Former South Korean president Kim Young-sam dies

Former South Korean president Kim Young-sam has died at the age of 87.

The chief of Seoul National University Hospital, Oh Byung-Hee, said in a televised briefing that Kim died there early today. He said Kim is believed to have suffered from a severe blood infection and acute heart failure before he died.

“If the South Korean military fires at the waters of the (North)…on Monday, they will experience merciless retaliation of the Southwestern Front units…on the five (border) islands”, it said in a statement carried by the state-run Korean Central News Agency.

At one point, the USA military drew up plans for a strike against the Yongbyon facility – an act that Kim staunchly opposed on the grounds that it would nearly certainly lead to a full-scale conflict. “But he was accused of mismanaging the economy during the Asian financial crisis that toppled a few of the country’s debt-ridden conglomerates and forced the government to accept a US$58 billion bailout from the worldwide Monetary Fund”, Yonhap reported.

Former US President Jimmy Carter arranged a meeting between Kim Young Sam and then-North Korean leader Kim Il Sung when he flew to Pyongyang to defuse the crisis that year.

Born in Geoje, off the south-eastern tip of the Korean peninsula, on December 20, 1927, Mr Kim was elected as the youngest member of the National Assembly in 1954 and served nine terms as a policymaker. During the Korean War, he anchored a defence ministry propaganda radio programme.

Mr. Kim’s travails continued when Mr. Park was replaced by Chun Doo-hwan, an army major general who engineered a coup to fill the power vacuum left by his patron’s death.

Kim was a central figure in Korea’s democratic struggle from the 1960s to 1980s along with President Kim Dae-jung, who succeeded him as president. But he split that opposition vote with another activist, Kim Dae-jung, allowing Roh Tae-woo to win the election.

Once in the governing party, whose top hierarchy included many former generals, Mr. Kim and his followers, vastly outnumbered by rival factions but all seasoned veterans in party politics, quickly expanded their ranks and dominated the party.

Kim is survived by his wife, two sons and three daughters.