seized power.

In 1980, Mr. Kim was tried by a military court on treason charges, accused of helping instigate a street uprising in Kwangju City, located in Mr. Kim's native region. Wearing the white garb of Korean prison inmates, he was sentenced to death. At U.S. urging, the Chun government later allowed Mr. Kim to leave for the United States, ostensibly for medical treatment.

In 1985 he flew back to Seoul from exile. At the airport, police took him away to what became extended arrest at his house. Meeting frequently with allies who ignored the plainclothes police officers stationed outside, he played an important backdoor role in the country's slowly liberalizing politics.

Chun lost his hold on power in 1987 by a grand miscalculation that he could install another retired general, Roh Tae-woo, as his successor through an electoral college that the opposition said would be rigged. His move triggered a month of huge street demonstrations that ended with Chun agreeing to a direct election.

With that surprise concession, Mr. Kim moved from bold defiance of military rule to operation in politics as the art of the possible. "He always told me that, even though he had dreams, he had to understand reality," said Sung Deuk-hahm, a Korea University professor who served as an informal adviser to Mr. Kim. "Dreams without reality are just hopeless."

Recognizing the dangers of a split opposition vote in the direct election of 1987, Mr. Kim and fellow dissident leader and longtime presidential aspirant Kim Young-sam met repeatedly to seek a deal by which one　 would withdraw. There was no deal. Both men ran. Chun's nominee Roh won.

For the next campaign, in 1992, Kim Young-sam crossed over to the ruling party and won the presidency. It was onl　y in 1997, with the shock of the Asian financial collapse having sullied the ruling party, that Kim Dae-jung won the Blue House, but with onl　y 40 percent of the vote.

With real power finally in his hands, he often acted onl　y after long thought. "Often he would reject the immediate political offer, thinking always, how will history judge him? He had a very keen sense of history, I think," said Yang Sung-chul, who served as his ambassador to the United States.

He won broad support domestically by moving to quickly pay back emergency loans that the International Monetary Fund granted after the 1997 collapse. With Mr. Kim's encouragement, Koreans turned in huge amounts of gold jewelry to help retire debt they saw as a blot on national honor.

Mr. Kim also won praise by publicly forgiving Chun and Roh, both of whom had both been variously convicted of abuse of power and corruption charges. Looking north, he devised the sunshine policy, consisting of diplomatic overtures to North Korea and extensive aid and investment at a time of famine in the closed communist state. On June 13, 2000, Mr. Kim flew to the communist capital, Pyongyang, for a summit with Kim Jong Il. The two men embraced on the tarmac of Pyongyang's airport.

The South Korean president later recounted that in subsequent talks, "I told Chairman Kim, 'People don't live forever. . . . Now, as we are in life and hold highly responsible positions, we are obliged to open the path to peace, cooperation and unification for all Korean people. That is how you and I can live forever in history.' "

The 2000 Nobel Peace Prize followed. "With great moral strength, Kim Dae-jung has stood out in East Asia as a leading defender of universal human rights," the Oslo-based prize committee said. Because of the summit, "there may now be hope that the Cold War will also come to an end in Korea."

But it had little long-term effect. Kim Jong Il never carried through with a promise to visit the South. The test bombs were detonated. Kim Dae-jung's critics dismissed the sunshine policy as a swindle.

Early in the presidency of George W. Bush, Mr. Kim flew to Washington to try to win him over to staying with the sunshine approach, but he got nowhere. Donald Gregg, a former U.S. ambassador to Seoul who saw Mr. Kim shortly after that the meeting with Bush, recalled his "tremendous grace under pressure." Mr. Kim was bitterly disappointed but did not criticize Bush, Gregg recalled: "I thought it was a tremendous demonstration of his strength of character."

Mr. Kim's Nobel Peace Prize was tarnished by revelations that before the summit a South Korean company had secretly paid close to $200 million to the North.

But his greatest personal humiliation came with the imprisonment of two of his sons-- Kim Hong-up and Kim Hong-gul -- in a bribery and influence-peddling scandal. South Koreans saw a new repentant side of their president: "For the last few months I have lived with a very shameful and sorry feeling for not looking after my sons properly," he told the nation. "Throughout my life I have been through a lot of difficulty, but I never thought I would have to go through something as catastrophic as this."

After stepping down in 2003, Mr. Kim assumed the role of elder statesman, traveling the world despite declining health and delivering speeches at international forums.

In a Seoul lecture in June this year, one　 of his last public appearances, he urged North and South to return to talks. And he put out a new call for political activism.

"A conscience that does not act is effectively on the side of evil," he said. "How many people did the dictator regimes kill? We have to do our part not to waste their sacrifice in vain and guard democracy that came hard to us."

행정안전부 자료.

S Korea's former President Kim Dae-jung dies

www.chinaview.cn 2009-08-18 12:54:53

South Korean President Kim Dae-jung speaks at a news conference at the presidential Blue House in Seoul in this Jan. 11, 2001 file photo.(Xinhua/Reuters, File Photo) Photo Gallery>>>     SEOUL, Aug. 18 (Xinhua) -- Former President Kim Dae-jung died at the age of 85 at 1:42 p.m. (0442 GMT) Tuesday, Seoul's Severance Hospital said.     Kim was moved to the hospital on July 13 as he showed symptoms of pneumonia.     Kim, placed under a respirator three days later, showed signs of improvement, but later was put back on it and went on a surgery on his bronchial tubes in late July.     Beginning late Monday night, Kim's health condition exacerbated, with his heart failing intermittently, the hospital officials were quoted as saying.     Kim, taking office in 1998, served as president for five years, during which he met with the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) leader Kim Jong-il for the first time since the armistice of the Korean War.     During his presidency, Kim also won the Nobel Prize for his "lifelong" strife for democracy and efforts to realize reconciliation on the Korean Peninsula.