He was the man behind the Cheju 4.3 Massacre, the Daejun Massacre, the Suwon Massacre, the blowing up the Hangang Bridge, assassination of Kim Ku and Yo Woon Young and countless other killings of Koreans. Although Dr. Rhee dominated Korea for over ten years, little information is available on him on the Internet and what little cyber-information available is mostly false or inaccurate. For example, one source claims that Rhee presided over a 'government in exile in Hawaii'. Another source claims Rhee was from the royal family line. Most history books praise him as the 'tiger of Korea', democratically elected founder of Korea, most revered by all Koreans even today, and so on.
Nothing can be further from truth.
Rhee is a sinister and dangerous man, an anachronism who had strayed into this age to use the clich s and machinery of democracy for unscrupulous and undemocratic ends. Since this class could not have acquired and maintained its favored position under Japanese rule without a certain minimum of collaboration, it has experienced difficulty in finding acceptable candidates for political office and has been forced to support imported expatiate politicians such as Syngman Rhee and Kim Ku. These, while they have no pro-Japanese taint, are essentially demagogue bent on autocratic rule. While in prison, he became a Christian. The Yi officials were unaware of the secret agreement the US had made with Japan, whereby Japan would take over Korea and Manchuria, and the US would take the Philippines.