Japan helped Chun seize power, Yonsei professor says
The Japanese government continued to assist Chun Doo-hwan during his military coup in 1979, a university professor claimed in a thesis released yesterday.
Source : Korea
The Japanese government continued to assist Chun Doo-hwan during his military coup in 1979, a university professor claimed in a thesis released yesterday.
Park Sun-won, a professor at Yonsei University's Center for International Studies, said Japan informed Chun of "signs" of a possible North Korean invasion, information that Chun, then major general, desperately needed in order to justify his 1979 and 1980 coups.
Prof. Park presented testimony and recorded talks with then Japanese Ambassador Ryozo Sunobe and other Japanese officials as evidence.
Sunobe said that just after the 1979 coup, Chun and Huh Moon-do, then chief of information at the South Korean Embassy in Japan, met him in Seoul secretly. They then notified him of their coup plan and sought his cooperation.
Park's thesis, submitted to the University of Warwick earlier this year, covers events from the 10 months just before the 1979 coup until the months following the 1980 Kwangju massacre, after which Chun assumed total control of the nation.
"As it did in early December 1979, the Ohira cabinet provided military intelligence on an impending North Korean invasion over five times in January 1980. The information helped Chun and his accomplices ease strained relations with the United States," he said.
Tokyo also sent a special ambassador, lawmakers and party officials to Seoul between late April and early May 1980. (Yonhap)"It was encouraging to Chun that pro-Park Chung-hee and conservative Japanese politicians were in Seoul to emphasize the need for stability," he said.
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