Former South Korean President Park Geun-hye Released Under Amnesty | News from Germany on world events | Dw

Former South Korean President Park Geun-hye, sentenced to 22 years in prison for corruption and abuse of office, was released on Friday, December 31 after nearly five years in prison. A week earlier, Minister of Justice Park Bom Ge announced that the ex-president was included in the list of almost 3,100 persons falling under a “special amnesty” on the occasion of the upcoming New Year and “in the name of national unity.”

The poor health of 69-year-old Park Geun-hye played a decisive role in the decision to grant pardon: she was hospitalized several times this year due to chronic pain. The daughter of the former South Korean dictator Park Chung-hee received the so-called “pardon certificate” on the night of December 31 at a hospital in Seoul.

Park Geun-hye is the first woman in South Korean history to be elected president. She won the elections at the end of 2012. But while in this post, she was involved in a major corruption scandal and was impeached in 2017.

Corruption scandal

According to the investigation, the then President of South Korea and her friend Choi Sung Sil extorted bribes from such large corporations as Samsung. Park Geun-hye has also been accused of handing over classified documents to outsiders, blacklisting critical art figures and firing officials who disagree with her.

In addition to 20 years for corruption, Park Geun-hye received two years on charges of violating the electoral law and a fine of 16 million euros. Since she never paid the fine, prosecutors confiscated her property in March.

The Park Geun-hye scandal sparked multimillion-dollar protests in South Korea, which led to its overthrow and the rise to power of the current President Moon Jae-in. His term of office expires in March 2022. Back in January of this year, Moon Jae In ruled out the possibility of pardoning Park Geun-hye, calling her sentence “a historical lesson.”

See also:

• War on the 38th parallel

  Cold war front line

  On June 25, 1950, communist North Korean troops cross the 38th parallel and begin to seize the southern part of the Korean Peninsula, which was under US patronage. Within a few days, North Korean troops took control of almost the entire territory of the peninsula. This is how the war began, which lasted three years and, according to various estimates, cost the lives of about 4 million people.

• 

  War on the 38th parallel

  Background to the conflict

  From 1910 to 1945 Korea was a Japanese colony. As a result of the Second World War, the territories north of the 38th parallel fell under the control of the USSR, and to the south – under the control of the United States. In August 1948, the Republic of Korea is proclaimed in the south of the peninsula. In response, North Korean leader Kim Il Sung on September 9 announced the creation of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK).

• 

  War on the 38th parallel

  US and UN support

  At the request of the United States in July 1950, the UN decides to provide military assistance to South Korea. 40 thousand soldiers from more than 20 countries are sent there, but most of them (36 thousand) are Americans. This dramatically changes the course of the war: the South Koreans, together with their allies, are quickly recapturing the territories seized by Pyongyang and advancing north of the 38th parallel.

• 

  War on the 38th parallel

  Incheon landing operation

  On September 15, 1950, Allied forces under the command of American General Douglas MacArthur disembark at the port of Incheon behind enemy lines. The operation is successful. Two weeks later, Seoul falls into the hands of the Allies. And in mid-October they also capture Pyongyang. It seemed that the end of the war was already near. But then the Chinese entered the conflict on the side of the North Koreans.

• 

  War on the 38th parallel

  “Chinese People’s Volunteers”

  The PRC intervenes in the conflict in mid-October. And some time later, on December 5, Chinese troops are helping North Korea regain control of the then provisional capital Pyongyang. Hundreds of thousands of Chinese soldiers are again changing the course of the Korean War.

• 

  War on the 38th parallel

  MacArthur demanded a nuclear strike

  In January 1951, a major offensive by the North Korean army, supported by Chinese soldiers, begins. About 400,000 Chinese and 100,000 North Koreans drove the allies back and took Seoul again. In April of the same year, General MacArthur was removed from command after he demanded that US President Truman launch a nuclear strike on China. MacArthur was succeeded by General Matthew Ridgway.

• 

  War on the 38th parallel

  Exhausting trench warfare

  In mid-1951, the armed conflict on the Korean Peninsula came to a standstill. A fierce positional war begins, which continued without much success for both sides until the signing of an armistice in July 1953, although peace negotiations began in 1951.

• 

  War on the 38th parallel

  Fighting two systems

  The Korean War was the first armed conflict during the Cold War. On the Korean Peninsula, on the one hand, Chinese soldiers and Soviet pilots fought, on the other, American marines and soldiers of allied countries.

• 

  War on the 38th parallel

  Cities in ruins

  The Korean War was from the beginning a war that was primarily fought in the air and from the air. Over the course of three years, the UN aviation alone, under the command of the Americans, flew over a million sorties. The Americans dropped about 450 thousand tons of bombs. The scale of the destruction was simply colossal. Almost all major cities in North Korea were destroyed to the ground.

• 

  War on the 38th parallel

  Victims of war

  The figures for the number of killed and wounded on both sides vary greatly. Experts believe that about half a million Korean soldiers died in the Korean War, as well as about 400 thousand Chinese. The allies lost about 40 thousand troops, 90 percent of them were American soldiers.

• 

  War on the 38th parallel

  Exchange of prisoners of war

  Even during hostilities – from mid-April to early May 1953 – the parties began to exchange prisoners of war. The exchanges continued until the end of the year. The southerners released 75,000 North Koreans and a little less than 7,000 Chinese. Pyongyang responded with 13,500 people, of which 8,300 were South Koreans and more than 3,700 American soldiers.

• 

  War on the 38th parallel

  Fire cease

  Peace negotiations, which lasted two years, ended with the division of the peninsula: it was consolidated along the front line, which ran approximately along the 38th parallel. However, a peace treaty that would formally end the war was never signed. So from the point of view of international law, the parties are still at war.

• 

  War on the 38th parallel

  Buffer zone

  The idyll at the Panmunjom border village is deceiving: the border between North and South Korea is considered one of the most heavily guarded in the world. The demilitarized zone that divides the south and north of the Korean Peninsula is 250 kilometers long and 4 kilometers wide.

  Author: Esther Felden, Mikhail Bushuev

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