5.18 Democracy Movement Commemoration photos May 18, 1980 Gwangju, South Korea

[soryang]

Last edited Mon May 18, 2020, 11:14 AM - Edit history (1)

US journalist Tim Shorrock is recognized in South Korea as a pioneer in collecting US documents surrounding the emergency martial law violent suppression of democracy movement activists in Kwangju in May 1980. He's published some historical photos on his blog for the 40th Anniversary of the brutally suppressed uprising.

Gwangju Presente!
Posted on May 17, 2020 by Tim Shorrock

May 18 marks the 40th anniversary of the Gwangju Massacre and Uprising, which shook the foundations of South Korea in 1980 and marked the beginning of the country’s long march towards democracy.

http://timshorrock.com/2020/05/17/gwangju-presente/

Tim has an archive of documents he obtained from the US government under FOIA. Tim reported yesterday on South Korea's Arirang News that the US has just presented many of same these documents now unredacted to the government of South Korea.

Kwangju Declassified/PDFs of key documents

Here are some of the key FOIA documents I obtained between 1994 and 2006. More will be added as I download them.

http://timshorrock.com/documents/korea-the-cherokee-files-part-one/kwangju-declassifiedpdfs-of-key-documents/


This is from an article Tim Shorrock wrote more than 20 years ago:

Journal of Commerce
February 27, 1996

EX-LEADERS GO ON TRIAL IN SEOUL

BY TIM SHORROCK

WASHINGTON – Two former South Korean presidents charged with treason, mutiny and corruption entered a Seoul courtroom this week to begin what could be the most important political trial in modern Asian history.

Chun Doo Hwan and Roh Tae Woo stand accused of staging a rolling coup in 1979 and 1980, sending troops into the southwestern city of Kwangju in May 1980 to quell pro-democracy demonstrations in an action that resulted in the massacre of some 240 people and accepting millions of dollars in bribes from Korean corporations in the decade they held power...

...According to the newly declassified U.S. government documents:

* Senior officials in the Carter administration, fearing that chaos in South Korea could unravel a vital military ally and possibly tempt North Korea to intervene, approved Mr. Chun’s plans to use military units against the huge student demonstrations that rocked Korean cities in the spring of 1980.

* Two of the key decision-makers at the time were Warren Christopher, President Clinton’s secretary of state, and Richard C. Holbrooke, who retired last week as the Clinton administration’s chief negotiator on Bosnia to join the New York investment banking firm of CS First Boston. Mr. Christopher was deputy secretary of state in 1980 and Mr. Holbrooke, who has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize for his work in Bosnia, was assistant secretary of state of East Asian and Pacific affairs.

more: http://timshorrock.com/documents/


Bibliography of the Kwangju uprising:

http://populargusts.blogspot.com/2006/05/bibliography-of-kwangju-uprising-in.html

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1. Kwangju Diary: Beyond Death, Beyond the Darkness of the Age: Jae-Eui Lee, Kap Su Seo

Kwangju Diary: Beyond Death, Beyond the Darkness of the Age
cover
Author(s): Jae-Eui Lee, Kap Su Seol, Nick Mamatas

Year: 1999

Free English translation of witness account of Gwangju uprising on PDF. Read the introduction by historian Bruce Cummings giving an excellent historical backdrop to the uprising.

http://93.174.95.29/main/51133F864EF005BA158AF4E849BDDAEE

Five months later, Chun's grab for power (he made himself director of the
KCIA in addition to his other positions) detonated the worst crisis since the
Korean War, when tens of thousands of protesters flooded Korea's cities. Chun
declared martial law on May 17, 1980; soon citizens' councils, provoked by the
indiscriminate brutality of army paratroopers, took over Kwangju. These councils
determined that 500 people had already died in Kwangju, with some 960
missing.14 They appealed to the U.S. for intervention, but the Embassy was silent
and it was left to Gen. John A. Wickham to release the 20th Division of the ROK
Army from its duties along the DMZ on May 22; five days later Korean troops
put a bloody end to the rebellion.

Once again U.S.-commanded troops had been released for domestic repression,
only this time the bloodletting rivaled Tiananmen in June 1989. The declassified
documents that Tim Shorrock, a reporter for the Journal of Commerce,
obtained through the Freedom of Information Act make clear that the United
States as a matter of the highest policy determined to support Chun Doo Hwan
and his clique in the interests of "security and stability" on the peninsula, and to
do nothing serious to challenge them on behalf of human rights and democracy in
Korea....

(Bruce Cummings, from the introduction.)