From: lim@omega.chem.yale.edu (Dongchul Lim)
Subject: Re: President Park Jung Hee
Organization: Yale University
X-Newsreader: Tin 1.1 PL4
Date: Mon, 9 Nov 1992 03:50:31 GMT

>Second, as someone indicated, he had a dishonorable past before he
>became a president. He graduated from Japanese military academy
>and served as a japanese officer in KwanDong province. After
>independence, somehow he sneaked into Korean military academy
>to avoid a trial for treason (how could this happen???).

	First of all, why was that dishonorable?
	How about those who were in Chinese Army?
	What about those inb U.S. military?
	Are they cat's paw of U.S?

	I don't think so.

	When life is not too much of worth, anything can happen.

	Even though no one would argue with the fact that he did harm
	to Korea, his career in Japanese Military was not the one
	that killed Korean Democracy; and those puplic eyes in Korea
	haven't seem to allow for true traitors to pay back.

	Ah, in addition, some argue that he built Korean Economy; however,
	no one would know or prove if we would been better or worse w/o him.
-- 
	Daeshik Kim	H: (703)273-1517 O: (703) 689-5878
	/PN=Daeshik.Kim/O=SprintIntl/ADMD=Telemail/C=US/@Sprint.com
	dskim@eng.umd.edu


Maybe traitors who served for Japanese during the japanese occupation
can say they couldn't but do so for living. I know many famous writers,
composers, etc., who had been once patriotic and nationalistic, but
eventually turned into a japanese agent for urging koreans to volunteerily
join japanese army during the second world war. On the other hand, some
other intellectuals never yielded to japanese, at the risk of imprisonment
and their lives. Can we equally treat someone like Kwang-Soo Lee and
someone like Dong-Ju Yoon?
I've heard descendents of Wan-Yong Lee, who is one of the traitors who
sold the country to Japan, were claiming the return of the lands that
Wan-Yong Lee owned but were confisticated by the government later.
If they had even a tiny bit of shame on their grandfather (maybe great
grandfather?), they couldn't claim the lands, which were given to Wan-
Yong Lee as a reward for selling country, were theirs.
One of serious mistakes in our history is that we didn't punish enough
the traitors. This is mainly because US puppet Seung-Man Lee took over
the government instead of nationalist Goo Kim.
Anyone can notice how opportunistic Jung-Hee Park was --- in the time
of japanese occupation, he stuck to japan. After independence, he took
the side of korea. Kwan-Dong Kun, where Park served as an officer, was
the very japanese army division whose main purpose was to crush Korean
and Chinese independence forces. If he felt the strings of conscience,
he wouldn't dare to become a president.
According to your argument, when life is not too much of worth,
one can do anything. Is this your life policy?
-DCL


--
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* Dongchul Lim                   | Phone (203) 432-6288            *
* Dept. of Chemistry, Yale Univ. | Email: lim@rani.chem.yale.edu   *
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