hankyoreh

Rain drizzles on the Mangwol ceremony, the burial site of many of those killed during the 1980 massacre, on Tuesday, the day Chun Doo-hwan died. (Kim Hye-yun/The Hankyoreh)

Chun Doo-hwan, who was responsible for the massacre in Gwangju in May 1980, died at his home in the Yeonhui neighborhood of Seoul on Nov. 23, unapologetic and unremorseful until the very end. While it’s our practice and inclination to be somewhat magnanimous to the deceased, no sympathy can be felt for the death of the ringleader of a rebellion who seized power through a coup and butchered Koreans who tried to resist.

Chun’s junta, which took power in a coup on Dec. 12, 1979, smashed the “spring of democratization” in 1980 and crushed a movement for democracy in Gwangju that May with military force. Chun slaughtered innocent civilians to satisfy his lust for power. He committed crimes that history will never erase. Even after seizing power, he persisted in his pitiless tyranny, violating democracy and human rights and inflicting grievous pain on the public. He also kept cozy ties with Korea’s chaebol — family-owned conglomerates — and pocketed huge bribes from them.

Chun had several opportunities to repent before his death. But he continued making audacious excuses for his crimes and indulging in self-justification until his death. Not once did he exhibit the slightest trace of remorse.

When he was put on trial for sedition and for his role in the Gwangju massacre during the presidency of Kim Young-sam, he said that the Gwangju democracy movement had been “a scheme hatched by leftist groups” and he described the movement as an “insurrection” in his memoir, which was published in 2017. Chun slandered late Catholic priest Cho Pius — who testified to seeing government troops shooting at protesters from helicopters during the uprising — as being “Satan in disguise” and “a shameless liar.”

Chun is often compared to Roh Tae-woo, who passed away a month ago. But at least Roh offered an apology through his surviving family members, who reported that he’d “asked for forgiveness for his mistakes.”

Another point of contrast with Roh is that Chun didn’t pay the restitution he owed the government for 25 years. The prosecutors managed to seize 124.9 billion won (US$105.01 million) of his assets, but Chun still owed almost just as much — 95.6 billion won (US$80 million). When the prosecutors placed Chun’s home in Yeonhui neighborhood up for auction in an attempt to collect the rest of the money, Chun’s family members brazenly sued to stop the auction.

Chun’s wife, Lee Soon-ja, has earned her own share of public scorn. She claimed in her autobiography in 2017 that Chun’s responsibility for the massacre in Gwangju was a “political distortion of history” and made the wild claim prior to attending a court hearing in 2019 that “my husband is the father of democracy in the Republic of Korea.”

Throughout his life and until its very end, Chun committed crimes against the Korean people and history itself. It would be extremely inappropriate for government officials or politicians to convey their condolences or attend his wake, not to mention holding a state funeral for the man.

It’s regrettable that the Blue House nevertheless said on Tuesday, “We express our condolences for Chun Doo-hwan and express our sympathy to his bereaved family.” Officials added that there were “no plans to send flowers or pay respects at his wake” given Chun’s failure to offer “a sincere apology.” Even so, we consider the Blue House’s comments unfit for a butcher like Chun. The people who deserve our sympathy are the victims of the massacre in Gwangju and their bereaved family members, who never received a single word of apology from Chun.

There have recently been some regressive efforts to rehabilitate Chun. That apparently prompted Yoon Seok-youl, presidential candidate for the People Power Party (PPP), to remark that “many people say that Chun Doo-hwan was really good at politics aside from the coup and the events of May 1980” — a remark for which Yoon eventually apologized.

We must be cautious and alert about such efforts and must not tolerate them. Undeniably, the democratization of Korean society has continued since the protests of 1987 while surmounting a number of obstacles.

The PPP decided not to release an official statement on Chun’s death. Its cowardly silence is presumably motivated by concern for public opinion and its own hardcore supporters on the far right. Political groups that don’t fear history are no more than special interest groups representing their supporters. The essence of a conservative party is prioritizing public safety above all else. With its current attitude, the PPP won’t be able to break out of the confines of a reactionary party.

With the consecutive deaths of Roh Tae-woo and Chun Doo-hwan, the era of military dictatorship in Korea has at last receded into the past. In effect, Korea has turned a page in its history.

Even so, we must keep trying to learn the full truth about the massacre in Gwangju. That includes determining who ordered the martial law troops to fire the first shots at Gwangju Station at 10:30 pm on May 20, 1980, and to fire the first volleys in front of South Jeolla Provincial Office at 1 pm on May 21, as well as identifying the missing people whose fate remains unknown and finding and recovering the bodies of the victims.

Our failure to uncover more about what happened on that day 41 years ago should have us hang our heads in compunction before Gwangju’s victims, before those like Park Jong-chul and Lee Han-yeol who died in the struggle for democracy, and before history itself. In the tribunal of history, there is no statute of limitations.

Please direct questions or comments to [english@hani.co.kr]