Rangoon bombing

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Rangoon bombing
Date October 9, 1983 (1983-10-09)
Time 10:25 am
Location Martyrs' Mausoleum, Rangoon, Burma
Coordinates 16°48′09″N 96°08′52″E / 16.802536°N 96.147658°E / 16.802536; 96.147658Coordinates: 16°48′09″N 96°08′52″E / 16.802536°N 96.147658°E / 16.802536; 96.147658
Also known as Rangoon incident
Injuries 46
Death(s) 21
Suspect(s) 3 North Koreans (Kang Min-chul and 2 others)
Conviction(s) Kang Min-chul: Life imprisonment
Others: Death sentence

The Rangoon bombing of October 9, 1983, was an assassination attempt against Chun Doo-hwan, the then-President of South Korea,[1] allegedly orchestrated by North Korea.[2] Two of the bombers were captured, one of whom confessed to being a North Korean military officer.

Contents

[edit] Bombing

On October 9, 1983, President Chun Doo-hwan was on an official visit to Rangoon, the capital of Burma. During the visit he planned to lay a wreath at the Martyrs' Mausoleum to commemorate Aung San, who founded the independent Burma and was assassinated in 1947.[3] As some of the president's staff began assembling at the mausoleum, one of three bombs concealed in the roof exploded. The huge blast ripped through the crowd below, killing 21 people and wounding 46 others.[3] Three senior South Korean politicians were killed: foreign minister Lee Beom-seok, economic planning minister and deputy prime minister Suh Suk Joo, and minister for commerce and industry Kim Dong Whie.[citation needed] 14 Korean presidential advisers, journalists, and security officials were killed; 4 Burmese nationals, including 3 journalists, were also among the dead.[4] President Chun was saved because his car had been delayed in traffic and was only minutes from arriving at the memorial. The bomb was reportedly detonated early because the presidential bugle which signalled Chun's arrival mistakenly rang out a few minutes ahead of schedule.[3]

[edit] Aftermath

Burmese police identified three suspects, an army major and two captains. A police investigation revealed that they had slipped off a ship docked in Yangon port, and had received explosives in a North Korean diplomatic mission. Suspect Kang Min-chul and another attacker attempted to commit suicide by blowing themselves up with a hand grenade that same day, but survived and were arrested, although Kang lost an arm. A third suspect named Zin Bo, believed to be a major from North Korean Army went missing, but was hunted down by the Burmese Army, and managed to kill three soldiers before being shot. Kang Min-chul confessed his mission and links to North Korea, an action by which he was able to avoid a death sentence and instead received life imprisonment. His colleague was executed by hanging.[3] North Korea denied any links to Kang, who was sent to a prison at Insein, north of Yangon.[2]

As a result of the bombing, Burma suspended diplomatic relations with North Korea. China, which had passed on a diplomatic note requesting trilateral talks between North and South Korea and the US on North Korea's behalf just prior to the bombing, reprimanded North Korea in the state media. Chinese officials refused to meet or talk with North Korean officials for months afterward.[5]

In 1994, the representative of South Korea to the United Nations General Assembly linked this incident with the downing of Korean Air Flight 858 which he alleged was sponsored by the same government acting with impunity.[6]

Kang was Myanmar's longest-serving prisoner. He learned to speak the Burmese language fluently, according to one of his fellow prisoners. Yangon's moves towards resuming relations with North Korea led to speculation about what would happen to Kang. Because North Korea denied that he was a North Korean citizen, he may have been considered a stateless person. Kang reportedly did not want to go to North Korea, which he believed considered him a traitor (because of his revealing its criminal operations upon taking a guilty plea), or to South Korea, which might have tried him for his role in the assassination attempt. In 2006, Chung Hyung-Keun, a member of South Korea's Grand National Party and a former employee of South Korean intelligence, sponsored a bill to bring Kang to South Korea.[2] Kang died of liver cancer on 18 May 2008.[7]

[edit] List of victims

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ ANON. "MATERIALS ON MASSACRE OF KOREAN OFFICIALS IN RANGOON." Korea & World Affairs 7, no. 4 (Winter1983 1983): 735. Historical Abstracts, EBSCOhost (accessed July 5, 2010).
  2. ^ a b c Aung, Htet (2007-04-23), "Status of North Korean Terror Prisoner May Change", The Irrawaddy, http://www.irrawaddy.org/aviewer.asp?a=6977&z=163, retrieved 2007-04-27 
  3. ^ a b c d Kim, Hyung-jin (2006-02-23), "Calls rise for review of 1983 Rangoon bombing by North Korea", Yonhap News, http://web.archive.org/web/20071018052258/http://english.yna.co.kr/Engnews/20060223/480100000020060223092719E9.html, retrieved 2007-04-27 
  4. ^ "A Bomb Wreaks Havoc in Rangoon". TIME. 17 October 1983. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,952196,00.html. Retrieved 16 July 2011. 
  5. ^ Oberdorfer, Don (2002), The Two Koreas: A Contemporary History (Revised and Updated ed.), Basic Books, pp. 140–142, ISBN 978-0465051625 
  6. ^ United Nations Security Council Verbatim Report meeting 3627 page 8, Mr. Park Republic of Korea on 31 January 1996 at 15:30 (retrieved 2007-09-25)
  7. ^ Yi, Jeong-ae (2008-05-21), "‘아웅산 테러범’ 유일 생존자 사망/Lone survivor of Aung San Terror Bombing dies", The Hankyoreh, http://www.hani.co.kr/arti/society/society_general/288703.html, retrieved 2009-07-24 
  8. ^ 서상철 徐相喆 (in Korean) Nate / Encyclopedia of Korean Culture

[edit] External links

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