ShareThisIn 14 terse lines, saved on his hard drive in a file named "Many have suffered too much because of me," former South Korean president Roh Moo-hyun tried to explain why he would kill himself a few hours later.
"I am indebted to too many people," read the letter, which was addressed to no one in particular. "The pain that will come is unfathomable. The rest of my life would only burden others."
Roh hit the save button at 5:44 a.m. on Saturday morning, and then went for a hike in the mountains near his home in the tiny village of Bongha in the south of the country. He asked his bodyguard for a cigarette, was apologetically told the package was empty, then climbed up a 100-foot cliff known as Owl's Rock. When his bodyguard was looking the other way, he hurled himself into the ravine below.
In almost any other country, it would be nearly unthinkable for a former head of state -- just 15 months out of office -- to take his own life. Though Roh came from a humble background, the circles he traveled in during his five-year term in office were populated with those who leave public life for comfortable retirements or lucrative consulting gigs.
In South Korea, the country with the highest suicide rate of any in the developed world, it's somewhat less shocking. Suicide is a culturally acceptable way to escape failure or disgrace in South Korea, and for weeks Roh had made it clear that he was "overwhelmed by shame." In hindsight, the downward spiral that led him to suicide was there for all to see.
Roh, who left office last February, had been under criminal investigation over allegations that he and his family had accepted millions of dollars in bribes from a shoe industry magnate, and indictments were expected in the near future. When he was questioned by prosecutors last month, Roh denied any personal wrongdoing.
But the 62-year-old self-taught lawyer and former human-rights activist -- who came to office in 2003 promising clean government after an upset election win -- was openly despondent that he had let down those who had elected him.
"What I have to do now is bow to the nation and apologize," he wrote in the last posting on his website. "From now on, the name Roh cannot be a symbol of the values you pursue. I'm no longer qualified to speak about democracy and justice ... You should abandon me."
A former aide told the Korea Herald newspaper that Roh had recently been suffering from insomnia and "could barely eat." The aide said that Roh stopped answering his phone three days before he committed suicide.
"For Roh -- who had placed great emphasis on the ethical conduct of a civil servant and had even threatened to ruin corrupt officials careers during his term in office -- being tainted in the current corruption scandal ... may have been more than he could bear," Herald columnist Choi He-suk wrote.
Roh's legacy is a decidedly mixed one, with the corruption allegations and tales of mismanagement tarnishing a record highlighted by a historic rapprochement between North and South Korea during his time in office.
Roh traveled to Pyongyang for a face-to-face summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-il in 2007 and gave billions of dollars in unconditional aid to the north. Relations between the two sides quickly deteriorated after Roh left office and was succeeded by the harder-line Lee Myung-bak.
Despite a plea of "don't blame anyone" in Roh's suicide note, his supporters were quick to allege following his death that Roh and his family had been the victims of a politically motivated prosecution that drove him over the edge. The corruption investigation was brought to a formal end on Saturday, hours after news of Roh's death was made public.
(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)
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