Seoul was decked in all its festive finery last week as South Korea observed the end of two years, seven months and one day of military dictatorship. Buses were garlanded with wreaths and newly made flags decorated storefronts and streetcars. The midnight curfew was lifted for the day, and 5,000 prison inmates were released on amnesty. In a bone-chilling drizzle before the national capitol building, 15,000 shivering spectators watched former military Strongman General Park Chung Hee, 46, take the oath of office as South Korea's fifth civilian President. Promising never "to permit the resurgence of dictatorship under any disguise or...
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