The Gwangju Uprising was a popular uprising in the city of Gwangju, South Korea, from May 18 to May 27, 1980, which pitted local, armed, citizens, against soldiers and police of the Korean Government. The event is sometimes called 5·18, in reference to the date the movement began. The uprising is also known as the Gwangju Democratization Struggle, the May 18 Democratic Uprising, or the May 18 Gwangju Democratization Movement.
The uprising began after local Chonnam University students who were demonstrating against the martial law government were fired upon, killed, raped and beaten by government troops. Some Gwangju citizens took up arms, raiding local police stations and armouries, and were able to take control of large sections of the city before soldiers re-entered the city and put down the uprising. At the time, the South Korean government reported estimates of around 170 people killed, but other estimates have measured 600 to 2,300 people killed. During Chun Doo-hwan's presidency, the authorities defined the incident as a rebellion instigated by Communist sympathizers and rioters, possibly acting on support of the North Korean government.
Denial of or support for the Gwangju Uprising has long acted as a litmus test between conservative and far-right groups and beliefs, and mainstream and progressive sectors of the population, within modern Korean politics. The far-right groups have sought to discredit the uprising. One such argument points to the fact that it occurred before Chun Doo-hwan officially took office, and so contend that it could not really have been a simple student protest against him that started it. However, Chun Doo-hwan had become the de facto leader of South Korea at that time since coming into power on December 12, 1979, after leading a successful military coup against the previous South Korean government.
In 1997, a national cemetery and day of commemoration (May 18), along with acts to "compensate, and restore honor" to victims, were established. Later investigations would confirm various atrocities which had been committed by the army. In 2011, 1980 Archives for the May 18th Democratic Uprising against Military Regime located in Gwangju's city hall were inscribed on the UNESCO Memory of the World Register.
A series of democratic movements in South Korea began with the assassination of President Park Chung-hee on October 26, 1979. The abrupt termination of Park's 18-year authoritarian rule left a power vacuum and led to political and social instability. While President Choi Kyu-hah, the successor to the Presidency after Park's death, had no dominant control over the government, South Korean Army major general Chun Doo-hwan, the chief of the Defense Security Command, seized military power through the Coup d'état of December Twelfth and tried to intervene in domestic issues. The military however could not explicitly reveal its political ambitions and had no obvious influence over the civil administration before the mass civil unrest in May 1980.
The nation's democratization movements, which had been suppressed during Park's tenure, were being revived. With the beginning of a new semester in March 1980, professors and students expelled for pro-democracy activities returned to their universities, and student unions were formed. These unions led nationwide demonstrations for reforms, including an end to martial law (declared after Park's assassination), democratization, human rights, minimum wage demands and freedom of press. These activities culminated in the anti-martial law demonstration at Seoul Station on May 15, 1980 in which about 100,000 students and citizens participated.
In response, Chun Doo-hwan took several suppressive measures. On May 17, he forced the Cabinet to extend martial law to the whole nation, which had previously not applied to Jeju Province. The extended martial law closed universities, banned political activities and further curtailed the press. To enforce martial law, troops were dispatched to various[which?] parts of the country. On the same day, the Defense Security Command raided a national conference of student union leaders from 55 universities, who were gathered to discuss their next moves in the wake of the May 15 demonstration. Twenty-six politicians, including South Jeolla Province native Kim Dae-jung, were also arrested on charges of instigating demonstrations.
Ensuing strife was focused in South Jeolla Province, particularly in the then-provincial capital, Gwangju, for complex political and geographical reasons. These factors were both deep and contemporary:
[The Jeolla, or Honam] region is the granary of Korea. However, due to its abundant natural resources, the Jeolla area has historically been the target for exploitation by both domestic and foreign powers.
Oppositional protest had existed in Korea historically – especially in the South Jeolla Province region – during the Donghak Peasant Revolution, Gwangju Students Movement, Yeosu–Suncheon Rebellion, regional resistance to the Japanese invasions of Korea (1592–1598), and more recently under the Third Republic of South Korea and Fourth Republic of South Korea, as can be seen by the excerpts below:
Park Chung Hee's dictatorship had showered economic and political favors on his native Gyeongsang Province in the southeast, at the expense of the Jeolla region of the southwest. The latter became the real hotbed of political opposition to the dictatorship, which in turn led to more discrimination from the centre. Finally, in May 1980 the city of Gwangju in South Jeolla province exploded in a popular uprising against the new military strongman, General Chun Doo Hwan, who responded with a bloodbath that killed hundreds of Gwangju's citizens.
The city of Kwangju was subject to particularly severe and violent repression by the military after [nationwide] martial law was imposed. The denial of democracy and the heightening authoritarianism that accompanied the coming to power of Chun Doo Hwan to replace Park prompted nation-wide protests which, because of Cholla's [Jeolla's] historical legacy of dissent and radicalism, were most intense in that region.
On the morning of May 18, students gathered at the gate of Chonnam National University, in defiance of its closing. By 9:30 am, around 200 students had arrived; they were opposed by 30 paratroopers. At around 10 am, soldiers and students clashed: soldiers charged the students; students threw stones. The protest then moved to the downtown, Geumnamno (the street leading to the Jeollanamdo Provincial Office), area. There the conflict broadened, to around 2000 participants by afternoon. Initially, police handled the Geumnamno protests; at 4 pm, though, the ROK Special Warfare Command (SWC) sent paratroopers to take over. The arrival of these 686 soldiers, from the 33rd and 35th battalions of the 7th Airborne Brigade, marked a new, violent, and now infamous phase of suppression.
Witnesses say soldiers clubbed both demonstrators and onlookers. Testimonies, photographs, and internal records attest to the use of bayonets. The first known fatality was a 29-year-old deaf man named Kim Gyeong-cheol, who was clubbed to death on May 18 while passing by the scene. As citizens were infuriated by the violence, the number of protesters rapidly increased and exceeded 10,000 by May 20.
As the conflict escalated, the army began to fire on citizens, killing an unknown number near Gwangju station on May 20. That same day, angered protesters burned down the local MBC station, which had misreported the situation then unfolding in Gwangju (acknowledging only one civilian casualty, for example). Four policemen were killed at a police barricade near the Provincial Government Building after a car drove into them.
On the night of May 20, hundreds of taxis led a large parade of buses, trucks, and cars toward the Provincial Office to meet the protest. These "drivers of democracy" showed up to support the citizens and the demonstration because of troop brutality witnessed earlier in the day. As the drivers joined in the demonstration, troops used tear gas on them, and pulled them out of their vehicles and beat them. This in turn led more drivers to come to the scene in anger after many taxi drivers were assaulted when trying to assist the injured and while taking people to the hospital. Some were shot after the drivers attempted to use the vehicles as weapons or to block soldiers.
The violence climaxed on May 21. At about 1 pm, the army fired at a protesting crowd gathered in front of the Chonnam Provincial Office, causing casualties. In response, some protesters raided armories and police stations in nearby towns and armed themselves with M1 rifles and carbines. Later that afternoon, bloody gunfights between civilian militias and the army broke out in the Provincial Office Square. By 5:30 pm, militias had acquired two light machine guns and used them against the army, which began to retreat from the downtown area.