hankyoreh

Army enforcers of martial law brutally suppressed the demonstrators of the May 18 Democratization Movement on May 27

The Defense Security Command (DSC) may have been involved in major military decisions during the May 18 Democratization Movement in 1980, including the martial law enforcers’ decision to open fire on citizens in Gwangju, South Jeolla Province, a witness claims.

According to this account, the military’s activities were under the de facto direction of a command/reporting line extending from DSC commander Chun Doo-hwan to anti-communism office bureau chief Lee Hak-bong and a Gwangju 505 Security Unit director identified by the initial “S.”

“The DSC provided operational support to the airborne special forces brigade, and the decision to open fire came on May 20 [the day before mass shootings in front of the South Jeolla Provincial Office],” said Heo Jang-hwan, a 70-year-old former investigator with the Gwangju 505 Security Unit, during a May 3 interview with the Hankyoreh at a coffee shop in Chuncheon, Gangwon Province.

A Daegu native, Heo is one of nine people – including key “new military regime” figures Chun and Roh Tae-woo – accused of murder by former May 18 citizens’ army situation room director Park Nam-seon. At the time of the uprising, Heo was a key investigator with the notorious Gwangju 505 Security Unit.

S, who was Heo’s superior, explained the plan to open fire to unit members around 5 to 6 pm on May 20, 1980.

“[S] assembled the investigators and swore them to secrecy beforehand. ‘There will be an order to open fire shortly,’ he told us. ‘You must not disclose that our forces opened fire first. Say that the rioters fired first with the weapons they seized,’” Heo recalled.

At 1 pm on May 21, the martial law army fired indiscriminately on Gwangju residents in front of the South Jeolla Provincial office; thirty-four people died on Geumnam Road alone.

Heo also reported hearing that DSC commander Chun Doo-hwan was responsible for the decision to open fire.

“I said to [S], ‘Isn’t this like Choi In-gyu and the Liberal Party incident?’ And S said, ‘Listen, this is a different situation. Now the command [Chun] is assuming responsibility,” he recalled. Choi In-gyu was a Minister of Home Affairs in the latter days of the Rhee Syng-man government who was executed following the revolution of April 19, 1960, for ordering police to open fire on demonstrators.

Shortly after S’s explanation, the 3rd Airborne Brigade distributed live ammunition to soldiers at 10:30 pm on May 20, and the first shots were fired at citizens in the Gwangju area.

“The military only gives out live ammunition according to orders. Providing live ammunition is a preliminary action for opening fire,” Heo said. “It means there is an intention to open fire.”

Heo also dismissed the invocation of “self-defense” after the May 20 distribution of ammunition and the mass shootings in front of South Jeolla Provincial Office the following day.

“It was an attempt to belatedly rationalize illegally opening fire. There was nothing about ‘exercising self-defense’ in the local commander’s engagement guidelines at the time,” he said.

Heo also noted that there were two levels of command authority at the time.

“There would be reports in microscopic detail from the local security unit under the title of ‘operational advice,’ after which the major decisions on Gwangju were made by the DSC,” he said.

Based on the fact that the 505 Security Unit reported to DSC anti-communism office bureau chief Lee Hak-bong, Heo concluded that major decisions were made by the DSC. His account suggests an unofficial command system headed by Chun Doo-hwan may have existed separately from the official command system.

Heo also admitted involvement with the case of late attorney Hong Nam-soon (1912–2006), a major figure in the Gwangju Democracy Movement. At the time of the movement in 1980, Hong was turned over to police as a “dissident ringleader” by a martial law command joint investigation group but was subjected to brutal torture during a second investigation after recanting. After refusing orders to reinvestigate Hong and doctor facts regarding his activities, Heo was targeted for a 1981 inspection for insubordination and forcibly discharged.

Heo was later taken to the DSC and subjected to torture himself. The reason had to do with a mass of A4 pages on which he had recorded the details of the Gwangju Uprising, which were leaked to the Korean Central Intelligence Agency. He was taken to the Seoul DSC branch (the “Seobinggo Hotel”) and subjected to 18 days of agonizing torture by electricity and other means.

As a result, this once-notorious DSC investigator was recognized by the South Korean government last year as a “person of national merit” for contributions to democracy. This was possible thanks to a document notarized on Apr. 16, 1998, in which Hong confirmed that Heo had defied the joint investigation headquarters’ order to conduct a falsified investigation.

To resolve the Gwangju issue once and for all, Heo said the uprising should be raised before the UN and international community once again in order to clearly “stamp” the new military administration’s massacre on the pages of history.

“To achieve this, I want to do a ten million-person signature campaign or something along those lines,” he said. “I’d like to earn at least some recognition for this so I can be buried at Mangwoldong Cemetery [for victims of May 18].”

By Jung Dae-ha, reporting from Chuncheon 　

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