Good rare stamps.
Chun Doo-hwan (born 18 January 1931) is a ROK Army general who served as the leader and a dictator of South Korea from 1979 to 1988, ruling as an unelected military strongman from December 1979 to September 1980, and the fifth President of South Korea from 1980 to 1988. Chun was sentenced to death in 1996 for his role in the Gwangju Massacre, but later pardoned by President Kim Young-sam with the advice of then President-elect Kim Dae-jung, whom Chun's administration had sentenced to death some 20 years earlier. On 17 May 1980, Chun expanded martial law to the entire country, allegedly due to rumors of North Korean infiltration into South Korea. To enforce the martial law, troops were dispatched to various parts of the nation. The KCIA manipulated these rumors under the command of Chun. General Wickham (US Armed Forces in Korea) reported that Chun's pessimistic assessment of the domestic situation and his stress on the North Korean threat only seemed to be a pretext for a move into the Blue House (the Korean presidential residence).The expanded martial law closed universities, banned political activities and further curtailed the press. The event of 17 May meant the beginning of another military dictatorship.