It has become a cliche when talking about the events in the South Korean city of Kwangju in May 1980 to call them "Korea's Tiananmen Square." Yet both were massacres of students who, supported by much of the local population, were rallying in the cause of democracy. And both events led to the continuation in power of those ultimately responsible.
Lee Jai-cui's Kwangju Diary has had a complex history. It was first published in Korea with a different title and credited to a different author. Originally called "Beyond Death, Beyond the Darkness of the Age," it appeared in 1985 attributed to the Korean novelist Hwang Sog-yong. Instantly banned, and the publisher and supposed author arrested, it nevertheless became an underground bestseller, whispered about as "Beyond, Beyond."
Although a Japanese version appeared almost immediately, no English translation has been published until this one. Recently, the Korean press discovered the true identity of its author -- a student who took part in the events described. The American academic publishers, UCLA , have insisted his name be used for their edition.
Kwangju is the capital of Korea's South Cholla Province, in the extreme southwest of the peninsula. Traditionally a poor area, with 1980 annual income 47 percent below the national average of US$2,896 per urban worker.
After a peaceful march on 15 May by some 15,000 students and 50 professors, on May 18 students rallied again to demand the lifting of martial law, the guaranteeing of workers' rights, and moves toward democracy. Chun Du-hwan had seized power in a military coup in Seoul the previous December.
Whereas on May 15 police had merely told the marchers to disperse, by May 18 national paratroopers had arrived. Protests were now to be pre-empted by terror, and to be young was enough to make you a target for brutality. Even ordinary high school pupils were dragged off buses and beaten with batons.
It would be too sickening to catalogue the paratrooper's orgy of violence and murder as described here. The codename they had been given for their initial operation was "fascinating vacations," meaning fascinating for them. For the later specific killing of dissidents the name was Operation Loyalty.
Eventually there was also violence from the crowd, which by May 19 included many ordinary citizens. Crowd psychology is a special area of study, but one thing is certain -- people in these situations behave in ways they never would contemplate in their every-day lives.
It is a sign of the ferocity of the violence on May 18 that the next few days were considered quieter, even though paratroopers attacked one section of the crowd with flame-throwers, killing many. The truth was that so many ordinary citizens had by now joined the insurgency that almost the whole of central Kwangju was in popular hands. Taxi drivers had formed a convoy, for example, asking why their fellow drivers had been killed when they were only taking injured students to hospital. Miners had donated explosives.
Indeed, by May 22 it appeared the pro-democracy activists had won, and the troops withdrawn. In reality, though, they had re-grouped and, together with reinforcements, quietly surrounded the city.
Then on May 27 the inevitable happened, and the army re-took Kwangju with yet more terrible bloodshed. Over the 10 days, between 1,000 and 2,000 citizens are thought to have been killed.
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