[KS] U.S. involvement in the Gwangju Uprising

[Don Baker]

As someone who has been studying what happened in Kwangju in May, 1980, for over three decades, I would like to add my two bits.   Scott Burgeson makes some factual errors. There were a few people killed in Pusan and Masan in early fall, 1979. Posters stating that fact were plastered to the walls of the pedestrian underpass at Kwanghwamun shortly afterwards. (The rumor at the time was that those posters had been placed there by the KCIA, on the direct orders of Kim Chaegyu.)  And the soldiers who were first sent to Kwangju were not sent there to arrest protestors. They were sent there to be so brutal that the whole city, and probably the whole country as well,  would be too intimidated to protest any more. They were paratroopers, not the usual riot police, and they had been told that North Korean had infiltrated Kwangju. How else can we explain the attack on peaceful demonstrators at Chunnam University's front gates at 10 am on the morning of Sunday, May 18?   The clubs they wielded were intended to maim, not arrest. And the bayonets they used later on Keumnanno were not intended to arrest people. They were intended to kill. 
As for the explanation for US support offered by George Katsiaficas, I don't find that particularly persuasive. Neither Ambassador Gleysteen nor General Wickham were particularly fond of Chun Tuhwan. However, they held their noses in May, 1980 and backed up his suppression of the Kwangju demonstrations because they were more concerned about stability than democracy. They were afraid that if the Kwangju "riots" (as the ambassador called them even 20 years later) spread, North Korea would take advantage of the chaos south of the DMZ to invade.  They did try to mitigate some of the damage Chun's thugs had done by getting Chun to promise to send only regular troops, not paratroopers, to recover the city on May 27. Chun, of course, didn't keep his promise. There were paratroopers among the regular army units that entered Kwangju on May 27.  There were even paratroopers on some of the helicopters piloted by Americans which brought those troops to the Kwangju area.  
In 1980 I didn't see much concern in the US embassy over imposing Neo-liberal economic policies on South Korea. The main issue was an excessive concern for stability, and fear that, as much as the US didn't like Chun, to condemn his coup and the brutality of his troops in Kwangju (which, by the way, Scott, the embassy knew about soon after it started--there was an American diplomat in Kwangju on May 18) would bring chaos to South Korea and invite North Korean intervention.  In other words, the US government was more concerned about the overall "security situation" in  Northeast Asia than about the welfare of the people of Kwangju, or the exact nature of the type of government that ruled South Korea. 

Don Baker ProfessorDepartment of Asian Studies University of British Columbia Vancouver, Canada V6T 1Z2 don.baker at ubc.ca

Date: Mon, 28 Nov 2011 04:00:47 -0800
From: kirkdon at yahoo.com
To: jsburgeson at yahoo.com; koreanstudies at koreaweb.ws
Subject: Re: [KS] U.S. involvement in the Gwangju Uprising

I was in Seoul and Kwangju during that whole period. The U.S. was caught by surprise by the whole thing -- there was no "insistence" on suppressing anything. At the same time, General Wickham made the mistake of rubber-stamping, at the request of the ROK military, the transfer of Roh Moo-hyun's 20th division from duty under U.S. command near the DMZ to ROK command in or around Gwangju. Wickham had no idea the ROK would then dispatch special forces to Kwangju to suppress the revolt. Obviously the U.S. command, under Wickham, was too close to the ROK command, out of touch with political and social forces and had no clear comprehension of the significance of what it was doing, much less the takeover of Kwangju and mass protest in Seoul, which I witnessed. Later, Wickham was unhappy to learn that Chun Doo-hwan (in power but not yet president) used the authorization
 of transfer to say the U.S. was on his side. 
Don Kirk


--- On Sun, 11/27/11, J.Scott Burgeson <jsburgeson at yahoo.com> wrote:

From: J.Scott Burgeson <jsburgeson at yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: [KS] U.S. involvement in the Gwangju Uprising
To: "Korean Studies Discussion List" <koreanstudies at koreaweb.ws>
Date: Sunday, November 27, 2011, 9:25 PM

From: "Katsiaficas, George" <katsiaficasg at wit.edu>
 To: Korean Studies Discussion List <koreanstudies at koreaweb.ws>; Balazs Szalontai <aoverl at yahoo.co.uk> 
 Sent: Saturday, November 26, 2011 11:35 PM
 Subject: Re: [KS] U.S. involvement in the Gwangju Uprising
  



 


A Power Point precisely on topic, is available at:
http://eroseffect.com/powerpoints/NeoliberalismGwangju.pdf



A main argument, now fairly widely accepted in Korea, is that US insistence on the crushing of the Gwangju Uprising, like its support for the coup in Chile in 1973 and in Turkey later in 1980, was
 aimed at imposition of neoliberal economic policies. 

Did the U.S. really "insist" that the Kwangju Uprising be "crushed"? 
I am by no means an expert on the Kwangju Uprising, but have done enough research and interviewing over the years to know that such irresponsible language is simply not supported by the historical record.
Having previously tussled with Dr. Katsiaficas on this Listserve over the 2008 beef protests, I am all too aware how history can easily be rewritten by individuals with a preexisting ideological framework through which to view such events.
I am no fan of the U.S. military-industrial complex nor neoliberalism. However, I think it only fair to note that Dr. Katsiaficas' Power Point presentation relies on selective quotation and time bending to construct a narrative that strays dangerously at
 times into the realm of fiction. I can only imagine how many young students in Korea have seen his presentation, which in its own small way no doubt contributes to more recent phenomena such as the 2008 beef protests.
Brother Anthony has already mentioned independent researcher Matt VanVolkenburg in this thread. I include below the original English-language text of part of an interview I did with him for my 2009 book, "더 발칙한 한국학," if only because it clearly and concisely addresses the issue of U.S. "complicity" in the "crushing" of the Kwangju Uprising, and directly contradicts a number of statements, or really "suggestions" and "innuendoes," made by Dr. Katsiaficas' in his Power Point presentation. If nothing else, the presentation should be read by all with a highly skeptical eye.
   --Scott Bug

버거슨:  And what’s your
 basic position about U.S. involvement, for example? Was the U.S. responsible for it?매트밴:  Well, you kind of have to look at the micro and macro view. The U.S. probably could have done something about 전두환 before it happened, like when he had his coup in December of 1979, but their options then were basically either economic sanctions or military sanctions. But because of the U.S.’s relationship with Korea, especially during the Cold War, that was simply never going to happen. From their point of view, they couldn’t possibly use sanctions or do anything that would weaken South Korea, so they just had to allow Chun to do as he pleased – though they did protest along the way. One thing that often gets misunderstood is that the paratroopers who were sent to Kwangju – and whose violence set off the Uprising – were never under U.S. control. The Combined Forces Command, which was headed by U.S. General [John A.]
 Wickham, had no say in how and when those troops were used. Before the Kwangju Uprising happened, the U.S. knew that special forces troops were being set aside to be used as reinforcements if student protests got out of hand, but those exact same paratroopers had been used in Busan and Masan right before 박정희 was killed. And, I mean, they might have been a bit violent, but no one had died. There was reason to worry, and the U.S. warned them to use “care and restraint” when using these troops, but there was nothing in the past that would have suggested the brutality that occurred in Kwangju, which was basically because of completely different orders. In Busan and Masan, they were ordered to just get people off the streets, but in Kwangju they were ordered to capture protesters – to arrest them – which made things much more brutal. So the U.S. did not have any control over the troops that were sent in initially, and likely did not realize
 that there were paratroopers being sent to Kwangju, because the main focus was on what was happening in Seoul. They didn’t realize what was happening in Kwangju for quite a while, and didn’t know the enormity of it for several days – it didn’t hit them till quite a bit later.
Another thing worth noting is that the U.S. did not have to approve or disapprove the use of troops under the joint command. They couldn’t “approve” or “disapprove” – they could just “suggest.” “Oh, if you’re going to take these troops out, then you should move other troops to replace them.” They did need to be notified that they were going to be moved – but they couldn’t approve or disapprove it. But then the problem was that the American Ambassador [William H. Gleysteen, Jr.] didn’t really understand the use of that language, so he did use the word “approve.” And a number of other people like in the [U.S.]
 State Department used it in media releases, which really confused things. Also, the Combined Forces Command was notified on May 16th, two days before the Kwangju Uprising began, that the ROK Army was going to remove the 20th Division from CFC control, and the response was, “Your request is approved.” A book I read seized on this response, saying, basically, “See? The U.S. does have to approve everything.” Except the problem is that General Wickham was in the U.S. at the time, so it couldn’t have been him – it was his Korean second-in-command, 백석주, who gave the response. As for the U.S. allowing the 20th Division to be moved down to Kwangju to end the Uprising, that was a lot of smoke and mirrors on Chun Doo-hwan’s part. The point is, the 20th Division had already been removed from the Combined Forces Command on May 16th, but then Chun still went about and asked if it was OK to send them down to Kwangju. He didn’t need to do
 that – he already had them under his command – but I think he did that to make it look like he needed permission. At the same time, the U.S. asked that fliers be printed up and distributed showing the U.S. position, which called for “calm on both sides,” but Chun did not distribute them – he instead put out an announcement saying that the U.S. had approved the initial crackdown using the paratroopers.
So I don’t think the U.S. is to blame for the Uprising, or for the brutality of the paratroopers which set off the Uprising. I’d lay responsibility for that at the feet of Chun Doo-hwan. Perhaps they can be criticized for not putting more pressure on the Korean military to find a peaceful way to end the Uprising, but at the same time, Chun controlled the press and controlled most of the information coming out of Kwangju, so they may have believed the military’s propaganda that these “hooligans are
 running around and they have guns,” and “Oh my God,” so that lack of information may have played into Chun’s hands. But, still, I don’t think they’re completely blameless, especially in how the U.S. embraced Chun after the Uprising. Because of the need for stability, the U.S. made a decision to back Chun Doo-hwan, essentially saying, “In the short term, support, in the longer term, pressure for political evolution.” Much as when they did little but complain to Chun after his coup in December of 1979, stability was the most important thing for the U.S. during and after the Kwangju Uprising. So you can certainly criticize that, and many did. For example, Horace G. Underwood III was talking to U.S. Embassy personnel at a meeting in 1980, and saying, “Chun is wrapping himself in the American flag, and if the U.S. does not do something about it, the U.S. will have hell to pay in the future.”   
  		 	   		  
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