Jeju uprising
The Jeju massacre or the Cheju April 3 massacre was a suppression against armed rebellion in Jeju island, South Korea, during the period of April 3, 1948 to September 21, 1954.
Background
A complex interplay of guerilla forces, youth groups, police, local and national army together with US presence lead to the massacre.
The South Korean right-wing provisional government, under U.S. guidance, conducted nationwide campaigns to root out communists and their sympathizers, which also included some moderates. This caused severe instability around the nation, and in Jeju where communist influence was stronger, many resorted to armed resistance against government action.
When Washington abandoned its promise to organize all-Korea elections, Cheju labor-party leaders staged massive rallies to demand reunification. The police killed six protesters in the rallies. Chejus then formed a "people's army". On April 3, 1948, rebels attacked police stations and government offices, killing an estimated 50 police. "A cycle of terror and counterterror soon developed. Police and rightists brutalized the islanders, who retaliated the best the could."[1]
Island fighting
According to Lt. General Kim Ik Ruhl who was in charge of the Korean army's ground troops on the island in the first half of 1948 when the unrest began, rebels were merely labeled communist for political reasons while their true motives and slogans had nothing to do with communism, much less had there been any influence from peninsular South Korean or even North Korean communists.[2]
Ruhl stated the unrest had been triggered by a brutal crackdown on the islanders' smuggling, a main source of the island's income. Torture, rape, killings, arbitrary incarcerations and abductions of locals accused of being smugglers, communists or of supporting the above by police and marauding anti-communist Korean youth from the North eventually triggered a successful simultaneous attack by angry locals on all police stations on the islands on April 3, 1948.
The rebel islanders not only freed relatives from police custody in the April 3 raids, but also seized arms before retreating, giving them the upper hand on the island until reinforcements would arrive from the mainland. The police had thus been stripped of both arms and ammunition. The Korean army's 9th regiment, which had not been targeted by the rebels, was armed, but had not been allowed any ammunition as the South Korean state had not yet been formed and the United States held authority over the island.
Korean invasion
On June 25 the government invaded, even though Cheju was largely pacified by this time. Immediately after the North Korea's attack the South Korean military ordered "preemptive apprehension" of suspected leftists nationwide. Thousands were detained on Cheju, then sorted into four groups, labeled A, B, C and D, based on the perceived security risks each posed. On Aug. 30, according to a written order by a senior intelligence officer in the South Korean Navy instructed Cheju's police to "execute all those in groups C and D by firing squad no later than September 6."[1]
The rebellion continued after the end of Korean War. Estimates of deaths among the island's locals range from 30,000 to 80,000, [2] between one-tenth to one-quarter of the population.[1][3] The Koreans committed these atrocities in front of the U.S. military. The Americans documented the massacre, but never intervened.[1]
Aftermath
The massacre had been largely ignored by the government. In 1992 President Roh Tae Woo's government sealed up a cave on Mount Halla where the remains of massacre victims had been discovered.[1] But after civil rule was reinstated in the 1990s, the government made several case of apologies for the suppression, and efforts are being made to re-assess the scope of the incident and compensate the casualties.
Notes
- ^ a b c d e Wehrfritz, George (2000). "Ghosts of Cheju". Newsweek: 51.
{{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter|coauthors=ignored (|author=suggested) (help); Unknown parameter|month=ignored (help) - ^ a b "The Truth about Cheju 4.3 By Gen. Kim Ik Ruhl". Retrieved 2006-07-07. [PDF] Full book.
- ^ Newsweek: Over the next year, the soldiers burned hundreds of "red villages" and raped and tortured countless islanders, eventually killing as many as 60,000 people--one fifth of Cheju's population.
See also
- Bruce Cumings Korean historian
- History of Korea
- History of South Korea
- List of massacres
- Korean War
External links
- "Cheju April 3rd Massacre Not Forgotten". Retrieved 2006-07-06. Articles on the massacre
- "South Korean President Roh issues an apology". The Korean Times. Retrieved 2006-07-06.
- Wehrfritz, George (2000). "Ghosts of Cheju". Newsweek: 51.
{{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter|coauthors=ignored (|author=suggested) (help); Unknown parameter|month=ignored (help) - Hermes, Matthew (2006). "Back in the Day: Col. Jimmie Leach, a former US Army Officer recalls the Cheju-Do Insurrection of 1948". Beaufort (SC) Gazette.
{{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter|coauthors=ignored (|author=suggested) (help); Unknown parameter|month=ignored (help) "This recent interview with Col. Leach who was the US Army liaison officer to the Korean 11th Constabulary from May-September 1948 is a direct, eyewitness report of the on-the-ground situation at the start of the insurrection. MH prepared this Wikipedia citation."
Further reading
- Merrill, John (1989). Korea: The Peninsular Origins of the War. University of Delaware Press. ISBN: 0874133009.
{{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter:|coauthors=(help) "Examines the local backdrop of the war, including large-scale civil unrest, insurgency and border clashes before the North Korean attack in June, 1950."