Former S. Korean President Roh commits suicide

[blackie]

http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/asiapcf/05/23/roh.dead/index.html

 SEOUL, South Korea (CNN)  -- Former South Korean President Roh Moo-Hyun committed suicide Saturday by leaping to his death from a hill behind his house, the government announced.
Former South Korean President Roh Moo-Hyun served from 2003-2008.

He was 62.

Roh, who was president from 2003 to 2008, had gone hiking near his home with an aide about 6:30 a.m. Saturday (5:30 p.m. ET on Friday), the state-run Yonhap news agency said.

He was found later with head injuries, and died at 9:30 a.m. after being taken to a hospital in Busan, police said. A hospital spokesman declined to comment.

Roh left a suicide note for his family that family lawyer Moon Jae-in handed out to South Korean media. News reports said Roh wrote it on his computer about half an hour before he left the house.

"I am in debt to too many people," the note reads. "Too many people have suffered because of me. And I cannot imagine the suffering they will go through in the future."

Roh's death came amid an investigation into a bribery scandal that had tarnished his reputation.

Prosecutors were investigating the former president for allegedly receiving $6 million in bribes from a South Korean businessman while in office. Roh's wife was scheduled to be questioned by prosecutors Saturday, and Roh was planning to answer a second round of questions next week.

With Roh's death, prosecutors said, the case against him has been suspended.

Roh had said he was ashamed about the scandal. In the first round of questioning, he said he was losing face and that he was disappointing his supporters.

The former president said he learned about the payments only after he left office and that some of them were legitimate investments, Yonhap reported.

Roh wrote about his thoughts on a blog that he maintained, which also attracted supporters and tourists to his hometown, Yonhap said.

Roh's suicide note said his health was poor and that "nothing is left in my life but to be a burden to others."

"Don't be too sad. Aren't life and death both a piece of nature? Don't be sorry. Don't blame anyone. It is fate," he wrote.

The note asks that his body be cremated and for a small headstone to be left near his house.

"It's what I have thought about for a long time," he writes at the end.

Although Roh had not made a formal guilty plea, many were disappointed that a man who came to power vowing an end to corruption would face such allegations.

U.S. President Barack Obama said in a statement he was "saddened" by news of Roh's death.

"During his tenure, President Roh contributed to the strong and vital relationship between the United States and the Republic of Korea," Obama said in the statement issued by the White House. "On behalf of the government of the United States, I offer my condolences to his family and to the Korean people."

Roh hoped to leave a legacy of improved relations with North Korea.

Just before he left the presidency, Roh became the first South Korean leader to cross the demilitarized zone and meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong Il.
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Roh believed in the "sunshine policy" of his predecessor, Kim Dae-Jung, that sought to engage the north, and Roh also promised aid.

Roh spoke to CNN correspondent Sohn Jie-ae just after that trip and said he thought his legacy would be to ensure that many others crossed the demilitarized zone after him. The current South Korean president, Lee Myung-Bak, however, takes a harder line on the north and has so far not continued Roh's efforts.

[Alex Libman 14]

No nation in the world evokes more emotions from me than Korea, even though that land is entirely foreign to me.  It probably has the most dramatic history of any nation in the world, with thousands of years of struggle for independence against China, Japan, the Mongols, and many other invaders.  The country entered the 20th century as a colony of the Japanese Empire, as poor as many African countries, and after its collapse found itself split down the middle, two pawns in the hands of the Cold War superpowers.  No nation in history has ever been split so harshly - the economic differences between East and West Germany pale in comparison with the differences between North and South Korea!  Now the South is gradually overtaking Japan in many important high-tech industries, and no major industrialized nation is projected to experience more growth in the coming decades, eventually catching up to the United States in per-capita GDP, higher than any other G8 nation!  That would truly be a rags-to-riches story yet again exemplifying the virtues of capitalism!

The South too was a militarist dictatorship initially, with only a recent thaw in the last 2-3 decades.  As a human rights lawyer, Roh Moo-Hyun was a part of that thaw.  No matter how corrupt politics has made him afterwards, he should never be denied his earlier accomplishments.

Pragmatically speaking, I should be supporting the current president, Lee Myung-Bak, for taking the country in the pro-business direction of Hong Kong or Singapore, but, at the same time, I can't help but cringe at some things he's been pushing.  He definitely is far more competent than our Bush, but a warmonger nonetheless.  Censorship has been on the rise since he came to power, but economic reforms - not so much.  

[rabidfurby]

I guess he was ronery.

[mikehz]

Of course, there is that name, Roh Moo-Hyun, which in Korean I suppose means "Hung like a cow."

That by itself might be a reason for suicide.

[Bill Brasky]

ROK is booming, not to be taken lightly.  Still considered an emerging market due to their growth.  The KRX and its KOSPI Index are exploding.  

The US has totally dropped the ball in the last fifteen years.  I'm more pissed at this failure of administrative policy than anything typically mentioned in these pages, stretching back to the Clinton administration, and further into Bush #1.  The dotcom bust was tragically mishandled and completely derailed our position at the forefront of global tech growth.  

There are cities like this all over Asia, not just Seoul, largely built on American consumerism.  

Some of you may be old enough to remember Goldstar Electronics, a budget brand of televisions and microwaves.  They were largely dismissed as junk.  But they weren't junk at all.  An old skool electronics geek turned me on to them in the early 90's, and told me to watch them, they'd be breaking out of the pack - and recommended them to me as a young guy on a tight budget if I wanted a new television or whatever.  

Goldstar eventually morphed into LG Electronics, currently the #2 world producer of televisions with an annual revenue of $70 billion.  Based in, you guessed it.  Seoul.  

[Alex Libman 14]

Yeah, Seoul is great.  According to Emporis, it already has more tall buildings than Tokyo or Beijing!  Its subway system is the third busiest in the world after the legendary "public works" subway networks of Tokyo and Moscow.

[Bill Brasky]

Seoul, September 1950

http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/events/kowar/50-unof/un-5s.htm