[Interview] Honoring the life of Yoon Sang-won, activist who died for democracy

Posted on : 2020-05-18 17:11 KST Modified on : 2020-05-18 17:14 KST
Former health minister recalls the life of a comrade who was killed by martial law forces
Former Minister of Health and Welfare Lee Tae-bok (third left), chair of the Yoon Sang-won Memorial Project Association, views a bust of democratization activist Yoon Sang-won along with Yoon’s mother (fourth left), Yoon’s brother (far left), and head of Gwangju’s Gwangsan District at the Gwangsan District Office on May 14. (provided by the Gwangsan District Office)
Former Minister of Health and Welfare Lee Tae-bok (third left), chair of the Yoon Sang-won Memorial Project Association, views a bust of democratization activist Yoon Sang-won along with Yoon’s mother (fourth left), Yoon’s brother (far left), and head of Gwangju’s Gwangsan District at the Gwangsan District Office on May 14. (provided by the Gwangsan District Office)

“The reason I’ve kept putting things off despite the need to leave some records behind may be because of how terribly painful it is to recall those memories and how unspeakably ashamed I am to be alive.”

Former Minister of Health and Welfare Lee Tae-bok, who chairs the Yoon Sang-won Memorial Project Association, recently published a piece titled “Gwangju in May: Missing Yoon Sang-won,” in which the 70-year-old recalled his relationship with Yoon (1950-80), a spokesperson for the citizens’ militia during the events of the May 1980 Gwangju Democratization Movement.

The piece was written to support the compilation of “A Critical Biography of Yoon Sang-won” by Kim Sang-jip, an executive director with the Gwangju-South Jeolla June Struggle Memorial Project Association.

Yoon fatally shot while fighting martial law forces on May 27, 1980
Lee during his interview with the Hankyoreh. (Jang Cheol-gyu, staff photographer)
Lee during his interview with the Hankyoreh. (Jang Cheol-gyu, staff photographer)

Yoon Sang-won was fatally shot early in the morning on May 27, 1980, while fighting against martial law forces. Lee was a comrade of Yoon’s who joined him in organizing an illegal labor movement in 1980. On May 14, he attended the naming of “Yoon Sang-won Hall” in a seventh-floor auditorium in Gwangju’s Gwangsan District.

“I put things in writing so that I could once again confront Yoon Sang-won head on,” he explained.

Lee first met Yoon -- then a returning student at Chonnam National University -- at Gwangju’s Nokdu Bookstore in late 1977. At the time, he had set up a publishing company and printed books about the labor movement; he was in Gwangju to establish a local sales network after the publication of a Korean translation of “The Theory of the Leisure Class.” He met Yoon once again in 1978 at an event held at Kyungdong Presbyterian Church in Seoul. Yoon introduced himself as “the one who spoke to you at Nokdu Bookstore in Gwangju,” but Lee could scarcely recognize him in his clean-cut suit.

“I’m working at a bank now, but I’m thinking of doing some field work [for the labor movement],” Yoon explained to him.

In late June of that same year, Yoon came to visit Lee at his publishing company. “What’s on your mind?” Lee bluntly asked him. They went to a nearby bar, where they ordered a bottle of rice wine and talked.

“I became conscious of the structural contradictions of South Korean society through my social science studies, but I ended up getting a job at a bank and coming to Seoul because my family is struggling and I wanted to honor my parents as an oldest son,” Yoon explained. “Yet I have interal conflicts and anger that won’t go away.”

Lee recalled, “He was very frank. I thought of him that day as a trustworthy comrade.”

Yoon Sang-won, an activist during the Gwangju Democratization Movement. (provided by Yoon’s family)
Yoon Sang-won, an activist during the Gwangju Democratization Movement. (provided by Yoon’s family)

On July 10 of that year, Yoon quit his job at the bank and devoted himself to the labor movement.

“I’m an unworthy child who has disregarded his parent’s wishes and quit his job. [. . .] I want to venture into the reality faced by the people and contribute whatever little support I can to righting the wrongs,” he wrote in a letter to his father. On Oct. 25, he became a worker at Hannam Plastics in Gwangju’s Gwangcheon Industrial Complex. He went on to become an active participant at Deulbul Night School, the first night school for workers in the Honam area.

“Around that time, I met up with Yoon Sang-won personally in Gwangju, and we talked about field activities,” Lee recalled.

At the time, Lee was working on establishing a behind-the-scenes labor organization at the national level. Yoon was present for a ceremony in Incheon on May 1, 1980, for the establishment of the central committee of the National Democratic Workers’ League. At a celebratory dinner afterwards, he described it as “the happiest day of my life.”

“I hope this is something my comrades remember forever,” he said as he selected his favorite karaoke song, “Sori Naeryeok [The History of a Sound].” A former theater group member at Chonnam National University Yoon was inspired to memorize and sing the original pansori piece by singer Im Jin-taek in 1977. The central committee members applauded. “With that clean-cut face of his, he could have been a major actor if he’d gone into the theater,” one of them said.

On May 18 and 19, 1980, members of the airborne special forces brigade who had been sent into Gwangju began brutally massacring citizens. On May 19, Yoon called Lee and told him, “We couldn’t take it anymore and beat one of the paratroopers up with a field shovel. The mood here is that we ought to be arming ourselves for self-defense.” Lee was stunned at the mention of an armed struggle. But by then, Yoon had already begun making Molotov cocktails at Nokdu Bookstore with Kim Sang-jip.

A painting of Yoon after being shot by martial law forces during the Gwangju Democratization Movement. (provided by Kim Sang-jip, executive director of the Gwangju-South Jeolla June Struggle Memorial Project Association)
A painting of Yoon after being shot by martial law forces during the Gwangju Democratization Movement. (provided by Kim Sang-jip, executive director of the Gwangju-South Jeolla June Struggle Memorial Project Association)
”Ready to die”

“On the morning of May 20, Yoon Sang-won said something he’d never said before: ‘I have to be ready to die. If we don’t fight against this, who is going to speak of the atrocities of the military regime?’” Lee recalled.

At the time of their last conversation on May 21, Yoon had begun working with the Deulbul Night School team to mimeograph “The Fighter’s Bulletin” to spread the word about the massacre taking place that May. Fifty-four people died when the martial law forces opened fire in front of the South Jeolla Provincial Office. Lee, who was in Busan at the time, had planned to travel to Suncheon and on to Gwangju, but transportation was suspended.

The armed resistance in Gwangju intensified, and Yoon Sang-won finally chose death. With the martial law forces’ arrival in the city imminent, he urged the high school students to return home. “You need to be history’s eyewitnesses,” he told them. To the citizens’ army members assembled at the provincial office, he said, “Let us enter the struggle without fear of death. Even if we die by their bullets, that is our path to live forever. [. . .] After this night passes, there will be morning.” (from “A Critical Biography of Yoon Sang-won”)

Yoon (far right) and his during his graduation ceremony at Chonnam National University in February 1978. (provided by Yoon’s family)
Yoon (far right) and his during his graduation ceremony at Chonnam National University in February 1978. (provided by Yoon’s family)
Lee arrested while on his way to commemoration ceremony

On May 18, 1981, Lee was on his way to attend a commemoration ceremony at Gwangju’s Mangwol Cemetery when he was captured and subjected to brutal torture before being sent to prison of seven years and four months as the alleged “ringleader” of an “anti-state group.”

“Had [Yoon] chosen life instead of self-sacrifice, the Gwangju Democratization Movement would have ended up a rampage of rebellion, and the fabrications of it being a ‘disturbance instigated by North Korean involvement’ would have ended up a reality,” Lee said.

Yoon singing during a dinner party in the late 1970s. (provided by Yoon’s family)
Yoon singing during a dinner party in the late 1970s. (provided by Yoon’s family)

By Jung Dae-ha, Gwangju correspondent

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

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