[Interview] Looking back on a life as a revolutionary

Posted on : 2020-03-08 19:06 KST Modified on : 2020-03-08 19:06 KST
Cha Myung-sook was tortured and jailed for her participation in the Gwangju Democratization Movement of 1980
Former activist Cha Myung-sook stands in a military courtroom in the Gwangju Sangmudae (combat training command) building on Sept. 12, 1980. (provided by the New Alternatives party)
Former activist Cha Myung-sook stands in a military courtroom in the Gwangju Sangmudae (combat training command) building on Sept. 12, 1980. (provided by the New Alternatives party)

In her pink polka dot blouse, she had everyone’s eyes on her.

On Sept. 12, 1980, Cha Myung-sook was standing in a military courtroom. Having seized power, the military dictatorship had held a martial l

aw general court-martial inside of the Gwangju Sangmudae (combat training command) building to try individuals involved in the May 18 Democratization Movement earlier that year. Armed military police were lined up in the courtroom. It was the end of summer, but the atmosphere in the courtroom was chilly. The sentence requested that day for Cha, who had been one of the chief figures involved in street broadcasting during the events that May, was 15 years. She was 19 years old.

“I don’t know whose blouse that is you see in the picture. My clothes were a mess when I was arrested in May, and when I said I was going for trial, someone gave me something to wear,” she recalled with a laugh.

A martial law general court-martial established inside of the Gwangju Sangmudae (combat training command) building to try individuals involved in the May 18 Gwangju Democratization Movement. (provided by the New Alternatives party)
A martial law general court-martial established inside of the Gwangju Sangmudae (combat training command) building to try individuals involved in the May 18 Gwangju Democratization Movement. (provided by the New Alternatives party)

Cha recalled the events at the time as she spoke to the Hankyoreh on Feb. 11. Imprisoned in Gwangju Detention Center, she had worn a uniform emblazoned with the prisoner number “113.” Several other female activists from the May 18 movement were incarcerated with her in Room 1 of women’s housing.

The events of the Gwangju Democratization Movement came while Cha was attending the International Dressmaking School. A native of Damyang, South Jeolla Province, she had come to Gwangju after her father had prevented her from continuing her studies, insisting that his “daughter should not be studying.” Others described her as “a tiny woman who doesn’t listen and is very stubborn.” She learned the violin from a professor as a member of her cathedral’s choir; she also volunteered to make and hang curtains at a disabled persons’ monastery she learned of while attending church. “Catharina” (her baptismal name) dreamed of learning to sew so that she could own her own clothing store.

Cha participating in the Gwangju Democratization Movement of 1980. (provided by Cha)
Cha participating in the Gwangju Democratization Movement of 1980. (provided by Cha)

But the events of May 1980 would turn her life upside down. At around 10 am on May 20, she went to meet a friend, but the friend did not arrive at the appointed location. After waiting for a while, she finally had to return to the dormitory. It was then that she saw the situation in central Gwangju. Soldiers were viciously beating demonstrators. While she was not a very political person, she could not fathom how soldiers could be beating civilians. She sensed that she should help the demonstrators. She needed to get the word out about the barbaric acts the soldiers were committing against Gwangju residents. This was what led her and other university students and youths she met on Geumnam-ro 3-ga Road to head to the Hak-dong neighborhood office for an amplifier and microphone.

“We ended up arguing with the neighborhood office employees, and we finally left with an amp and speaker that had been on the roof,” she said. The amp and speaker were set up in the bed of a small truck, and she began broadcasting.

The amplifier quickly broke down. At 11 pm that evening, Cha went to the Gyerim Radio store in the Dongmyeong neighborhood and pleaded, “Sir, please fix this amp. If we don’t broadcast, the people of Gwangju will all be killed.” Told that the repairs would take several days, she presented a fake student ID and borrowed another amp and speaker.

“They said the young people who were doing the street broadcasting should use fake names and IDs to protect others. So I went around with a women’s university student ID I’d found on the street that I’d pasted my own picture on.”d

A testimony written by Cha in prison in November 1980
A testimony written by Cha in prison in November 1980
”Your sons and daughters are all dying”

Cha wore a permed wig as she took the microphone. In a raspy voice, she declared, “Your sons and daughters are all dying. Come out and protect Gwangju.” On May 21, the Buddha’s birthday holiday, she and other members of the broadcasting team, including Jeon Ok-ju (real name Jeon Choon-sim) went to Geumnam Road, loading two bodies found near Gwangju Station the day before onto a hand cart. The grisly image of the corpses played a crucial part in arousing the public’s indignation.

Around May 24, Cha was captured at Kwangju Christian Hospital and taken to the Defense Security Command (DSC)’s 505 Gwangju branch.

“I had been on Geumnam Road when they opened fire on the public on May 21, and I’d escaped and hidden in someone’s closet. After the martial law forces had withdrawn from the city, I had gone to the old South Jeolla Provincial Office, which had become a base for the armed citizens’ militia, and I was loading the bodies at Christian Hospital [when she was caught].”

Cha at a restaurant in Andong, North Gyeongsang Province. (provided by Cha)
Cha at a restaurant in Andong, North Gyeongsang Province. (provided by Cha)
False rumors of movement being orchestrated by North Korean spies

The DSC had been disguising its soldiers as citizens for espionage framing operations within the crowds. Cha’s sense of purpose was strong enough that she was able to withstand brutal torture while refusing to falsely confess to being a spy. In July of that year, soldiers with the DSC and joint investigation headquarters put her in a car and drove her to her home village of Damyang.

Rumors were circulated by military agents in the village that Cha was a “resident agent educated in North Korea” who had “instigated rioting in Gwangju.” In his shock over the stories, her father suffered a brain hemorrhage and ultimately passed away.

The suffering continued after her incarceration. While at Gwangju Detention Center, she was investigated over more contrived charges. That October, she was placed for one month in a solitary cell wearing leather handcuffs connected to her belt.

“My left wrist rotted away. My hands were black with chapping, like meat that’s been frozen stiff.” What came to her rescue in prison was the written word. She pored over borrowed books, scribbling her own words on a makeshift notebook.

Cha was sentenced to 10 years in prison by the military tribunal for violating the martial law legislation but was released in Dec. 1981, when she received a stay of execution. She’d been behind bars for one year and six months. She stopped by her father’s grave and spent a long time weeping.

Marriage and life after the revolution

Cha met her current husband in Seoul, while she was attending a Catholic church in the Sillim neighborhood in 1985. He was the same age as her and held a job at the church’s youth center. They got to know each other while teaching kids how to dance along to a song called “Frog Boy” in a study hall at the church. Their wedding ceremony was held at Taehwa Cathedral in Andong, North Gyeongsang Province, in 1986. Her husband was the eldest son in a family that had followed the Catholic faith for five generations. Cha’s father-in-law (one of the early donors to the Hankyoreh’s founding) was proud of her. The family had a comfortable lifestyle, and it was the first time Cha had felt happy.

The storm broke on February 1989. Her husband, who’d watched a National Assembly hearing about a fact-finding investigation into the Gwangju Democratization Movement, asked Cha who Jeon Chun-sim was. “She was my accomplice. Don’t ask me anymore about that,” Cha snapped back. Her husband had been really hurt by gossip in the neighborhood that the Gwangju Democratization Movement had been a riot organized by North Korean communists. Her husband had always been affectionate, but now he said little. The worst part was that he wouldn’t say anything about the movement.

“Nasty or nice, you’ve got to say [what’s on your mind],” Cha said. Of course, this was just as difficult for Cha, and she got so fed up that she declared she was going to take their two kids and walk out the door. But her father-in-law stepped in and said that her husband should be the one to go. “Looking back now, I realize that James [her husband’s baptismal name] was having a hard time, and I feel sorry about that,” Cha said.

People at the Catholic church helped Cha get through the hard times. Since most of the Catholic priests in Andong had graduated from Gwangju Catholic University, they knew the truth about what had happened in Gwangju in May 1980. Cha’s friendship with Father Ham Se-ung was also a great source of strength. She’d met the priest in a church in Seoul, and ever since May 1982, he’d provided her with a little money every month.

Cha looking after her child in Andong in 1989 (left), Cha receiving the Gil Won-ok Peace Prize in June 2019 (center), and Cha at her wedding in 19867.
Cha looking after her child in Andong in 1989 (left), Cha receiving the Gil Won-ok Peace Prize in June 2019 (center), and Cha at her wedding in 19867.
“I can stand up tall before my sons”

Cha had gone about her life, raising her children, as if she were unconnected to the Gwangju movement, But that changed when she was named a “meritorious person” in 2001, bringing her to the public attention. While her friends told her it was time to come forward with her testimony about the movement, she didn’t want her children to see their mother’s name in the newspapers and on TV. Cha had asked teachers at school to tell their students the truth about history, and she even visited her childhood school to share her personal experience with Gwangju.

“One day, my younger classmate told me an older kid from his school had come up to him and said he was proud of me,” she recalled. Today, Cha puts great stock in her two sons, who are both office workers. In a retrial that was held at the Andong branch court in 2013, she was acquitted of all charges connected with the Gwangju Democratization Movement. “It’s a relief, and the best part is that I can stand up tall before my sons,” she said.

In 2003, Cha opened a restaurant in Andong that specializes in Jeolla cuisine, including skate and cockles. Customers at the restaurant even include members of the airborne division that was deployed to Gwangju in May 1980. “If you haven’t had to spend day after day without taking off your combat boots, you don’t know what it feels like,” one of the old soldiers told her while drinking alone.

Educating people today on the movement

A few years ago, the May 18 Memorial Foundation put Cha in touch with a man from the airborne unit on Jeju Island. The man, who was working as a security guard for a building, couldn’t look Cha in the eye. “It was hard for him to get the words out. He said he just had to ask me if I’d really been a North Korean spy,” Cha said with a chuckle. “He told me how scared he’d been to hear the high-pitched screams of women on those still nights in Gwangju in May. They’d been waiting for orders to retreat but had been sent to the old Jeolla Provincial Office. I guess the soldiers were victims, too.”

As chair of the Daegu and North Gyeongsang Province Chapter of Friends of May 18, Cha has been working with the Korean Teachers and Education Workers Union since 2008 to put together soup kitchens and lectures about the Gwangju movement each May. She also makes a point of joining Andong residents on visits to the May 18th National Cemetery in Gwangju, and she’s a regular at volunteer activities such as handing out coal briquettes and visiting long-term inmates who refused to renounce their communist ideals during a government “reeducation campaign.”

“My wife and sons have one thing in common: they like helping others,” Cha’s husband said. Thanks to her long years of dedication, Cha was awarded the 3rd Gil Won-ok Women’s Peace Prize in June 2019.

Cha doesn’t regret taking to the streets in May 1980, but she does want to “stand on the sidelines this year, on the 40th anniversary of the uprising.” She’s concerned that, if she keeps carrying the banner of the Gwangju movement, others might think she’s unwilling to give up her privileges. Her modest dream for this year is to get away for a trip somewhere where nobody knows about her connection to the movement. “I’d just like to fly off somewhere. I’d like to go to India and see some Hindu temples. I just want to spend a month like that.”

By Jung Dae-ha, staff reporter

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

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