Wednesday, 4/9/97
Truth about U.S. atrocities in South Korea must be exposed
Cold War-era massacres by American soldiers kept under wraps for
40 years
By Yong Un Yuk
On April 3, 1948, the people of Cheju Island rose up to protest
the rule of the U.S. military government and the separate election
in South Korea which threatened to divide the nation. The uprising
lasted for seven years, during which nearly one-third of the
island’s population, or approximately 80,000 people, were killed
because they were accused of being communists. This uprising was
the first anti-United States liberation effort and struggle for
reunification in Korea. We call it the April 3 Cheju People’s
Uprising.
Today, Cheju Island is a famous international resort that
millions of tourists visit each year. It is best known as the
honeymoon destination for young South Korean couples who come back
with photos of themselves posed against backdrops of fields covered
with yellow flowers, sparkling waterfalls and wild indigenous
ponies. These honeymoon mementos depict an idyllic island where
people are always smiling. What they never show is the dark irony
of Cheju-do’s past. Less than half a century ago, this island was
the place of a bloody massacre – one that was carefully covered up
by its perpetrators, the governments of the United States and South
Korea.
BACKGROUND: With the end of World War II on Aug. 15, 1945,
liberation came like a miracle to Korea. After 36 years of
oppressive colonial rule by the Japanese government, Koreans
experienced their first taste of freedom. Everyone dreamed of
building a new nation where the people would become the owners of
their destiny. People’s committees sprang up all over the country,
bringing order on the local and national levels, and a provisional
government was formed to set up an independent nation. The whole
country was eager to repair the national economy and overcome the
ills caused by decades of Japanese colonialism.
The United States, having emerged as World War II’s dominant
superpower, landed in Korea uninvited and positioned itself to
govern the newly liberated land. Rather than adhering to the Korean
people’s desires to rebuild the country, the United States took
control of the government and launched an anti-communist movement,
thus giving birth to the ensuing Cold War. After occupying the
southern part of Korea, the U.S. military government banned the
political activities of the people’s committees and re-employed the
former Japanese collaborators and instituted the same colonial
system.
In northern Korea, in the presence of the Soviets, the Koreans
who willingly collaborated with the Japanese had all been removed
from power. In contrast, in southern Korea the U.S. rehired those
same pro-Japanese collaborators and returned them to their former
positions of power. During the five years following the liberation
in the south, the number of political prisoners dramatically
increased while poverty and hunger reached new heights, even
compared to when Korea was struggling as a colony of Japan. Dreams
of an independent Korea were shattered as life became increasingly
more difficult and political oppression worsened under U.S.
control.
THE BUILDUP: When the Joint Commission between the United States
and the U.S.S.R. failed, elections were held, under the auspices of
U.S. rule, to form a separate South Korean government. However, the
Korean people were opposed to the intentions of the United States.
Among those most opposed to separate elections and the presence of
the United States were the Cheju-Islanders.
On March 1, 1948, the people of Cheju held a ceremony to
commemorate the March 1 independence movement. While marching
peacefully, the people demanded the withdrawal of the United States
from the Korean peninsula. The United States responded with a
barrage of gunfire from all directions. On that day, six people
were killed and many more were injured.
Mobilized by their anger, the people of Cheju organized a
committee to respond to the incident, and subsequently held a
massive strike throughout the entire island which lasted for eight
days. In response, the United States declared Cheju "the second
Moscow" and labeled its people as communists. Furthermore, the
United States brought in military forces from the mainland to
suppress the protest. Indiscriminate torture and terrorist actions
were unleashed on the people of Cheju. Many Cheju-Islanders were
killed and even more were arrested. This was the beginning of
heinous atrocities committed against the people of Cheju by the
United States over the next seven years.
The police began burning homes and entire villages based on
rumors that communists were organizing in these regions. And when
the villagers begged for their lives, pleading that they knew
nothing, the soldiers brutally gunned them down, including women
and children. They made sure that these people were all dead by
stabbing each one with bayonets. Because sitting still guaranteed
death, the people of Cheju had no choice but to fight. In order to
survive, the people began gathering in the mountains and setting up
bases. Crude bamboo spears and farming implements were prepared as
the main weapons to fight the well-armed U.S. police.
THE UPRISING: On April 3, 1948, the Cheju-Islanders’ efforts
culminated in a massive uprising. At 1 a.m., signal fires were lit
simultaneously on 89 mountain tops of Cheju. As the mountain tops
were lit, 1,500 resistance fighters attacked 10 U.S. police
stations and their collaborators. This resulted in victory for the
resistance fighters and also momentarily impeded the separate
election which was to take place in South Korea. Unfortunately,
this victory aroused the vengeance of the United States and led to
the massacre of the people of Cheju Island.
After the uprising, the leaders of the resistance went in to
peace talks with a delegate from the national guard. But
tranquillity lasted for only a short period. In order to disrupt
the peace talks, the government created a frame-up where a gang of
inland police, camouflaged as resistance fighters, terrorized
Orari, a village in Cheju. This action provoked further violent
retaliation by the people against the police, which in turn
justified more violence by the police against the resistance
fighters.
THE MASSACRE: On Aug. 15, Syngman Rhee was elected the first
president of South Korea. The Rhee government was born after South
Korea held its separate elections and the United States
relinquished official control over the southern part of Korea. Now
that the United States was formally absolved of accountability for
the killings that were taking place on Cheju, the massacre’s
intensity increased. From this point on, the killings were no
longer consequences of outsider (U.S.) intervention but a
"legitimate" internal suppression.
The operations of the armed forces tightened in toward the
mountains and broke down the resistance. People were massacred all
over the island. On school grounds, inside a public swimming pool,
whether young or old, men or women, the islanders were
indiscriminately fired upon or buried alive.
In one example, nearly 600 people in the town of Bucholi were
executed by the military in 2 days. Only 4 men survived out of 300
households.
Less than a year later, on June 9, 1949, the uprising came to an
end with the capture of the last leader of the resistance force,
Duk Kuh Lee, although scattered fighting continued for the next six
years. In the final tally, 80,000 of the 280,000 residents of Cheju
had been slaughtered. Only a small percentage actually participated
in the fighting; most were simple farmers and fishermen. Many who
had surrendered out of hunger and cold were either executed or
tortured to death.
TODAY: For four decades, the truth about Cheju Island laid
buried under the oppressive dictatorships of Rhee Syngman, Park
Chung Hee, Chun Doo Hwan and Roh Tae Woo and their terror
organization, the Korean CIA. Only in 1988, 40 years later, did the
nation learn of the shocking truth.
Why had the truth not come out sooner? When a third of an
island’s population is brutally massacred in a frenzy of red
baiting and the history is actively distorted to hide the truth, we
must ask ourselves why this is happening. There is currently a
movement to create a special law that will allow people to uncover
the hidden history of the Cheju massacre. Questions are being asked
about the role of the United States and its continuing influence on
the government of South Korea that has hidden and continues to hide
the truth. Even today, human bones occasionally surface from the
sand and are discovered by children playing on the beach.
How much longer can we ignore this painful past? In South Korean
textbooks, the April 3 Cheju Uprising is still written off as a
"riot" agitated by communist factions that was crushed by glorious
patriots of the South Korean army. Eighty thousand restless souls
cry out for justice.
Please attend an educational program on Thursday, which is being
organized by UCLA Korean American student and community
organizations. For more information, call 845-0726.