The presidency of Kim Dae-jung
(Feb 1998–Feb 2003)

Hartford Web Publishing is not the author of the documents in World History Archives and does not presume to validate their accuracy or authenticity nor to release their copyright.

Kim Dae Jung’s Turnabout to Bite Seoulites
By Han Il Su, People’s Korea, 14 January 1998. President-elect Kim Dae Jung, a longtime friend of unionists and students, got plenty of promises to break. The first breach of promise came last November when Kim explicitly expressed his intention not to abolish the all-powerful National Security Law; a month later he generously accepted stringent terms attached by IMF in exchange for its $57 billion loan, despite his promises to labor.
From opposition leader to IMF linchpin
By Peter Symonds, World Socialist Web Site, 11 March 1998. Amid a rapidly deepening economic and social crisis in South Korea, long-time opposition figure Kim Dae Jung was formally sworn in as president on February 25. Kim was a leader of the bourgeois opposition to the military regime and, at various times, had substantial support among workers and oppressed layers of the middle class.
Democracy a la Kim Dae Jung, Korea’s ‘Mandela’
By Anne O’Neill, Kimsoft, June 14, 1998. Tolerance of dissent in South Korea appears to be nonexistent. Kim seems unaware of international human rights and free speech standards. He labeled ‘Communist’ and ‘pro-North Korean’ anyone who criticized the government.
Kim Dae Jung Enforces IMF Austerity
Workers Vanguard, 11 September 1998. Coming amid a wave of worker unrest against layoffs and other attacks dictated by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) bailout of the crisis-ridden South Korean economy, this massive cop strikebreaking was a warning by the Kim regime to the whole of the South Korean proletariat.
Report Of The 1st People’s Rally On May 15
PICIS Newsletter, no. 53, 21 May 1999. The rally was organized by the Pan-National Movement Alliance for People’s Livelihood Rights, Reform of Society, and against the IMF. It supports workers’ struggle against restructuring and massive lay-offs.
Progressive Democratic Labor Party Inaugurated
Korea Times, 30 January 2000. The Democratic Labor Party, a political group composed of labor activists and progressives, was formally launched yesterday. Journalist-turned-labor leader Kwon Young-gil was elected party president in the ceremony.
South Korean democracy
Mainichi Shimbun, Tuesday 29 February 2000. The United Liberal Democrats (ULD) declared that it would terminate its coalition with President Kim Dae-jung’s Millennium Democratic Party (MDP). Despite Kim's successes in economic and diplomatic arenas, his approval rating has dropped dramatically. High level scandals. South Korea’s authoritarian political culture.
Leader Kim Jong Il greets President Kim Dae Jung
KCNA, 13 June 2000. President Kim Dae Jung and his entourage arrived today by air to visit Pyongyang at his own request for historic Pyongyang meeting and inter-Korean summit. At Pyongyang Airport General Secretary Kim Jong Il warmly greeted President Kim Dae Jung.
The Recolonization of Korea
By Michel Chossudovsky, Los Angeles Times, 16 June 2000. An IMF team was rushed to Seoul with mandate to negotiate a Mexican-style bail-out. An important precedent had been set: the IMF’s bitter economic medicine, routinely imposed on the Third World and Eastern Europe, was to be applied for the first time in an advanced industrial economy.
‘Red-Baiting’ Remarks Disrupt House Session
By Kim Kwang-tae, Korea Times, 15 November 2000. Rep. Kim Yong-kap (GNP) denounced the ruling Millennium Democratic Party (MDP) for accommodating the North’s demands. Revision of the National Security Law will result in an implementation of North Korean unification strategy in the South; some say the MDP is playing second fiddle to the Workers’ Party of the North.
S Korea Pres: Unemployment Rise Inevitable With Reform
Dow Jones, 21 November 2000. President Kim Dae-jung reaffirmed that nonviable companies should be shut down, and he said a temporary increase in unemployment is inevitable given corporate restructuring. Economic policies should be addressed as economic policies and not as social policies, he said.
Kim Dae-jung—Biography
From Les Prix Nobel 2000, The Nobel Foundation, 27 June 2003. The official biography associated with Kim’ being awarded the Nobel Prize for his meeting with North Korea. The other side of this dialog was not awarded the prize as well, for some reason.