Word: kwangju
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...What started it all? The Martial Law Command blamed it on 'hooligans and impure elements,' a reference to Communists and their sympathizers. Kwangju is not without some Communists. In fact I saw a red flag atop at least one commandeered army truck, the first I have ever seen in a land where Communism is outlawed. But I saw no signs of provocateurs or organized hooliganism. What I did see was an impending danger: with the youthful protesters stockpiling weapons, and troops encircling the city, Kwangju could turn into a bloodbath...
After the unrest spread to Kwangju last week, U.S. Secretary of State Edmund Muskie declared at a press conference that he was "deeply concerned" that the South Korean government was moving away from "liberalizing policies." The problem, as his aides explained later, is that the U.S. has precious few bargaining chips with which to influence developments in South Korea. Obviously Washington cannot threaten to withdraw its 39,000 troops or threaten economic sanctions against Seoul, since such actions would only undermine a pro-Western country that the U.S. once fought dearly to protect...
Late last week Kwangju remained under the effective control of its insurgents, but hastily organized "citizens' committees" were trying to reimpose some order at the grass roots. Teams of youths, for example, canvassed the streets to induce people to turn in their weapons; they succeeded in collecting more than half of those that had been seized. Community leaders, meanwhile, met with government officials and army commanders to try to negotiate a truce. Spokesmen for the townspeople lodged a series of specific demands: that the government keep its troops outside Kwangju until order is restored, that it compensate families...
...against Kim Dae Jung, which conceivably could make him liable to the death penalty as well. Removing an opposition figure like Kim from the political scene might be a temptation for a military autocracy in the making. But it obviously would do nothing to relax the explosive tensions in Kwangju. As the past few weeks have shown once again, unruly events in South Korea have a frightening way of taking on a life of their own. At the height of the bloodshed and chaos in Kwangju last week, one university demonstrator shook his head with fear and disbelief. "This...
...years later a spontaneous uprising flared in Kwangju-the site of last week's strife. It began when Japanese soldiers mistreated some Korean girls, and soon spread among students across the city, most of them middle-school teenagers. The Kwangju demonstrations inspired sympathetic protests throughout the country. The disorders lasted four months, and eventually involved 54,000 students...