Donald L. Baker - It has been over 46 years since the South Korean... | FacebookDonald L. Bakere͏n͏d͏o͏p͏o͏S͏r͏t͏s͏g͏1͏1͏7͏g͏2͏i͏g͏i͏h͏u͏t͏5͏f͏m͏5͏0͏t͏t͏9͏i͏8͏5͏i͏1͏4͏a͏i͏9͏5͏6͏h͏u͏h͏i͏m͏g͏l͏a͏2͏6͏8͏0͏i͏a͏i͏6͏t͏2͏i͏ ·
It has been over 46 years since the South Korean tragedy now known as the Gwangju Democratization Movement occurred. (I prefer to call it the Gwangju Resistance.) Yesterday I met with a North American journalist who is very well informed about East Asian affairs. However, he was still looking for more information about that tragedy since he was not around when it happened. He asked me a couple of questions about what I thought of claims made from the right and the left about that pivotal moment in South Korean history.
First, he asked me what I thought about the claim that the violence in Gwangju had been masterminded by North Koreans. I flippantly answered that I didn't think so, since I didn't hear any North Korean accents there. However, I should have given the more serious response that the violence against unarmed residents of Gwangju by the South Korean military began on the morning of May 18, 1980. A few young men in Gwangju didn't pick up rifles and start shooting back until the afternoon of May 21, after at least a couple of hundred people had already been killed. So, if North Koreans had instigated that violence, they would have had to have infiltrated the South Korean special forces troops who killed first.
Then he asked me if it was true that the US supported that violent assault on what was then South Korea's 5th largest city, as some on the left have suggested. I told them that also was not true. The US government did not like Chun Doo-hwan since he had violated the chain of command when he seized control of the South Korean military on his way to seizing control of the entire government. However, they valued stability over democracy. Once the resistance to Chun's coup appeared in Gwangju, US officials were concerned that what they saw as chaos might spread to other cities, and that might get the North Koreans to see that as an opportunity to take advantage of disunity in the south and invade. So they held their nose and supported Chun's desire to regain control of Gwangju after its citizens had chased soldiers out of town on the evening of the 21st. However, they told Chun that the special forces troops, who had committed the violence against Gwangju's residents, should not be involved in regaining control of the city on May 27th. He was told to use only regular army soldiers, who were more restrained and disciplined. Chun agreed to do that--but he lied. When he sent 20,000 soldiers to regain control of Gwangju on the morning of May 27, many special forces soldiers joined the regular army in that final assault.
I agree that the US should have done more to stop Chun's assault on democracy in South Korea but I don't believe that the US supported the rampant violence which occurred. They had reluctantly accepted Chun's seizure of power but wanted him to exercise that power nonviolently. They were concerned that a government seen as aligned with the US committing violence against its own citizens would inspire anti-Americanism---on that point, they were right. That is what occurred in the aftermath of the Gwangju Resistance. The US has been accused by some on the left of bearing some of the responsibility for the killing of innocent people which occurred in Gwangju 46 years ago.
Will Pore
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Good interview, but I would hedge on anti-Americanism at the time in relation to the incident. It seemed to me that it depended on which Koreans one talked to. People in Cholla have been politically suspect before. Many Koreans I heard express an opinion at the time from other parts of the country, were either indifferent or not particularly moved.
Donald L. Baker
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It took a while for people outside of the Cholla region to know what had happened in Gwangju that May--in many cases, it took several years. In fact, there are still significant numbers of people in Korea who refuse to look at the evidence and don't believe that Chun had his troops kill people who had done nothing more than call for democracy. As for anti-Americanism, during what I call the ten terrible days in May, 1980, people who heard that the 7th fleet was moving ships from Japan toward Korea thought the US was sending those ships to help them. When they later learned that was not the case, they then became disillusioned with the US. It didn't help that Chun falsely claimed that he had full support from the US. That is when the false rumours started that the US was behind Chun's assault on Gwangju. Those rumours led to the anti-Americanism in the 1980s which led to attacks on several US government installations on the peninsula. (One of those attacks took place in Busan.)
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Marcy Lyn
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Donald L. Baker when you read through all 4000 cables and the transcripts from the Congressional hearings, it's obvious. Gleysteen and Wickham were completely duped by Chun and Choi. They believed almost everything they were told and Carter's people didn't dare upset Chun. It's horrific to read.
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Bill Amos
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Donald L. Baker I can attest to the slow filtering of news up the peninsula during the Uprising. If not for the censored articles from Time and Newsweek that were posted on the door of the Peace Corps office in Seoul, we would not have known anything about the situation. There were clues, like the police carrying rifles where they never had before, and collections of army jeeps and other vehicles parked in unexpected places. I also wondered why the Uprising didn't get much coverage in the United States while it was happening until I realized that Mt. St. Helens blew its top on May 18 and completely dominated the national news for weeks afterward.
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Jake Aller
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don great article I was in Gapyeong at the time. I would like to repost this on my substack along with my own reflections is that okay? BTW I am suspending my word press ccount as of today, just turned 71 and it is too much to handle both
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Will Pore
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Donald L. Baker There's no doubt that Chun was inept and dictatorial. Even without Kwangju, many Koreans would agree on that.
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Jake Aller
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oh and I agree the US basically looked the other way and Chun lied to the USG knowingthat the USG would indeed let him get away with it as Reagan was a realist politician
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Marcy Lyn ·
The US does bear some responsibility.
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Bill Amos ·
If anyone wants to know a bit of what it felt like to be there, check out
Paul Courtright's and David Dollinger's memoirs and my novel, The Seed of Joy, newly updated. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0H6LX8MZ1?th=1
AMAZON.COM
The Seed of Joy: A Novel of Korea
The Seed of Joy: A Novel of KoreaReply
Bill Amos ·
Pardon the shameless self-promotion!
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Jake Aller ·
I may repost this on my blog if Don Baker is okay with that. If that is the case, I can add a short summary of your book. I am suspending my WordPress blog as of today and migrating to Substack too difficult to do both I turned 71 yesterday!
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