hankyoreh

Army paratroopers shot protesters on sight, stabbed them with bayonets and brutally beat them with rifle butts in 1980, when citizens in Gwangju rose up against a military coup headed by Maj. Gen. Chun Doo-hwan, a government-commissioned fact-finding panel said Tuesday.

The panel, which was established in 2005, announced the results of its investigation into a string of questionable incidents which took place ahead of the inauguration of the Chun government in August 1980, eight months after he staged a coup.

Based on confessions and interviews by veterans who participated in the crackdown on the Gwangju uprising, the panel said some soldiers were drunk or out of control when they were engaged in anti-protest operations.

Former soldiers testified snipers deployed on the top of downtown buildings shot demonstrators on sight, while other troops "indiscriminately" hit protesters in the head with rifle butts or batons, stabbed them with bayonets or stripped people who were arrested to prevent them from escaping, the panel said.

Official records show the ruthless crackdown resulted in about 200 people killed and more than 1,800 others injured or wounded.

By unofficial accounts, however, the casualty toll is much higher.

Chun, who was subsequently elected president, ruled the country until he was replaced by his military colleague Roh Tae-woo in 1988. In the early 1990s, the two were convicted of sedition in connection with the Gwangju incident.

"We found a memorandum which showed that Gen. Chun approved in general the military operations against civilians as an invocation of self-defense power," said Lee Hae-dong, a Christian minister who heads the fact-finding team, which is composed of seven civilians experts and five Defense Ministry officials.

"However, we could not find out who exactly ordered that civilians be shot to death in the Gwangju uprising, as no related document was found and those involved refused to testify," Lee said.

The military leaders had claimed the shooting in the city was based on self-defense.

Critics, meanwhile, said the panel's announcement lacked fresh findings and was not much different from a prosecution probe and media reports, believing some important details have yet to be revealed.

"Although the documents discovered during the two-year investigation testified to what we have believed so far, the result falls far short of our expectations," Cho Jin-tae, an official at the May 18 Memorial Foundation, said, referring to the committee's failure to clarify who the gave the command to fire on the citizens.
SEOUL, July 24 (Yonhap News)