Posted on 04/04/2013 12:38:33 PM PDT by Hojczyk
Her mother was killed by a North Korean devotee, and her father murdered by his spy chief. Yet Park Geun-hye, the first female president of South Korea, was sworn-in just over a month ago promising peace. Harriet Alexander profiles the woman facing Kim Jong-un's nuclear threat.
She came to power promising to usher in a new dawn in relations with North Korea.
Park Geun-hye, who in February became the first female president of South Korea, was elected on the back of a campaign to establish "trustpolitik" – a break with the previous decades of hostilities, and a new emphasis on cooperation and confidence between the sworn enemies.
Yet with the increasingly rabid rhetoric coming from Pyongyang, Ms Park will be considering putting her pacifist pledge aside.
The North has dramatically ramped up its usually-bellicose statements, with the general staff of the North's army warning last night that "the moment of explosion is approaching fast," and that final approval had been granted to take military action against the United States. South Korea is undoubtedly in the immediate line of fire.
It was not supposed to be like this.
The 61-year-old ruler of the South said prior to her election that she intended to "lay the groundwork for an era of harmonious unification, where all Koreans can lead more prosperous and freer lives and where their dreams can come true."
She added: "I will move forward step-by-step on the basis of credible deterrence to build trust between the South and the North."
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
Wow! Even talking about “harmonious unification” with the North sounds lunatic. It is also going to provoke the North into more ludicrous threats. Her stance is like trying to forgive the school yard bully before you’ve convinced him (with a bloody nose) to stop being a bully. The only thing he knows (and it works just fine) is bullying.
It would appear that South Korea is blessed with a real woman and will do fine, whilst we are doomed to a future with the Hillabeast - another liberal female who (sans any ability to do anything) boinked her way into fame.
Good grief, are we screwed, or what?
Did she announce that she had achieved “peace in our time”?
We have a couple South Koreans here...very nice people. She said the North Korean people have nothing...and their leaders could care less.
“Did she announce that she had achieved “peace in our time”?”
I haven’t been following South Korean politics. Perhaps a Freeper out there can calibrate the SK leader on our scale of liberal vs. Conservative? I’d like to have an idea how she might respond to a really NK attack.
“She added: “I will move forward step-by-step on the basis of credible deterrence to build trust between the South and the North.””
She was bull$hitting her people!
So she is the daughter of former president Park Chung-hee, who was murdered during a coup in the late 1979? This does not fill me with confidence, as it’s quite obvious this woman did not make her way into this office through sheer ability and hard work. I wonder who’s pulling her strings.
“This does not fill me with confidence, as it’s quite obvious this woman did not make her way into this office through sheer ability and hard work”
You’re so wrong on that score, so here’s a little education:
“So she is the daughter of former president Park Chung-hee, who was murdered during a coup in the late 1979? This does not fill me with confidence, as it’s quite obvious this woman did not make her way into this office through sheer ability and hard work. I wonder who’s pulling her strings.”
She was a young woman or a teen at the time her father was assasinated in the coup.
He was then and since then seen as man reviled by many for his ruhtlessness to his political opponents, and as the man who laid the public and commercial infrastructure for South Korea’s economic take-off. He was in power when I was there. It was a time - in the 1960s - when no one was allowed out anywhere in the country after midnight and until sun up. The Pueblo incident occurred when I was there. The rhetoric from NK then makes the rhetoric from NK now seem super tame by comparison.
The current president’s OWN background:
“Park’s mother was assassinated in the National Theater of Korea, Seoul, by Mun Se-gwang, a Japanese-born North Korean assassin, and a member of the General Association of Korean Residents in Japan, under the direction of the North Korean government on 15 August 1974.[6] Park was regarded as first lady until 1979 when her father was also assassinated–by his own intelligence chief, Kim Jae-gyu, on 26 October 1979.”
She entered politics on her own twenty years later:
“Park was elected a Grand National Party (GNP) assemblywoman for Dalseong, Daegu, in 1998 by-election, and three more times in the same electoral district between 1998 and 2008, being the incumbent assemblywoman till April 2012. In 2012, Park announced that she would not run for a constituency representative seat for the 19th election in Dalseong or anywhere else, but for a proportional representative position for the Saenuri Party instead, in order to lead the party’s election campaign.[3] She was elected as a proportional representative in the April 2012 election.”
Also:
“Due to the failed attempt to impeach President Roh Moo-hyun, and the bribery scandal of its 2002 presidential candidate, Lee Hoi-chang (revealed in 2004), the GNP was facing a severe defeat in the 2004 general election. Park was appointed as the chairwoman of the party and led the election efforts. In the election, the GNP lost its majority position, but managed to gain 121 seats, which is largely considered a great achievement under such inhospitable circumstances for the party.[9][10] As the chairwoman of the GNP, Park helped her party make significant gains in local elections and actually obtain a majority in 2006.”
“During the campaign on 20 May 2006, Ji Chung-ho, a 50-year-old criminal with eight previous convictions, slashed Park’s face with a utility knife, causing an 11-centimeter wound on her face, requiring 60 stitches and several hours of surgery.[11][12] A famous anecdote from this incident occurred when Park was hospitalized after the attack. The first word that she said to her secretary after her recovery from her wound was “How is Daejeon?” After this, the candidate from the Grand National Party won the election for mayor of the city of Daejeon despite having trailed by more than 20 percentage points in opinion polls up to the point of the attack.[citation needed] In addition, during Park’s term as the GNP chairwoman between 2004 and 2006, the party won all 40 reelections and by-elections held, which was largely credited to Park’s influence and efforts.[13][14] This feat gave Park a nickname “Queen of Elections”. “
all from here, where there is more:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Park_Geun-hye#Tenure_as_First_Lady
She’s obviously a skilled political leader in her own right and not someone simply filling shoes someone else handed her.
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