Kim Dae-jung

I was sad to see that Kim Dae-jung has died. I like to think I played a very small part in getting him released from prison back in the 1980s. He was a leading figure in the South Korean opposition, and following the brutal suppression by the military government of the popular and student uprising in Kwangju city, he was imprisoned. He was put under sentence of death. Amnesty International adopted him as a prisoner of conscience and I was the campaign organiser in Britain. I arranged a vigil outside the South Korean embassy and the delightful Tom Conti came along to support us. We got our photo on the front page of the The Times. Quite an achievement to get a British paper to feature a dissident from a little known country across the other side of the world on the front page. His death sentence was commuted (I think the Americans helped!) and he subsequently became South Korea’s president. He seems to have been a disappointment when in power, but perhaps not as corrupt or repressive as his predecessors.

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August 19, 2009 Posted in: International