On this day in 1983 there was an assassination attempt on the fifth president of South Korea, Chun Doo-hwan. Two of the bombers who were captured ended up admitting to be North Korean military officers.
Doo-hwan was on an official trip to Rangoon, the capital of Burma. During his stay, he had planned to visit the Martyrs’ Mausoleum to commemorate the founder of independent Burma, who was assassinated in 1947. As the president’s staff began to gather at the mausoleum, one of the three bombs that had been placed in the roof exploded. The huge blast that followed tore through the crowd, killing 21 people and wounding 46 others.
Three senior South Korean politicians were killed: foreign minister Lee Beom-seok; economic planning minister and Deputy Prime Minister Suh Suk Joon; and minister for commerce and industry Kim Dong Whie. Fourteen Korean presidential advisers, journalists and security officials and four Burmese nationals, including three journalists, were also among the people killed by the assassination attempt. Chun Doo-hwan was not among those who were killed by the blast, as his car was delayed in traffic and was only minutes away from the scene when the bomb was detonated. The bomb went off early because the bell that signaled his arrival was rung ahead of schedule.
Burmese police identified the three people suspected of being responsible for the attack; an army major and two captains, and set out to find them. An investigation had revealed that they had received the explosives in a North Korean diplomatic mission. Two of the suspects tried to commit suicide with a hand grenade that same day, but they survived and were arrested afterward. A third suspect, Zin Bo, who was thought to be a major in the North Korean army, went missing soon afterward and was later hunted and killed. Because of this incident, Chinese officials reprimanded North Korea in the Chinese media and refused to speak with North Korea for months.
Matt Bair is a junior studying history, political science and classics and a columnist for The Post. Feeling historical? Chat older things with him at mb382310@ohiou.edu.
