Kwangju Uprising
One of the darkest moments in the history of South Korea, the Kwangju Uprising has had a long-lasting impact on domestic Korean politics. What began as a mass protest by students and residents of the city of Kwangju in South Cholla Province against indiscriminate attacks by South Korean Special Armed Forces on students and bystanders led to full-scale battle between students and the Special Armed Forces units from 18 to 27 May 1980.
In the months following the assassination of President Park Chun Hee in October 1979, opposition politicians and students increasingly demanded the lifting of martial law and the setting of a date for presidential elections. As the number of student-led protests grew nationwide, Major General Chun Doo Hwan ordered the arrest of the student leaders as well as leading opposition political figures, including the "three Kims" (Kim Dae Jung, Kim Young Sam, and Kim Jong Il), instituted full martial law, and closed the National Assembly at bayonet point. The army then moved in and occupied college campuses, closing all universities.
Following the announcement of martial law, government soldiers arrested Kim Dae Jung and his closest political advisers. The news of the arrest of Kim Dae Jung ignited student-led demonstrations in Kim's hometown of Kwangju, and as a result, clashes between students and riot police broke out. Special Armed Forces arrived to help subdue the demonstrators; however, following three days of indiscriminate attacks on protesters and residents that left hundreds either injured or dead, residents of Kwangju seized military vehicles and weapons from munitions depots and fought a pitched battle with the Special Armed Forces in the city center that left hundreds, perhaps thousands, wounded or dead. Unable to control the demonstrators, the Special Armed Forces units withdrew to the outskirts of Kwangju. The following day thirty thousand residents gathered in front of the provincial administration building to support the demands of the students that the government release those in detention, that troops withdraw from Kwangju, and that compensation be paid to the families of the dead and wounded. After a four-day standoff, the army with support of Special Armed Forces units moved back into Kwangju with tanks and percussion bombs to reimpose martial law. In the ensuing action, the remaining student demonstrators were either captured or killed.
In succeeding years citizens of Cholla Province voiced their opposition to Presidents Chun Doo Hwan and RohTae Woo for their role in authorizing the attack on Kwangju and its citizens. The Korean student movement maintained a fervent anti-American bias, believing that the United States either supported or acquiesced to the massacre of students and residents of Kwangju.
As the uprising is put down by South Korean soldiers, students are tied together and led away on 27 May 1980 in Kwangju. (BETTMANN/CORBIS)Chun Doo Hwan; Kim Dae Jung; Kwangju; Roh Tae Woo
Further Reading
Clark, Donald N. (1988) The Kwangju Uprising: Shadows over the Regime in South Korea. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
Warnberg, Tim. (1987) "The Kwangju Uprising." Korean Studies 11: 33–54.
——. (2000) The Kwangju Uprising: Eyewitness Press Accounts of Korea's Tiananmen, edited by Henry Scott-Stokes and Lee Jai Eui. Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe.
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