Kim Jong Il and Vaclav Havel died one day apart,strange timing for two such different lives.Mr. Kim was the second-generationcommunist ruler of North Korea.Mr. Havel was a writer and dissidentwho led the anti-communist revolutionin Czechoslovakia in nineteen eighty-nine.He was born in Prague three yearsbefore World War Two started.Communists seized power in nineteen forty-eight.They denied him a university educationbecause his parents were wealthy.Mr. Havel wrote plays in the early nineteen sixtiesthat gained an international following.Then came the invasion of his homelandin nineteen sixty-eight.Troops from the Soviet-led Warsaw Pactinvaded the country after an effortat political reforms known as the Prague Spring.Officials seized Mr. Havel's passportwhen he protested.Later, his human rights activitiesled to years of prison and house arrest.But, in the end, he led his country's "Velvet Revolution"as the communist governments of Eastern Europe collapsed.Mr. Havel was elected presidentand supervised Czechoslovakia's moveto a free-market economy and democracy.The country peacefully split into the Czech Republicand Slovakia in nineteen ninety-three.Mr. Havel was elected presidentof the Czech Republic two timesand held the position until two thousand three.A few years later, as a visiting scholarat New York's Columbia University,he told students that it was importantto challenge oppression with the truth.VACLAV HAVEL: "Truth and moralitycould have stronger power than weapons."Vaclav Havel died last Sunday of respiratory problemsat the age of seventy-five.On Friday, world leaders attended his funeralat the end of a week of honors.The American delegation includedSecretary of State Hillary Clintonand her husband, former President Bill Clinton.Kim Jong Il's funeral is set for Wednesday in Pyongyang.North Korea waited two days to announce his death.It said he died Saturday of a heart attackduring a "field guidance tour" on his train.He was sixty-nine years old.On Thursday, North Korea officiallyrecognized his youngest son, Kim Jong Un,as the country's next leader.Kim Jong Il expanded North Korea's nuclear programwhile millions of his people were starving.His forces tested nuclear weapons and launched missiles.His actions deeply worried his neighborsand the United States.Kim Jong Il rarely appeared in public.He had led North Koreasince his father died seventeen years ago.North Korea has the world's fifth largest army.But the economy sufferedas the North faced natural disasters.It also faced the loss of aidafter the official end of the Soviet Uniontwenty years ago this Sunday.Bruce Klingner is senior research fellow for northeast Asiaat the Heritage Foundation in Washington.BRUCE KLINGNER: "His legacy will be of an impoverished nationwhere a million or more of his citizens died of starvationand starvation-related diseases in the mid-nineties,because North Korea was reluctantto allow aid to come into his country.His legacy will be of a brutal regime that used gulags,hundreds of thousands of people languishedin concentration camps in his country."And that's IN THE NEWS in VOA Special English.