lit a candle 3h agoOnly learned his name last year, from a documentary on the Fifth Republic I found while researching something else entirely. Kept it on in the background and ended up rewinding twice. He was the last of that core five still alive, 94 when he died in Suwon. Strange to feel something for history you came to so late, from so far away.
Their story
Chung Ho-yong (Korean: Jeong Ho-yong) was a South Korean four-star general and politician who served as minister of home affairs and minister of national defense in the late 1980s. A Korea Military Academy classmate of Chun Doo-hwan and Roh Tae-woo, he was counted among the core figures of the new…
Chung Ho-yong (Korean: Jeong Ho-yong) was a South Korean four-star general and politician who served as minister of home affairs and minister of national defense in the late 1980s. A Korea Military Academy classmate of Chun Doo-hwan and Roh Tae-woo, he was counted among the core figures of the new military junta that seized power after the 1979 coup, and he was later convicted for his role in the suppression of the Gwangju Uprising. He died on 13 September 2026 in Suwon at the age of 94.
Chung was born in Daegu on 10 September 1932, during the Japanese colonial period. He graduated from Kyungbock High School in 1951, volunteered for the Republic of Korea Army during the Korean War, and entered the Korea Military Academy with the 11th class. He was commissioned in 1955. He later served with the 9th Infantry Division in the Vietnam War and rose through posts that included command of the 50th Infantry Division. Through the Hanahoe officers' network he became closely tied to Chun and Roh.
After the December 1979 coup led by Chun, Chung was appointed commander of the Army Special Warfare Command. Special forces units under that command were deployed to Gwangju in May 1980 when students and citizens rose against the expansion of martial law. At his later trial Chung argued that operational control of the airborne brigades had passed to local command; courts nonetheless found that he had given military and administrative support for the crackdown. He was promoted to general in 1981, served as Army Chief of Staff from 1983, and retired as a four-star general in 1985.
In 1987, under President Chun, he served first as minister of home affairs and then as minister of national defense. He won a National Assembly seat for Seo-gu Gap in Daegu in 1988 for the Democratic Justice Party, resigned amid backlash against Fifth Republic figures, and returned as an independent in 1992. In 1996 he was tried for treason and related charges tied to the 1979 coup and Gwangju. He received a prison sentence that the Supreme Court confirmed in April 1997; in December 1997 President Kim Young-sam pardoned him together with Chun and Roh. He never issued a public apology for May 18.
Chung died on 13 September 2026 at Ajou University Hospital in Suwon, three days after his 94th birthday, after his health declined. Korean and English-language outlets including Yonhap, The Chosun Ilbo and The Korea Times reported the death and noted that he was the last survivor of the junta's so-called core five. A funeral altar was set up at the hospital. His career remains inseparable in public memory from both high military office and the unresolved reckoning over Gwangju.
Biography adapted from English Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0); The Chosun Ilbo; Yonhap; The Korea Times; Sisa Journal.
Photos
1Chung Ho-yong as minister of national defense, 1987
by People Forever
That documentary is on Netflix I think, the one about Gwangju