Looking Back : Death of a Terrorist State? - RANGOON, OCTOBER 1983
Source : The editors of Asiaweek(November 3, 2000)
Three minutes was the margin between life and death for South Korea's military dictator, Chun Doo Hwan. He was running late. On the first full day of a six-nation tour, Chun was due at the Martyrs' Mausoleum in the Burmese capital, Rangoon, to lay a wreath in memory of the nine heroes of the Burmese independence movement, assassinated in 1947. When Chun did arrive, the scene that greeted him was so gruesome that he later banned film, above, and photographs from being shown in South Korea.
Killed instantly when one of three bombs planted in the roof of the mausoleum was detonated by remote control were four of Chun's cabinet ministers (including his deputy premier), two key advisers, two vice ministers, the South Korean ambassador, the chief secretary of Chun's parliamentary party and the president's personal physician. Ten others also died. In Seoul, about 1 million people gathered for the funerals of what had constituted their government's chief policy-making capability in foreign and economic affairs. Chun blamed North Korean leader Kim Il Sung for the incident. Pyongyang denied involvement, claiming Chun himself was the perpetrator. In the weeks that followed, Burmese authorities arrested two North Koreans and shot dead another. The two "confessed" to an assassination plot against Chun and a Rangoon court duly found them guilty. Kim made four peace overtures to the South in the next few months, but all were rejected.
The bombing tainted North Korea with the label terrorist state — a reputation that led to U.S. sanctions, only now being reconsidered. Pyongyang still struggles to shake that image, despite recent breakthroughs that have resulted in warming relations with other Asian states (except Burma), Western Europe and the U.S. American Secretary of State Madeleine Albright last week became the most senior U.S. visitor to Pyongyang since the Korean War. Is the North leaving its dark history behind? Albright expresses cautious optimism.