27 years ago, my reporting on Gwangju caused a furor in South Korea

This was the best response I ever got to a story, as chronicled in 1996 by the Washington Post.

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U.S.-South Korean relations have been roiled in the past week by the disclosure of declassified U.S. government documents stating that Washington decided not to oppose South Korea’s possible use of notorious “special forces” brigades to put down a citizen uprising 16 years ago.

“The documents make clear that top U.S. officials in Washington and Seoul were aware on May 9, 1980, of South Korean plans to use the brigades to help quell dissent around Seoul and in other cities. Ten days later the special forces bayoneted, beat and killed hundreds of unarmed citizens in the southern city of Kwangju who were protesting a sudden imposition of martial law.

“Washington had been trying for months to keep South Korean protesters and government officials from provoking a violent confrontation. But on this occasion, the documents show, Washington decided as a matter of policy not to challenge the government’s military contingency plans for halting unrest — even though the special brigades were regarded by U.S. officials as more brutal and violence-prone than regular police.

“The documents immediately provoked an angry response in South Korea when they were first disclosed last Tuesday in Washington by the Journal of Commerce, largely because they fed long-held suspicions that the two governments had cooperated closely in the period leading up to the massacre. The massacre still burns hotly in the memory of South Koreans today, and two former South Korean presidents are now in prison on charges of treason for their alleged role in ordering the massacre.

“On Thursday, 70 people from one of South Korea’s largest protest organizations tried to see U.S. Ambassador James Laney in Seoul to demand a U.S. apology but were turned aside. The following day, several hundred protesters marched on the embassy, only to be turned back by a phalanx of 500 riot police; 140 people were arrested.

“Tear gas was used to break up a larger, more violent anti-American demonstration on Friday in Kwangju, also provoked by the documents, according to wire service accounts. A leader of Hanchongryun, an association of students at 204 universities in South Korea, said last weekend that additional protests are likely to be organized when universities reopen this week after a holiday.”

Read the rest of the Washington Post story here.

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