Lingering legacy of Korean massacre - 1980, hundreds of civilians

[dArKeR]

In May 1980, hundreds of civilians were massacred by soldiers in the south-western city of Kwangju after rising up against military rule.

Although it was brutally put down, the Kwangju Uprising is now seen by many as a pivotal moment in the South Korean struggle for democracy in the long period of dictatorship following the Korean war.


The Kwangju Uprising lit the fuse of the dynamite stick of democracy
Hwang Sok-yong
Korean novelist and former dissident
And some contend the uprising had important ramifications which are still being felt now, both inside Korea and beyond its borders.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/4557315.stm

Without reading further, let me guess they were M-16s Made in USA which slaughtered these innocent people? And the S. Korean troops got their training from Black Water, the CIA, or US Army?


PARK CHUNG HEE
President of South Korea
Free and open expression has not come easily to South Koreans. Beatings, torture and execution of the regime's political opponents have been a way of life since the Korean War. The tenure of former President Park Chung Hee, who came to power in a 1961 military coup, exemplifies the kind of leader South Koreans have been forced to endure.
Park's virulent anti-communism won him U.S. support, although Article Ten of his Anti-Communist law provided for prize-money to be awarded "to a person who has inevitably killed an offender or has forced an offender to commit suicide." The water torture, which leaves no physical marks on the victim, was a favored technique of Park's security forces. Cold water was forced up the nostrils through a tube while a cloth was placed in the victim's mouth to prevent breathing. Many anti-communist "interrogations" were run by the KCIA, a U.S. creation modeled after the American CIA. One victim told Amnesty International, "I was taken to KCIA headquarters, my hands tied together, and I was tied to a chair. I was not allowed to have any sleep. At night, they would drag me to the basement where they would beat me with a long, heavy stick, and jump on me They were trying to make me confess that I was a spy." Despite such brutal behavior, the U.S. has maintained a first-rate strategic relationship with South Korea, providing successive repressive regimes with extensive U.S. aid. Park Chung Hee was assassinated by the KCIA in 1979, but South Korea is still a nation troubled by lack of human rights.
http://home.iprimus.com.au/korob/fdtcards/Asia.html