hankyoreh

Martial law forces brutally suppress the May 18 Gwangju Democratization Movement of 1980.

On the 39th anniversary of the Gwangju Democratization Movement, which began on May 18, 1980, we soberly reflect on the courage and the sacrifice of the citizens of Gwangju, who fought back against the coup d'état launched by the military junta under Chun Doo-hwan. The events in Gwangju provided the impetus for the June Democracy Movement in 1987 and the peaceful transfer of power and the fertilizer for the flourishing of democracy in Korea. In 1997, the date was enshrined as a national day of remembrance. But even today, those citizens are disparaged and slandered. A lawmaker in South Korea’s largest opposition party denigrated the victims of the Gwangju Democratization Movement who are receiving government compensation as a “pack of monsters”; false propaganda is circulating that people posing as victims have collected 200 million won (US$167,650) in government compensation; and people openly ridicule what they portray as “yet another investigation.”

On the 38th anniversary of the Gwangju Democratization Movement last year, there was public indignation about testimony that martial law troops had sexually assaulted citizens. In the year that followed, there was a flood of new reports. A post mortem doctor provided the first testimony that the military junta inflated the number of victims who were shot by the M1 carbines used by the civilian militia in an attempt to shift blame for the massacre to the citizen’s militia. There has also been testimony that Chun Doo-hwan – who still denies giving the order to fire on civilians – flew to Gwangju in a helicopter before the massacre began, a document reporting that Chun praised a plan for brutal operations to suppress the uprising as a “good idea,” and a classified document from the US State Department states that Chun had troops reenter Gwangju and suppress the movement through bloodshed on May 27 because of fears that the movement would bring down his ruling clique.

Amid lingering accusations about secret burials, records were also made public that the martial law forces transported bodies by helicopter. As long as there are charges that remain answered, we must never stop in our efforts to get to the bottom of them. It is our inescapable duty as survivors to rigorously investigate the atrocities of those who massacred civilians to consolidate their grip on power, so that this can go down in history as an example of what not to do.

Rather than treating the Gwangju Uprising as just another occasion for a yearly memorial service, politicians need to roll up their sleeves to pursue a full inquiry into what happened. In particular, we urge the Liberty Korea Party (LKP) to sincerely reflect on its two-faced behavior. Even though the Special Act on the Investigation of the May 18 Democratization Movement was passed by the National Assembly in February 2018, with the agreement of both the ruling and opposition parties, the LKP has been blocking the launch of the investigatory commission by postponing its nomination of commission members and then by nominating unqualified candidates. When asked to at least discipline LKP members who had made offensive remarks about the Gwangju movement before attending the memorial service, LKP leader Hwang Kyo-ahn said “it’s proper to go as the head of the largest opposition party” and said that “if the citizens of Gwangju have any grievances, I’ll hear them there.” LKP floor leader Na Kyung-won claimed that “the first person to recognize the Gwangju Democratization Movement was Kim Young-sam, a member of the LKP and that “we are carrying on his spirit.”

The LKP needs to realize that the proper thing for the largest opposition party to do, if it really wants to carry on the spirit of Kim Young-sam, is to let the investigatory commission begin its work and to finish disciplining offending party members, rather than inflaming conflict by exploiting Gwangju for its own political ends.

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