South Korean Democracy

Legacy of the Gwangju Uprising

Georgy Katsiaficas, Na Kahn-chae, Georgy Katsiaficas, Na Kahn-chae

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN: 9780415407601
• eBook ISBN: 9781136759222
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Democracy
• Index: Politics & International Relations

This new book offers a retrospective appraisal of the Gwangju Uprising by academics, activists and artists from Gwangju, Korea.

In 1980, South Koreans took to the streets to demand democracy. When the military threatened brutal suppression of the popular movement, only in Gwangju did people refuse to submit. After horrific bloodshed, the citizens of Gwangju drove the military out of the city and held their liberated space for a week. As a "beautiful community" emerged, newspapers were published, hundreds of thousands of people congregated in popular assemblies, and the city's life gave new meaning to democracy.

Although crushed by overwhelming military force, Gwangju's example inspired the eventual overthrow of the military dictatorship and ushered in a new democratic wave in East Asia. Providing a detailed analysis of the events of the Gwangju uprising, this new volume traces the birth of South Korean democracy in Gwangju's stubborn refusal to accept life without freedom. The book also focuses on the socio-economic background, the role of women in the uprising, issues of collective identity and the international significance of the revolt.

Scholars and researchers of South Asian politics, social movements, history, democracy and development studies will find this volume to be of keen interest.

1 Remembering the Gwangju Uprising^*

Georgy Katsiaficas

Archimedes once declared, “Give me a fixed point and I can move the earth.” Historically speaking, the Gwangju People’s Uprising of 1980 is such a fixed point. It was the pivot around which dictatorship was transformed into democracy in South Korea. Decades afterwards, its energy resonates strongly across the world. Among other things, its history provides both a glimpse of the free society of the future and a sober and realistic assessment of the role of the US government and its allies in Asia.

The most important dimensions of the Gwangju Uprising are its affirmation of human dignity and prefiguration of a free society. Gwangju has a meaning in Korean history that can only be compared to that of the Paris Commune in French history, and of the battleship Potemkin in Russian history. Like the Paris Commune, the people of Gwangju spontaneously rose up and governed themselves until they were brutally suppressed by indigenous military forces abetted by an outside power. And like the battleship Potemkin, the people of Gwangju have repeatedly signaled the advent of revolution in Korea—in recent times from the 1894 Tonghak rebellion and the 1929 student revolt to the 1980 uprising.

Forged in the sacrifices of thousands, the mythical power of the Gwangju People’s Uprising was tempered in the first five years after 1980, when the dictatorship tried to cover up its massacre of as many as 2,000 people. Even after the Gwangju Commune had been ruthlessly crushed, the news of the uprising was so subversive that the military burned an unknown number of corpses, dumped others into unmarked graves, and destroyed its own records. To prevent word of the uprising from being spoken publicly, thousands of people were arrested, and hundreds tortured as the military tried to suppress even a whisper of its murders.¹ In 1985, thousands of copies of the first book about the Gwangju Uprising, Lee Jae-eui’s classic history (translated into English as Kwangju Diary: Beyond Death, Beyond the Darkness of the Age²), were confiscated and its publisher and suspected author arrested. Korean civil society is so strong that when the truth about the military’s brutal killing of so many of its own citizens and subsequent suppression of the facts finally became known, the government quickly fell. As Lee Jae-eui put it: “The reason why the Korean people could overcome that terrible violence so quickly in 1987 was because of Gwangju’s resistance.”³ President Jeon Doo-hwan and his military government may have won the battle of May 1980, but the democracy movement won the war—seven long years later when the Minjung movement ousted the military dictatorship.

Like the Paris Commune and the battleship Potemkin, Gwangju’s historical significance is international, not simply Korean (or French or Russian). Its meaning and lessons apply equally well to East and West, North and South. The 1980 people’s uprising, like these earlier symbols of revolution, has already had worldwide repercussions. As a symbol of struggle, Gwangju has inspired others to act. As an example of ordinary people taking power into their own hands, it was (and is) a precursor of events to follow. In 1996, activist Sanjeewa Liyanage of Hong Kong expressed this dimension of the uprising when he wrote:

The “power of people” is so strong that it just cannot be destroyed by violent suppressive means. Such power, from the people, spreads a spirit that will last for generations. Kwangju is a city full of that “people power.” What happened in 1980, in Kwangju, was not just an isolated incident. It has brought new light and hope to many people who are still suffering from brutally oppressive regimes and military-led governments … the strength and will of people of Kwangju to carry on their agitative actions was very impressive … Today many look up to them, paying tribute to what they have achieved … I was inspired by their courage and spirit. Kwangju remains a unique sign that symbolizes a people’s power that cannot be suppressed. That sign is a flame of hope for many others.⁴

In this chapter, I seek to understand the power of the people’s uprising of 1980 in three dimensions:

• the capacity for self-government;

• the organic solidarity of the participants;

• the international significance of the uprising.

The capacity for self-government

As monumental as the courage and bravery of the people in Gwangju were, their capacity for self-government is the defining hallmark of their revolt. In my view, it is the single most remarkable aspect of the uprising. The capacity for self-organization that emerged spontaneously, first in the heat of the battle and later in the governing of the city and the final resistance when the military counterattacked, is mind expanding. In the latter part of the twentieth century, high rates of literacy, the mass media and universal education (which in Korea includes military training for every man) have forged a capacity in millions of people to govern themselves far more wisely than the tiny elites all too often ensconced in powerful positions. We can observe this spontaneous capacity for self-government in the events of the Gwangju Uprising.

On May 15, 1980, tens of thousands of people participated in a student demonstration in Seoul, an outpouring of sentiment against the dictatorship. While many people believed the time to overthrow the dictatorship had come, student leaders, flushed with their success and under pressure from liberal politicians, decided to suspend actions scheduled for the 17th and 18th in the hopes that the government might end martial law. Instead, the military clamped down, sending thousands of combat troops to all the large cities, especially to Gwangju. On May 14, students there at Chonnam National University had broken through the riot police cordon enveloping their campus. When they reached the city, many citizens supported their demonstration for democracy. On May 16, when the rest of South Korea was quiet, students from nine universities in Gwangju rallied at Province Hall Square, renamed it “Democracy Square,” and then marched through the city in a torchlight procession. The next night, military intelligence personnel and police raided homes of activists across the city, arresting the leadership of the movement. Those leaders not picked up went into hiding. Already at least 26 of the movement’s national leaders (including Kim Dae-jung) had been rounded up. According to one observer: “The head of the movement was paralyzed.”⁵ Another wrote that the “leading body of the students’ movement was in a state of paralysis.”⁶ Nonetheless, the very next morning, students spontaneously organized themselves—first by the hundreds and then by the thousands—to march in protest of the occupation of their city by police and freshly arrived units of the army.

With US approval, the government had released from the front lines of the DMZ some of its most seasoned paratroopers, the same army units that had crushed movements in Busan and Masan a year earlier. Once these troops reached Gwangju, they terrorized the population in unimaginable ways. In the first confrontations on the morning of May 18, heads of defenseless students were broken by specially designed clubs. As demonstrators scrambled for safety and regrouped to counterattack, 45 riot police were suddenly surrounded and captured by demonstrators at Sansu-tong Junction on May 18. For a time, people debated what to do with their captives. They soon decided to release them, and immediately after they were set free, the paratroopers viciously attacked: “A cluster of troops attacked each student individually. They would crack his head, stomp on his back, and kick him in the face. When the soldiers were done, he looked like a pile of clothes in meat sauce.”⁷ Bodies were piled into trucks, where soldiers continued to beat and kick them. By night the paratroopers had set up camp at several universities. As students continued to fight back, soldiers used bayonets on them and arrested dozens more people, many of whom were stripped naked and further brutalized. One young child who witnessed these events asked her parents when their army was coming. Another child, having been taught political values at a tender age, screamed that Communists had taken over the army. One soldier brandished his bayonet at captured students and screamed at them, “This is the bayonet I used to cut 40 VC women’s breasts [in Vietnam]!” The entire population was in shock from the paratroopers’ overreaction. The paratroopers were so out of control that they even stabbed to death the director of information of the police station who tried to get them to stop brutalizing people.⁸ Despite severe beatings and hundreds of arrests, students continually regrouped and tenaciously fought back.

As the city mobilized the next day, the number of students among the protesters was dwarfed by people from all walks of life.⁹ This spontaneous generation of a people’s movement transcended traditional divisions between town and gown, one of the first indications of the generalization of the revolt. When working people began to participate, the paratroopers once again resorted to callous brutality—killing and maiming people whom they happened to encounter in the streets. Even cab drivers and bus drivers seeking to aid wounded and bleeding people were stabbed, beaten and sometimes killed. Some policemen secretly tried to release captives, and they, too, were bayoneted.¹⁰ People fought back with stones, bats, knives, pipes, iron bars and hammers against 18,000 riot police and over 3,000 paratroopers. Although many people were killed, the city refused to be quieted.

On May 20, a newspaper called the Fighters’ Bulletin was published for the first time, providing accurate news—unlike the official media. Tens of thousands of people gathered on Kumnam Avenue and sang, “Our wish is national reunification.” They were dispersed by paratroopers’ clubs. At 5:50 p.m., as the brutality and resistance continued, a crowd of 5,000 surged over a police barricade. When the paratroopers drove them back, they reassembled and sat-in on a road. They then selected representatives to try to split the police from the army.¹¹ In the evening, the march swelled to over 200,000 people (some say 300,000) in a city with a population of 700,000. The massive crowd unified workers, farmers, students and people from all walks of life. The procession on Kumnam Avenue, the downtown shopping area, was led by nine buses and over 200 taxis. Once again, the paratroopers viciously attacked, and this time, the whole city fought back. During the night, cars, jeeps, taxis and other vehicles were set on fire and pushed into the military’s forces. Although the Army attacked repeatedly, the evening ended in a stalemate at Democracy Square. At the train station, many demonstrators were killed, and at Province Hall, the paratroopers opened fire on the crowd with M-16s, killing many more.

The censored media had failed to report killings that occurred right under their noses. Instead, false reports of vandalism and minor police response were the news that they fabricated. The brutality of the army was still unmentioned. After that night’s news again failed to report accurately the situation, thousands of people surrounded the MBC media building. Soon the management of the station and the soldiers guarding it retreated, and the crowd surged inside. Unable to get the broadcast facility working, people torched the building. The crowd targeted buildings quite specifically:

At 1:00 in the morning, citizens went in flocks to the Tax Office, broke its furniture and set fire to it. The reason was that taxes which should be used for people’s lives and welfare had been used for the army and the production of the arms to kill and beat people. It was a very unusual case to set fire to the broadcasting stations and tax office while protecting the police station and other public buildings.¹²

Besides the Tax Office and two media buildings, the Labor Supervision Office, Province Hall car depot and 16 police boxes were burned down. The final battle at the train station around 4 a.m. was intense. Soldiers again used M-16s against the crowd, killing many in the front ranks. Others climbed over the bodies to carry the fight to the army. With incredible fortitude, the people prevailed, and the army beat a hasty retreat.

At 9 a.m. the next morning, more than 100,000 people gathered again on Kumnam Avenue. A small group shouted that some people should go to Asia Motors (a military contractor) and seize vehicles. A few dozen people went off, bringing back only seven (the exact number of rebels who knew how to drive). As they shuttled more drivers back and forth, soon 350 vehicles, including three armored personnel carriers, were in the hands of the people. Driving these expropriated vehicles around the city, the demonstrators rallied the populace and also went to neighboring villages to spread the revolt. Some trucks brought bread and drinks from the Coca-Cola factory to the main demonstration. Negoti...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Halftitle
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of illustrations
• Notes on contributors
• Note on the transliteration of names and places
• Preface
• 1. Remembering the Gwangju Uprising*
• 2. The socio-economic background of the Gwangju Uprising
• 3. Collective action and organization in the Gwangju Uprising*
• 4. Women’s experiences in the Gwangju Uprising: Participation and exclusion*
• The Gwangju Uprising in woodblock prints
• 5. The Gwangju People’s Uprising and the construction of collective identity: A study of the Fighters’ Bulletin
• 6. The shadow of the Gwangju Uprising in the democratization of Korean politics
• 7. The experience of the May 18 Uprising and the communal imagination
• Photographs from the Uprising: The May 18 Memorial Foundation
• 8. A new perspective on the Gwangju People’s Resistance Struggle: 1980–1997*
• 9. Comparing the Paris Commune and the Gwangju Uprising
• Index