Former South Korean President Kim Dae-jung has passed away at a Seoul hospital.  When former friends and rivals began visiting the hospital I figured things must not have been looking good for Kim.  Kim Dae-jung was born on Dec. 3, 1925 on the small island Haeuido in Cholla Province during the Japanese colonial era.

From this small island life he would go on to survive multiple assassination attempts, imprisonments, and exile during his years of opposition against military governments in South Korea.  He did have his flaws though and it actually appears he is more positively thought of outside of South Korea than within.  No matter what anyone thinks about Kim Dae-jung though, he is still one of the most important political leaders in South Korean history, rest in peace:

Former President Kim Dae-jung, who survived assassination attempts during his years as a dissident and won the Nobel Peace Prize for his reconciliation efforts with communist North Korea, died Tuesday. He was 85.

Kim, who had been hospitalized with pneumonia since last month, died shortly after 1:40 p.m. (0440 GMT), said Park Chang-il, chief of Severance Hospital in Seoul. He said Kim suffered respiratory distress, a pulmonary embolism and multiple organ failure.

The Nobel laureate’s wife, three sons and ex-aides were at his side, according to lawmaker Park Jie-won, Kim’s former presidential chief of staff and culture minister.

South Korean leaders, from friends to former foes, had been paying their respects for days at the hospital to a man whose epic career spanned South Korea‘s political upheaval, from the decades of harsh authoritarian rule to transformation into a full-fledged democracy.

“We lost a great political leader,” President Lee Myung-bak said in a statement. “His accomplishments and aspirations to achieve democratization and inter-Korean reconciliation will long be remembered by the people.”

As a pro-democracy opposition lawmaker, Kim built a reputation as a passionate champion of human rights and democracy who fought against South Korea’s military dictatorships.

He survived several suspected assassination attempts, including a dramatic 1973 abduction at a Tokyo hotel by South Korean agents.

And as president from 1998-2003, he was architect of the “Sunshine Policy” of reaching out to wartime rival North Korea as a way to encourage reconciliation.  [Associated Press]

Read the rest, but this AP article is way to worshipful of the Sunshine Policy as being his greatest success and even blames the current Korean President Lee Myung-bak for its failure.  Additionally it only makes a brief mention at the very end of the article of how Kim Dae-jung secured the Inter-Korean summit in 2000 which led to him being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize by bribing Kim Jong-il.  The article didn’t even mention how much the bribe was, which was $500,000,000 dollars.

This NY Times article by Choe Sang-hun is a better read on the life of Kim Dae-jung.

Kim Dae-jung being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

I don’t blame Kim Dae-jung for trying the Sunshine Policy with North Korea, but the amount of money given to North Korea was obscene considering what little the South got back in return.  Was a few family reunions, a tourist hotel at Kumgangsan where tourists get shot in the back, and an industrial complex where South Korean workers get taken hostage worth the billions sent to North Korea to fund their nuclear and missile programs?  Most importantly the ignoring of the human rights situation from someone like Kim Dae-jung is even more incredible considering how hard he campaigned for human rights in South Korea during the decades of military dictatorship.

Also remember that Kim Dae-jung was President when the 2002 Armored Vehicle Accident happened and despite the fact that the US government had saved his life multiple times to forge the way to him becoming President, he did nothing to stop the anti-American hate fest that occurred that year.

I would say Kim Dae-jung’s greatest accomplishment was not the Sunshine Policy but his efforts at economic reform that pushed South Korea out of the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis.  Kim’s economic policies led South Korea out of the financial crisis quicker than anyone thought possible with South Korea paying off their IMF loan early.

So as you can see Kim’s legacy is without a doubt a mixed bag, but he is still nevertheless one of the most important political figures in Korea history.  However, I do have to wonder how long it will be before the Korean left blames Kim Dae-jung’s death on Lee Myung-bak like they did when former President Roh Moo-hyun died?