hankyoreh

the Korean language version

An international academic conference bringing global attention to the values of the Gwangju Democratization Movement – that is, democracy, peace and human rights – was held at the UN Headquarters in New York. This was the first time that the South Korean Foreign Ministry’s delegation to the UN has hosted an academic conference about the Gwangju Democratization Movement at the UN Headquarters.

On May 26 at 10 am, the South Korean Foreign Ministry’s delegation to the UN sponsored an academic conference at the UN headquarters in New York on the theme of “Record of Gwangju: Mass Memory of Democracy and Freedom.” The seminar, which was organized by the May 18 Memorial Foundation, featured presentations about the Gwangju Democratization Movement (which began on May 18, 1980) and about South Korean democracy by Donald Gregg, who was the American ambassador to South Korea in the 1990s, and by Bruce Cumings, a professor at the University of Chicago. Another presentation about the events in Gwangju was made by AP reporter Terry Anderson, who was an AP correspondent reporting from Gwangju in May 1980.

Beyond the Darkness of the Age” (left)

Also presenting at the academic conference were Seol Kap-su (49) and Nick Mamatas, translators of “Kwangju Diary: Beyond Death, Beyond the Darkness of the Age,” a book published in South Korea in 1985 that described the 10 days of the uprising. This book, which is the only official English-language translation that brought the events of the uprising to the attention of the world, was favorably received by the New York Review of Books. It includes a foreword by Bruce Cumings and an essay in which American journalist Tim Shorrock analyzes classified US government documents from the 1980s. The book was published by the UCLA press as part of its Asian Pacific Monograph Series in 1999 and went out of print in 2005.

“Beyond Death

The May 18 Memorial Foundation announced that it is publishing a revised edition of “Kwangju Diary.” After securing the publication rights from the translators in Nov. 2016, the foundation supplemented the book with newly disclosed facts about the Gwangju Democratization Movement. The foundation is planning to make the new revised edition available for free both online and by mail.

The conference was attended by the directors of NGOs at the UN, researchers of East Asian history, journalists who reported the events in Gwangju, local reporters and representatives from Korean-American organizations. “This international seminar on the Gwangju Democratization Movement was hosted at the UN Headquarters, which is trusted by people around the world in regard to democracy and human rights, creating an opportunity to share the spirit of the Gwangju Democratization Movement with the world,” said Kim Yang-rae, executive director of the May 18 Memorial Foundation.

By Jung Dae-ha, Gwangju correspondent

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