The Gwangju Uprising, also known in South Korea as the May 18 Democratization Movement (Korean: 5·18 민주화 운동), was a series of student-led demonstrations that took place in Gwangju, South Korea, in May 1980, against the coup d'état of May Seventeenth by Chun Doo-hwan that strengthened his power. Chun had previously taken power and become military dictator through the coup d'état of December Twelfth at the end of 1979. He implemented martial law, arrested opposition leaders, closed all universities, banned political activities, and suppressed the press. The uprising was violently suppressed by the South Korean military who retook Gwangju. Between 600 and 2,300 people were killed.
The uprising began when Chonnam National University students demonstrating against martial law were fired upon, killed, beaten and tortured by South Korean soldiers. Some Gwangju citizens took up arms and formed militias, raiding local police stations and armories, and were able to take control of large sections of the city before soldiers re-entered the city and suppressed the uprising. While the South Korean government claimed that 165 people were killed in the massacre, scholarship on the massacre today estimates around 600 to 2,300 casualties. The military government of Chun labelled the uprising a "riot" and claimed, without evidence, that it was instigated by "communist sympathizers and rioters" acting at the behest of the North Korean government. The United States under the Carter administration, fearing that North Korea might intervene, gave approval to Chun to retake the city and also considered contingency plans to send extra U.S. troops to South Korea if the uprising spread to other cities.
In 1997, a national day of commemoration for the massacre was established for May 18 and a national cemetery for the victims was built. Later investigations confirmed the atrocities that had been committed by the army. In 2011, the document archive of the Gwangju Uprising was listed on the UNESCO Memory of the World International Register. In contemporary South Korean politics, denial of the Gwangju Massacre is commonly espoused by conservative and far-right groups.
Background
The assassination of President Park Chung Hee on 26 October 1979 triggered a number of democracy movements that had previously been suppressed under Park's tenure. The abrupt end of Park's 18-year authoritarian rule left a power vacuum that created political and social instability. Park's successor, Choi Kyu-hah, had no real control over the government and Chun Doo-hwan, chief of the Defense Security Command (DSC), was able to seize control of the military in the coup d'état of December Twelfth. At the time, both the military and Chun denied any political motivations behind the coup and Chun had no clear influence over domestic politics.
In March 1980, at the beginning of a new school year, professors and students who had been expelled for pro-democracy activity returned to university and formed student unions. These unions led nationwide demonstrations against martial law and in support of democratization, free elections, human rights, labor rights, and freedom of the press. These protests culminated in the 15 May 1980 demonstration against martial law at Seoul Station which involved over 100,000 protesters. When the prime minister appealed for time to consider their demands, students returned to their campuses. On 16 May, opposition leaders Kim Dae-jung and Kim Young-sam held a joint press conference, echoing the students' demands.
Beginning in February 1980, the army issued orders to a number of units to undergo severe riot control training, called "Loyalty Training" (충정훈련; 忠情訓練). The training included harsh and unconscionable tactics, and was criticized as a factor behind the paratroopers' indiscriminate use of violence against the subsequent uprising.
On 17 May 1980, Chun forced the Cabinet to extend martial law to the whole country and in the process closed universities, banned political activities, and further curtailed the press. To enforce martial law, troops were dispatched to the country's main cities, including Gwangju, the provincial capital of South Jeolla Province. The same day, the DSC raided a national conference of student union leaders who had gathered to discuss their plans following the 15 May demonstration. Twenty-six politicians, including opposition leader and future president Kim Dae-jung were also arrested on charges of instigating protests. Chun sought to minimize the scale of protests by cutting off all communication to and from Gwangju and used disinformation to depict the protests as the result of communist instigators.
Gwangju was at the center of anti-government and pro-democracy demonstrations, as Kim Dae-jung was born in South Jeolla Province and over the years, built his political base there. Jeolla had historically been the target of exploitation because of its abundant natural resources (its vast, fertile plains made it the agricultural breadbasket of the Korean Peninsula) and the region was associated with political dissent and liberal activism. Historically, the region was the site of the anti-colonial Donghak Peasant Revolution (1894–1895), the Gwangju Student Independence Movement (1929), and the Yeosu–Suncheon rebellion (1948). Under the military dictatorship of Park Chung Hee from 1961 to 1979, the government favored the development of Park's native Gyeongsang Province, while Jeolla Province was neglected. Among the protests against Chun's imposition of martial law, the protests in Gwangju were the most intense.
Uprising
18–21 May
On the morning of 18 May, students gathered at the gate of Chonnam National University to protest its closing. By 9:30 a.m., approximately 200 students had gathered in front of the school, opposed by 30 paratroopers. Sometime around 10 a.m., the soldiers charged against the students, moving the protest to downtown Gwangju, in front of the South Jeolla Province Provincial Office. Over the course of the day, the conflict broadened to around 2,000 participants. Although local police had initially handled the protests, by 4 pm, paratroopers from the Republic of Korea Special Warfare Command (ROK-SWC) took over. The arrival of 686 soldiers from the 33rd and 35th battalions of the 7th Airborne Brigade marked the beginning of a brutal and infamous phase of suppression of the uprising.
During this phase, South Korean soldiers indiscriminately clubbed demonstrators and bystanders. Soldiers used bayonets and rifle butts to attack, torture, and kill residents indiscriminately. Soldiers raided buildings unrelated to the demonstration, including hotels, cafés, and barbershops. The first known fatality was a 29-year-old deaf man named Kim Gyeong-cheol, who was clubbed to death despite being a bystander. About 5,000 students defied the martial law orders and battled with policemen and troops in the streets for several hours before a curfew was imposed. Scores of students were reported injured. The violent suppression of the protests by the ROK-SWC led the number of protesters to rapidly increase, exceeding 10,000 by 20 May.
As the conflict escalated, the army opened fire on the citizens, killing an unknown number of protesters near Gwangju Station on 20 May. The soldiers also held around 600 students at Chonnam University campus for three days without food or water. On the evening of 20 May, hundreds of taxis led a parade of buses, trucks, and cars to the Provincial Office in protest. In response, soldiers fired tear gas on them, pulled them out of their vehicles, beat and arrested them. This only led more drivers to join the protest. Many taxi drivers were assaulted while trying to transport the injured to the hospital. Some taxi drivers were shot after the drivers attempted to use the taxicabs as weapons or as barricades.
On the night of 20 May, protesters burned down the local MBC and KBS television stations, which had spread misinformation on the situation that had unfolded in Gwangju. Around 11 p.m., troops then apparently fired at random into crowds gathered near Chonnam University. Four policemen were killed at a police barricade near the Provincial Government Building after a car drove into them. Trucks filled with demonstrators and youths wearing headbands and covered faces raced around the cities, carrying the injured and transporting them to hospitals. Police stations were emptied out and the martial law troops took cover, as military vehicles were burned and protesters took over petrol stations.
The violence climaxed on 21 May. The city's main street was filled with ordinary citizens rather than students. Demonstrators shouted slogans demanding the release of Kim Dae-jung and called for the end of martial law. Some time around 1 p.m., the army fired on a crowd that had gathered in front of the South Jeolla Provincial Office building, causing numerous casualties. According to The New York Times, at Chonnam University Hospital, scores of bodies were seen being carried into the mortuary. Some witnesses alleged that 600 people had already been killed in the past four days, while the martial law authorities claimed that only 5 policemen and a civilian had died as of 21 May. Some citizens began to riot after unconfirmed reports spread that paratroopers had stripped down arrested students, hanged some dead bodies in a city park upside down and in some cases had violated women, including the elderly. One witness also claimed that he had seen soldiers in an armored personnel carrier dragging a student along by a rope tied to his neck.
In response, some protesters began raiding the Reserve Force armories and police stations in nearby towns, arming themselves with light machine guns, revolvers, M16 rifles and M1/M2 carbines. Later that afternoon, gunfights between civilian militias and the army broke out in the Provincial Office Square. By 5:30 p.m., the militias had acquired two light machine guns and used them against the army, forcing them to retreat from the downtown area. They also armed themselves with bats, knives, pipes, hammers, Molotov cocktails and other available weapons.
22–25 May
Blockade of Gwangju
By 22 May, all troops retreated to the rural outskirts outside of the city to wait for reinforcements. These reinforcements consisted of troops from the 3rd Airborne Brigade, the 11th Airborne Brigade, the 20th Mechanized Infantry Division, the 31st Infantry Division, and the Combat Arms Training Command (CATC; 전투병과교육사령부; 戰鬪兵科敎育司令部). Reinforcements from the CATC primarily consisted of three subordinate units based in the unit's headquarters in Sangmudae: the Army Infantry School (육군보병학교; 陸軍步兵學校), the Army Artillery School (육군포병학교; 陸軍砲兵學校), and the Army Armor School (육군기갑학교; 陸軍機甲學校).
The army blocked all routes and communications to and from the city and fighting between militias and the army temporarily died down. Gwangju was sealed off in the Suncheon direction, and most, if not all other approaches were barred with roadblocks. There were unverified reports of dead bodies of students "piled up and tumbled together" in an underground shopping area. According to witnesses, an army jeep had its tires shot out in an underpass while entering Gwangju. The army sent in soldiers from other provinces into the surrounding areas with the official explanation being to guard against defections or sympathy with the local population.
On 23 May, soldiers fired at a bus that attempted to break out of the city in Jiwon-dong, killing 15 of the 18 passengers, and summarily executing two wounded passengers. That same night, there were unconfirmed reports that some paratroopers died while lining both sides of the road near an armory outside the city when a group of students planning to steal weapons crept between the lines of the troops before realizing that they were surrounded. The students opened fire to cover their escape while paratroopers returned fire, with unknown casualties.
On 24 May, two teenage boys, Jeon Jae-su and Bang Gwang-beom, attempted to swim across the Wonje Reservoir, but the 11th Airborne Brigade Troopers opened fire and killed them. At 1:55 p.m., the South Korean military suffered the greatest number of casualties when troops from the 11th Airborne Brigade 63rd Special Operations Battalion and the CATC Army Infantry School Training Battalion mistakenly fired at each other in Songam-dong, resulting in the deaths of 13 soldiers. Troops from the 11th Airborne Brigade indiscriminately murdered unarmed civilians and residents near the village in Songam-dong and plundered nearby stores. Martial Law Command misinterpreted friendly fire at Songam-dong as the work of insurgents within the army, as the Airborne Brigade Troopers were using a different communications channel.
Settlement Committees
Meanwhile, in the liberated city of Gwangju, the Citizens' Settlement Committee and the Students' Settlement Committee were formed. The former was composed of about 20 preachers, lawyers, and professors and negotiated with the army, demanding the release of arrested citizens, compensation for victims, and the prohibition of retaliation in exchange for the disarmament of militias. The latter committee was formed by university students and took charge of funerals, public campaigns, traffic control, withdrawal of weapons, and medical aid.
- Kim Jong-bae (김종배) - Chief Executive
- Heo Kyu-jeong (허규정) - Secretary of Home Affairs
- Jeong Sang-yong (정상영) - Secretary of External Affairs
- Yoon Sang-won (윤상원) - Spokesperson for Militia
- Park Nam-sun (박남선) - Director of Militia Operations
- Yoon Seok-ru (윤석루) - Militia QRF (Quick Reaction Force) Commander
- Lee Jae-ho (이재호) - Militia QRF Deputy Commander
- Kim Jun-bong (김준봉) - Director of Investigations
- Gu Seong-ju (구성주) - Director of Provisions Supply
At a peaceful rally on 22 May attended by 100,000 residents, a spokesman for the demonstrators demanded that the government keep the troops out of the city until order was restored, the release of 900 people who were arrested, compensate the families of the victims and refrain from retaliating against the demonstrators after the protests died down.