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Emotional funeral for South Korea's Roh Moo-hyun
(Agencies)
Updated: 2009-05-30 10:30

Opposition lawmakers jeered Lee as he and his wife approached the altar Friday to pay their respects.

"President Lee Myung-bak, apologize!" opposition lawmaker Baek Won-woo yelled, jumping to his feet and cursing Lee before security guards hauled him away. "This is political revenge, a political murder!"

A somber Lee looked back momentarily and hesitated before laying a white chrysanthemum on the altar and bowing before Roh's portrait. Lee had called Roh's death "tragic" upon learning of the suicide Saturday.

Roh's death triggered a wave of grief across South Korea.

Emotional funeral for South Korea's Roh Moo-hyun

Mourners scuffle against policemen who block them trying to march on the street near the Seoul city hall plaza before funeral for deceased former South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun in Seoul May 29, 2009. [Agencies]

At City Hall, sobbing mourners wore yellow paper hats with images of Roh and waved yellow handkerchiefs as they watched the funeral on large monitors. The plaza was awash in yellow, Roh's campaign color.

"I respected him. He was a person who never compromised with injustice," said Chang Min-ki, 30, a yellow scarf tied around his neck. "I feel like I've lost everything."

The funeral procession began at dawn in Roh's hometown. Villagers lined Bongha's streets as the hearse blanketed with white chrysanthemums departed for the capital.

More than 2,500 were invited to a formal ceremony in the courtyard of the stately palace in the heart of ancient Seoul, where Roh's portrait sat on a bed of 1 million chrysanthemums laid in the shape of a Rose of Sharon, South Korea's national flower.

Roh's suicide note, in which he begs his wife and two children, "Don't be too sad" and describes his suffering as "unbearable," was read aloud.

Buddhist monks and Catholic nuns chanted prayers as part of the multifaith ceremony reflective of South Korea's changing modern history, where Confucian mourning traditions mix with Christian, shamanistic and Buddhist rites.

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Roh's prime minister, Han Myung-sook, apologized for "not protecting" the late leader.

"We are sorry, we love you and we were happy with you," said Han, South Korea's first female prime minister, her voice trembling with emotion. "Please rest in peace."

At the plaza outside the City Hall that Lee built, performers in hemp mourning outfits carried out traditional Confucian rites designed to send Roh's spirit to heaven and to comfort his soul. As his hearse moved through the crowd, mourners showered it with airplanes and cranes made of yellow origami.

As some screamed "Down with Lee Myung-bak," riot police began moving in to break up the crowd before the hearse was able to depart.

Roh's ashes were to return to his village to be buried with a small gravestone as he wished.

TV showed the funeral live, as well as footage of Roh in more lighthearted moments: serenading his wife with a guitar, feeding ducklings and taking his granddaughter for a bike ride.

South Koreans mourned online, too, with some portals carrying live broadcasts of the funeral and users flooding bulletin boards and Roh's own website with hundreds of thousands of condolence messages.

"You didn't bow to any other country but you bowed to us citizens. You'll always be the father of the nation," wrote one user, Choi Jae-chul. "Rest in peace and please protect South Korea from heaven."