Jeju April 3rd Uprising: Evaluation.

Jeju April 3^rd Uprising: Evaluation.

 

By Dr. Sung-Soo Kim

 

Introduction

 

From the 1960’s even until recently, Jeju Island was one of the most popular honeymoon resorts for Korean newly weds. Not knowing the traumatic past and terrible suffering of the 1948 Jeju Sasam Uprising, numerous young couples have innocently enjoyed the nice sunshine and fresh wind of this island along with its exotic scenery.  However, just a half century ago, one in ten people of this island were killed by guns, swords and human brutality at the hands of AMGIK (American Military Government in Korea) as well as their own government.

 

Therefore, before we contemplate the bright and peaceful vision of this island in the future, let us look into the deep wounds of the islanders’ past, because the past is never dead, but lives with the present and future ceaselessly. If we neglect to come to terms with the wrongdoings of the past, how can we build a just and peaceful future? In this regard, in order to understand the Jeju Sasam Uprising, it is necessary to look at the historical and social background of Jeju Island before the Uprising took place.

 

Historical and Social Background of Jeju before the Uprising

 

Since there were direct passenger boats between Jeju Island and Japan from the 1920’s onward, the people of Jeju were able to work and study in Japan more easily than other Koreans. Considering that the 1920’s were the heyday of Taisho Democracy in Japan, it is likely that Koreans who spent time in Japan were greatly influenced by the liberalism and socialism of Japanese society at that time. Then, after the end of the Second World War, many Koreans returned to their motherland from Japan. In particular, one in four of the Jeju population were returnees from Japan; it was the highest rate of population mobility in Korea. Having lived in a foreign country as a sort of ‘outcast’, it is possible that these returnees had a much stronger sense of social awareness and national spirit than average Koreans. In addition, some of them had had the opportunity to receive higher education in a Japanese college while they were in Japan. Therefore, those returnees had an ardent wish for education.

 

One fruit of this burning educational eagerness of the returnees was the number of schools that were established on Jeju Island between 1945 and 1947: 10 middle schools and 44 elementary schools were established on the island in just two years. Furthermore, in 1947, the proportion of graduates from elementary schools in the northern part of Jeju Island was the highest in the Korean peninsular, at 35.7%.[1] In view of this, it is not surprising that these educated people on  Jeju Island had a particularly high level of social as well as self awareness, together with  a sense of national spirit against the hard line AMGIK and later on the arbitrary Syngman Rhee regime.

 

Until relatively recently, the Sasam Uprising was not openly discussed in public. For nearly half a century, the people of Jeju had to refrain from talking about this incident, keeping the truth hidden, because they were targets of brutal persecution by their own government. These people were victims of ruthless ‘red-hunters’ and McCarthyism, and were treated like communist rebels, rather than given comfort, compensation and restitution of their honor. Since the Korean peninsular was a focal point of the Cold War, divided between the communist north and rightwing south, no one even dreamt of finding out what really happened in the Sasam Uprising. Therefore, even at this late stage, it is important to examine how and why the Uprising took place on Jeju Island in 1948.

 

The Causes and Development of the Uprising

 

The start of events which led to the Sasam Uprising was the demonstration which took place on 1^st March 1947. After the liberation of Korea from Japan in 1945, the people of Jeju in particular had suffered greatly due to a lack of jobs, lack of basic necessities and prevalent cholera. What was worse, the former Japanese collaborators of the Korean police had become the new police with the overwhelming support of AMGIK, and they now profiteered from the ordinary people and persecuted Korean patriots. The people of Jeju held a number of protests and demonstrations against the unjust policy of AMGIK. However, on March 1^st 1947, the police shot unarmed demonstrators and six people were instantly killed while eight were seriously injured.

 

As a protest against these ruthless gunshots, the people of Jeju went on a general strike. Including even corner shop merchandisers, 95% of the Jeju people joined in this general strike. In order to smash the strikers, AMGIK dispatched notorious rightwing gangsters and the former Japanese collaborators of the Korean police. They menaced, intimidated and committed  outrages against the civilians.

 

Furthermore, AMGIK made a general roundup of the ordinary people, and then detained 2,500 of them on suspicion of being demonstrators and participants in the general strike. Three detainees lost their lives due to brutal torture, and this enraged the people of Jeju almost to the point of explosion. Then, to add insult to injury, the rightwing gangsters raped village girls.

 

Finally, at two a.m. on April 3^rd 1948, three hundred and fifty armed men and women attacked twelve police boxes plus rightwing groups, making the following demands: to stop oppressive measures against the Jeju people, to abolish plans to establish a government of only half the country (South Korea) by election in South Korea only, and to establish one government of a unified Korea, through general elections which included North Korea.

 

However, in retaliation to this attack and demand, AMGIK took an even more hard line policy. AMGIK tried to catch the attackers of the police boxes and rightwing groups, but when they could not do so, they killed even parents or siblings of the suspected attackers, in orders words, innocent people.

 

In all, during the period of the uprising from 1948 to 1954, 10 % of Jeju’s population (approximately 30,000 people) were slaughtered, and of those victims 21.1% were women, 5.6% were children and 6.2% were over 60 years old.[2] Even AMGIK estimated that the number of the armed rebels was a maximum of only 500 people.[3] Yet more than 60 times the number of ‘suspected rebels’, 30,000 people, became the subjects of the “kill all, burn all and starve all” policy of AMGIK and later on the Syngman Rhee regime.

 

When the Korean War broke out in 1950, the Syngman Rhee regime again made a general roundup of former ‘converted rebels of Jeju Island’ and executed them. As a result, 192 innocent people were slaughtered. In the case of the bereaved family members, rather than receiving any comfort from the government, they were imprisoned for between a minimum of one year and a maximum of fourteen years. During the Korea War, in the first martial court, 871 people received either death penalties or prison sentences, and in the second martial court, 1,659 people received either death penalties or prison sentences.[4]

 

Evaluation of the Uprising

 

As we have seen above, under the Cold War in the Korean peninsular, any leftwing motivated resistance was regarded as ‘Communists riots’. Yet at the same time, any brutal suppression conducted by the army and the police against civilians was justified and advocated as simple ‘self-defense’ in the name of national security.

 

Eventually, once the Cold War had ended and civil government had been established, the truth of the Sasam Uprising gradually began to emerge publicly from 2000. It is true that the Sasam Uprising was initiated by leftwing leaders as a protest against the killing of the six innocent people by the police, but due to the frantic reaction and overwhelming discrimination of the army, police and rightwing groups against the ordinary people of Jeju, even those ordinary people came to sympathize with the leftwing leaders. Correspondingly diehard paranoid rightwing groups even more ruthlessly persecuted those ordinary people. In this respect, the Sasam Uprising was a microcosm of the polarized leftwing and rightwing clash in the Korean peninsular in the 20^th century.

 

During the Uprising, the people of Jeju Island were helpless prey before the state’s violence. Severely wounded both physically and mentally by the violent regime of the past, the people of Jeju still bear the side effects and deep scars of the Sasam Uprising. In my view, the Sasam incident was the most serious violation of human rights as a result of misuse of public power in contemporary Korean history.

 

Therefore, I evaluate the Sasam Uprising from the perspective of a human rights movement rather than as part of the national security or ideological spectrum. The Sasam Uprising was a shameful example of ‘the end justifies the means.’ Therefore, what I emphasize is that impinging on fundamental human rights cannot be justified in the name of any ideology or national security.

 

According to AMGIK, “the program of mass slaughter” of the Jeju people was conducted of necessity. From AMGIK’s point of view, the massacre was vital to establishing a US supported puppet government in South Korea. By doing so, AMGIK was able to establish a favorable capitalistic buffer state in South Korea against Soviet controlled North Korea. In this regard, Major General W. Dean of AMGIK and the Police Chief Cho Byeong-Ok deliberately mis-described the Sasam Uprising as “externally inspired Communists rioting with the support of international Communist connections.” By doing so, both of them justified their suppression of the Sasam Uprising by violence, and contributed to the systematic partition of the Korean peninsular.

 

From the beginning of the Uprising, AMGIK preferred instant suppression by bloodshed to any kind of peace treaty with the rebels. On April 28 1948 there was a peace treaty attempt between Kim Dal-Sam, leader of the rebels, and Kim Ik-Yeol of the 9^th regiment, but the police, disguised as rebels, set fire to Orari village, providing AMGIK with an excuse to break off the negotiations.[5] Any kinds of negotiations or attempt at a peaceful solution were completely terminated. Correspondingly, on May 6^th, the moderate Kim Ik-Yeol was dismissed by AMGIK and hardliner Park Jin-Kyung took over.

 

Two months after the Uprising, on June 19 and June 22 1948 respectively, Committee Members for Jeju Island in both Gwangju and Seoul presented petitions to the Head of the Jeju Police Headquarters, senior officials of AMGIK and the Korean Committee in the UN, in order to stop torture, terror, bloodshed and suppression of the Jeju people and to promote finding a peaceful means to resolve the Uprising.[6] Moreover, on July 18 1948, twenty-two organizations, including four political parties, issued a corporate statement to AMGIK urging it to resolve the Jeju Uprising through peaceful means.[7]

 

AMGIK entirely ignored these petitions and took an even more hard line policy of suppression against the people of Jeju. What is worse, Syngman Rhee also followed the same hard line, if not an even harder one. Rhee’s only concern was strengthening his political power base within South Korea, whatever the cost and sacrifice.

 

Ending Remark

 

In a worldly sense, the Sasam Uprising was a total failure, tragedy and disaster under the post war super power leadership of AMGIK and autocratic regime of Syngman Rhee. However, it is worthwhile to focus for a moment on the peace treaty attempt that was made by Kim Ik-Yeol, Head of the 9^th regiment, and Kim Dal-Sam, leader of the rebels, on April 28 1948. Ham Sok Hon, a Korean pacifist who was a famous activist for democracy, said, "Take the way of peace or the way of destruction of all humanity. We have to take the way of peace." We have to try resolving problems and conflict through peaceful and nonviolent means rather than in violent ways. Bloodshed will bring more bloodshed; violence will bring even more violence. In the end, I think “that those who rise by the sword will perish by the sword.” Extremism is a bad example for everyone.

 

Only through reconciliation and cooperation can we eradicate confrontation and disruption, not only within the Korean peninsular but also in East Asia and the world. Despite unbearable suffering, the people of Jeju have made a beautiful peaceful island with their bare hands and toil. In this sense, the rest of the Korean people are indebted to the people of Jeju. It is a great irony that the place that was the scapegoat and victim of the most brutal internal violence in the Korean peninsular in the 20^th century, now in the 21^st century has been designated as the ‘World Peace Island’ by the government. Perhaps as the shadow is darker the light is brighter.

 

Now Jeju Island is a symbol of human rights and a peaceful world. Although half a century later, the matter of restitution of honor for victims of the Sasam Uprising is finally being dealt with officially by the government and President Roh Moo-Hyun has made an apology. I hope that this peaceful settlement of the Sasam incident is a good omen for the peaceful unification of the two Koreas in the near future. I hope that Jeju will indeed be fostered both as the diplomatic hub of East Asia, serving as the stage for international conferences and summit meetings like today, and also as a center of human rights with a role of promoting peace among island societies and between the two Koreas.

 

Thank you.

 

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[1] Cummings, Bruce. The Origins of the Korean War 2, pp.202-203.

[2] Daehan Daily, June 2, 2001, p.20.

[3] Seo, Jung-Seok. Study of the Contemporary National Movement in Korea 2: 1948-1950 Democracy, Nationalism and Anti-Communism, Historical Critics Publishing Co., 1996, p.175).

[4] Park, Chan-Sik. The Executions of Jeju Sasam Related Prisoners during the Korean War, p.20, p.30.

[5] Kim, Ik-Yeol. “Posthumous Works: Truth of Sasam”, The Sasam Talks 2 (Seoul: Jeonyae-won, 1994), pp.129~130.  

[6] Chosun Ilbo, July 2, 1948 and June 22, 1948.

[7] Seoul Shinmun, July 24, 1948.

Sasam.doc

 

Sasam.doc

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