Truth about U.S. atrocities in South Korea must be exposed

Wednesday, April 9, 1997

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.