Former South Korean president Kim Young Sam dies at 87

Former South Korean President Kim Young-sam, the first civilian leader of the country’s modern democratic era, died Sunday, according to a semiofficial news agency.

The chief of Seoul National College Hospital, Oh Byung-Hee, stated Kim died there early Sunday. A South Korean hospital official says Kim Young-sam has died.

South Korea’s military is to conduct a live-fire drill near the disputed maritime border on 23 November, Seoul officials say, despite threats from the North. The artillery drill is being held to coincide with the fifth anniversary of North Korea’s deadly shelling of Yeonpyeong Island.

Kim led the Korean people through “one of the most challenging periods of the transition to democracy and set a precedent for a peaceful transfer of power in South Korean leadership that endures to this day”, he said.

He balked at the Clinton administration’s concept of putting a North Korean nuclear complicated in 1994.

During Kim’s presidency, military tensions created a cloud over the Korean peninsula.

Kim parted ways with his opposition ally Kim Dae Jung when he joined forces with Roh in 1992 as a stepping stone to his presidency. He later pardoned the two convicted military strongmen, Chun Doo-hwan and Roh Tae-woo.

Mr. Kim was credited with disbanding a key military faction and bringing transparency to South Korea’s murky financial system. But those efforts faltered and his government sought bailout protection from the global Monetary Fund at the height of the 1997 Asian economic crisis.

The military exercise is the latest of several such drills by South Korea near the Yellow Sea islands.

Kim was born on Dec 20, 1927, on a southeastern island and became a lawmaker in 1954.

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

It noted that during his term as president, Kim launched a series of reform programs to consolidate South Korea’s democracy, winning the hearts and minds of his people. He belonged to the ruling party of Syngman Rhee, South Korea’s first president, but he left over a constitutional revision and joined the opposition, drawing anger from military rulers.