"Documenting the Truth: Jeju 4.3" by Marissa Lynn, ETA

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Marissa Lynn KAEC Documenting the Truth: Jeju 4.3 June 13, 2014

2 Before 1950 no place suffered the political conflicts of liberated Korea like Jeju.

Jeju is a magnifying glass, a microscope on the politics of postwar Korean, for in no place else were the issues so clear and the international influence so tangential as in the peasant war on this windswept, haunted, magnificent island.

-Bruce Cummings, The Origins of the Korean War The events which unfolded on Jeju between 1947 and 1954 served as a horrific

precursor to the Korean War and for years were omitted from the post colonial narrative of modern Korea. Idyllic Jeju, an island known as the Hawaii of Korea and a weekend get-away from caffeine-driven, workaholic Seoul, was once ravaged by a bloody conflict.

Mass arrests and civilian killings became commonplace as military police waged violent counterinsurgency campaigns across the island. The killings were indiscriminate in nature and majority of the 14,382 people killed lacked political agendas or ideologies (Jeju Peace Institute). Why did these gruesome atrocities occur and how did they go so long without recognition? To understand the nature of the civilian massacres that occurred on Jeju, it is helpful to understand the political environment on the Korean peninsula immediately following liberation from Japan between 1945 and 1948.

Historical and Political Context The Jeju 4.3 events occurred within the context of political upheaval following the end of Japanese colonial rule. After thirty-five years of repressive colonization, Korea was liberated when the Japanese emperor surrendered to the Allied Forces on August 15, 1945 (Kim, 30). Between 1945 and 1948, Korea enjoyed a brief period of enthusiasm for the new, unified Korean state. However, the rapid and unexpected liberation and the sharp ideological division of independence groups, created an environment where no single group possessed the authority to unify the peninsula. On September 7, 1945, the US Army established a military government in the southern half of the Korean Peninsula,

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meanwhile the Soviet Union exercised influence in the north. Despite the US occupation force’s declared sovereignty, five major political groups existed in south. These groups encompassed rightist groups, which identified with a pro-American and anti-Soviet agenda, far leftist groups, which took the opposite view, and several groups in between.

The Moscow Agreement, a joint commission between the United States, the Soviet Union, and Great Britain in January of 1946, deepened the divide between rightists and leftists (Kim, 33). Leftists supported its objective of creating a unified government on the peninsula, while Rightists opposed the agreement as a perceived extension of the rule of foreign powers. The Moscow Agreement solidified the divide between leftists and rightists and resulted in the formation of two political groups – one at each ideological extreme. The extreme leftist group was the South Korean Labor Party, led by Park Heon-yeong. The Korean Democratic Party existed on the other end of the spectrum and was led by Rhee Syng-man. In general, the US occupation forces and military government’s policies empowered rightist political forces and suppressed leftist groups. The military government adopted a position of “neutrality,” yet it was no secret that it favored the rightists.

Under the Moscow Agreement, the United States and Soviet Union met in March and May of 1946 to discuss the creation of a unified Korean government. Amidst growing Cold War tensions, each nation advocated for a different agenda resulting in the failure of the joint commission. The United States deferred to the United Nations and UN-monitored elections were scheduled to for May 10th, 1948. Obstruction of the UN election process, which justified the creation of a separate government in the South, was

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one of the key goals of Communist insurgents in Jeju and is intricately linked to the 4.3 events on the island (Kim, 36).

While peninsula wide events set the scene for the tragedy that would occur on Jeju, geography alone cast Jeju as a secluded, isolated, and mysterious place. Located off the southern coast of the Korean peninsula, Jeju was historically where government officials exiled from Seoul were sent. Traditionally, Jeju islanders have distanced themselves from mainlanders. Following the end of colonial rule, Jeju was granted independent provincial status, and no longer operated as a subordinate administrative unit of South Jeolla Province. This resulted in key changes, including an increase in taxes and presence of police and military personal on the island. Coupled with a deteriorating economy and a widespread cholera epidemic, Jeju was ripe with political and socioeconomic tension.

Seeds of the Conflict Tensions erupted on March 1st, 1947 when leftist groups organized a rally to commemorate the twenty-eight anniversary of the 3.1 Independence Movement from Japan. As a precaution, one hundred police reinforcements were sent from the mainland to monitor the event. Twenty-five thousand people attended a ceremony authorized by local authorities the morning of March 1st (Kim, 40). Later in the afternoon, a mounted policeman hit a six-year old child during an unauthorized street demonstration. The policeman simply rode off without acknowledging the incident, causing an enraged group of spectators to pursue him to the local station. The police at the station opened fire on the pursuers, killing six and severing injuring eight. Two bystanders were killed including

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a fifteen-year old student and a twenty-one-year old mother nursing a child (Kang, personal interview, 5/11/2014).

The March 1st events turned public sentiment against the police. While the local police were quick to justify the shootings as self-defense, even Governor Park Gyeonghun admitted that the victims had all been spectators and not demonstrators. In response, the local branch of the Communist Party organized a general strike, which developed into a province-wide strike beginning March 10th, 1947. Forty thousand local people representing 166 organizations participated in the strike, indicating the provincial consensus in regards to the unjustified police shootings (Kim, 40). The unity of the local people furthered the divide with the police – the majority of which were from the mainland (Kang, personal interview, 5/11/2014).

April 3rd Events The conflict continued to simmer as an extreme rightist governor, Yu Hae-jin, took office in April and created two local rightist youth groups. In response, several leaders of the local Communist Party planned an armed protest against the police and rightist youth groups. At 2:00 am on April 3rd, 1948, around 320 leftist insurgents, armed with twenty-seven rifles, three pistols, twenty-five grenades, and seven smoke shells, attacked police stations along with the offices and residences of rightist political leaders (Kim, 42). The leftists were united under their resistance to perceived US imperialism and the scheduled elections in the south. The 4.3 events resulted in the deaths of four policemen and two insurgents. Six police were also injured and four remained unaccounted. Tragically, eight civilians were killed and nineteen were injured, marking the beginning of the massive civilian losses that would occur in Jeju (Jeju Peace Park).

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Beginning with the 4.3 incident, thousands of innocent Jeju people were killed in armed conflicts between insurgents and military/police forces or during systematic killing of perceived Communists (Ko, personal interview, 12/7/2013).

Immediately following the armed uprising, police and committed antiCommunists were sent from the mainland to Jeju to quell the rebellion. The director of the Korean National Police Cho Byeong-ok asked the president of the national Northwest Youth Association, Mun Bong-je to send around five hundred “committed antiCommunist” members to Jeju (Kim, 55). Two hundred police reinforcements were sent as well. At the same time, the US occupation authorities requested that Colonel Kim Ikryeol, commander of the 9th Regiment in charge of Jeju, meet with the leader of the insurgent forces to draft a peace accord. The two sides reportedly reached an accord on April 28th, 1948. Despite the supposed agreement, an incident occurred three days later in a small village called Ora, which led to fighting between leftist insurgents and rightist youth group members. Following the incident, the US Occupation Forces ordered a prompt suppression of the insurgency. Leftist attacks became more frequent after the US Occupation Force’s commands and the approach of elections in the south. The leftists targeted local election centers and burned voting lists and ballot boxes. As result, elections in two of the three electorates in Jeju were declared invalid and the election was declared null (Katsiaficas, 121).

Full-scale Counterinsurgency Operation Following the failed election, the military launched a full-scale counterinsurgency operation. The operation included three phrases: 1) to create strategic villages with fortresses and train local militia around the coastline, 2) to conduct massive sweeps of the

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interior of the island by burning all mountain villages and relocating residents to refugee camps, and 3) to remove suspected Communist insurgents and their supporters from refugee camps (Kim, 45). The indiscriminate and swift counterinsurgency began in midMay 1948 and hundreds of “Communist guerillas” were arrested. These communist guerillas were mainly uneducated farmers from mountain villages, lacking ideological and political agendas. The military and police arrested, tortured, and interrogated these suspects. Ironically, the sweeping arrests had the opposite effect and caused many young people in mountain villages to flee their homes and join the insurgents (Ko, JH, personal interview, 12/7/13).

Fighting in Jeju intensified with the creation of a separate South Korean government in August 1948. With the establishment of the Soviet-influenced Communist government in the North under the leadership of Kim Il-sung, the Communist party in the South organized, “underground elections” to elect representatives to participate in the Haeju Conference and support the creation of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. Six representatives from Jeju, including the leader of the insurgent forces, Kim Dal-sam, successfully escaped the blockaded island and participated in the conference (Kim, 45). Kim expressed his full support for the government in the north. His actions invoked fear in Rhee Syng-man, the first president of South Korea, as the Communist insurgency in Jeju meant that Rhee faced Communist opposition on two fronts.

To eliminate the perceived Communists on Jeju, a full-scale counterinsurgency operation was set to commence October 11th, 1948. Army, navy, and police units were reorganized under the newly instituted Jeju Defense headquarters in preparation for the operation. On the 17th of October, the commander of the headquarters, Major Song Yo-

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chan, issued a decree stating that anyone who was captured without a permit within a five-kilometer radius of the coastline would be executed (Jiseul, dir. O Muel). President Rhee proclaimed martial law in Jeju one month later. The military proceeded to burn mountain villages in order to destroy the hideouts and potential supply lines of the insurgents. Residents of mountain villages were forced to abandon their houses, livestock, and farms, and to relocate to coastal villages. Eighty to ninety thousand residents of mountain villages, around one-third of the total population of Jeju, was relocated by military action by the end of the year (Kim, 47). The operation brought the majority of the civilian population under government control, excluding a few isolated insurgent groups.

The third phase of the plan aimed to extinguish insurgent action and began in January 1949. The military encircled Mt. Halla to drive out the insurgent forces. Mass civilian killings also occurred during this period. By the end of March, the military had destroyed the main forces of the insurgents, and only about five hundred insurgents were left near the base of Mt. Halla. The weakening of the insurgent forces brought about an amnesty program to induce the voluntary surrender of the remaining insurgent forces. In April, President Rhee visited Jeju to demonstrate the government’s control and suppression of rebel forces.

Suppression and Cover-up Following the toppling of the rebel resistance in Jeju and the conclusion of the Korean War, the Rhee regime hid any evidence of the incident as part of a stringent antiCommunist policy. The events in Jeju were labeled a “Communist Uprising” (Ko, personal interview, 12/7/13). Any demands by victims in Jeju suggesting past abuses by

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the State were completely suppressed. The Rhee Government claimed that those killed had either been Communists or aligned with the Communists. Furthermore, any complaints against the military or police were regarded as treason. Jeju victims and bereaved family members could not imagine addressing the deaths of their family members in this repressive environment (Ko, personal interview, 12/7/2013).

The first initiative to break this pattern of passivity and suppression occurred during South Korea’s first democratic transition in 1960. The Rhee dictatorship was overturned after a student-led demonstration and Korea welcomed a new era of leadership. The Fourth National Assembly took the initiative to explore the civilian massacres that occurred under the Rhee regime and created the Congressional Special Committee for Investigation of Civilian Deaths in May 1960 (Kim, 59). With the formation of this congressional committee, discussions regarding the 4.3 Jeju events began to take place. Students at Jeju National University were the first to publically investigate the massacre. Lee Mun-gyo, a sophomore and law major, and six other students created the Student Association for Investigating the Truth of the Jeju 4.3 Events on May 26th, 1960. The students published a statement in the Jeju Sinbo, the most important local newspaper, stating, “The time has come for us to appease the souls of the millions murdered by barbaric guns and swords by testifying to their innocence… after the truth is established, those who were responsible for the murders and the arson attacks should be punished” (Kim, 59). Lee and his friends traveled around Jeju collecting information about the mass killings, which inspired Shin Du-ban, the owner of the Jeju Sinbo, to conduct the first province-wide investigation. Application forms were distributed for families to report personal information about victims.

10 While Jeju natives were compiling their own reports on the massacre,

investigators from the Congressional Committee, failed to accurately report the scope of the massacre. Congressmen Choi Cheon, Cho Il-jae, and Park San-gil spent just two days on the island. During this time, only one public hearing with seven witness testimonies was held. The investigators returned to the mainland and decided not to report on the Jeju case at their congressional plenary session. Interestingly, Choi had been chief of the Jeju police during the 4.3 events, and a complete investigation of the events would have implicated wrongdoing on his watch. Choi argued that the Jeju 4.3 events were beyond the statute of limitation in criminal law: We investigators reached the conclusion that, in principle, the government should make reparations to civilian victims. However, the Jeju 4.3 events are not a matter of concern because in our criminal law, aiding and abetting a murder has a tenyear statute of limitations. The 4.3 events happened over ten years ago (Kim, 63).

Furthermore, Choi suggested that because of the Communist influence on Jeju it was impossible to distinguish civilians from insurgents and therefore the government could not take responsibly for the deaths of civilians.

While Choi and the Congressional Committee did little to seek the truth behind the 4.3 events, the Jeju narrative was completely silenced after Park Chung-hee’s military coup on May 16, 1961. Park treated all attempts to investigate civilian massacres, especially those committed by the military and police, as communist acts (Ko, personal interview, 12/7/2013). A day after the coup, the police on Jeju arrested Lee Mun-gyo and another Jeju University student, on the charge of assisting North Korea by stirring up social unrest through their investigation of the Jeju 4.3 events. Lee was detained for six months on the suspicion of being a Communist. Throughout his detention, Lee maintained that he had led the investigations based on the desire for truth and justice and

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not political leanings. This gained him the label of a Watermelon Communist, implying that he was a communist at heart (red on the inside), but perfectly disguised (green on the outside) (Kim, 57). Watermelon Communists were perceived as highly dangerous, due to their veiled political leanings. Park’s military police kept a constant eye on these “activists” and often arrested and tortured them. Such labels and extreme actions are examples of the Park Military Regime’s stringent anti-communist policies and authoritarian measures to control public thought.

During the Park Regime, Jeju 4.3 victims and surviving family members remained silent out of fear of the stigma associated with being Communists or reds. A victim testified, “It [the red stigma] haunted me throughout my sixty years.” The association with Communist political leaning could lead to arrests, surveillance, public stigma, and disgrace (Kang, personal interview, 5/11/14). In this way, attempts to bring truth and justice were stifled during Park’s eighteen-year rule between 1961 and 1979.

Beginnings of the Truth Seeking Movement One year prior to Park’s assassination, Hyun Gi-yeong published a short story titled Aunt Suni, marking an important breakthrough in the Jeju 4.3 commemoration movement. In Aunt Suni, the main character tells his story of 4.3 as he flies from Seoul to Jeju for his grandfather’s memorial service. The piece marks the first time the Jeju 4.3 events were discussed under Park’s dictatorship. Surprising, the short story was highly acclaimed throughout Korea. Hyun was astonished and nervous about the attention his work received – feelings that were well warranted as he was arrested by intelligence agents and beaten for three days after the story began to gain notoriety. Hyun did not foresee the impact of his piece; however, his book is credited with resurrecting the

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movement to discover the truth behind the 4.3 Jeju events (Kim, personal interview, 3/17/2014). It follows that in a society in which the political and social spheres were dominated by strict government surveillance, culture was the only public sphere available to activists. Hyun stumbled upon the importance of the cultural sphere, which would play a key role in the advocacy movement.

June 29th, 1987, marks the official democratic transition in Korea with President Roh Tae-woo’s allowance of direct presidential elections. During Roh’s presidency, a public movement organized at the local level began in Jeju to finally recognize the 4.3 incident and bring justice to the victims. The movement centered around three core projects: (1) annual memorial services on April 3rd, (2) special media coverage by local newspapers and television media, and (3) research activities led by volunteers at the Jeju 4.3 Research Institute. Just four months after Roh was elected president, students and activists secretly planned a public memorial service to recognize the fortieth anniversary of the April 3rd events. Government suppression remained high at this point and the local police reacted to halt the ceremonies. Instead of a province-wide memorial service, two small gatherings were held at Jeju National University and in Tokyo. The service at Jeju National University was the first memorial and political rally to recognize the 4.3 events and has become a yearly tradition. The following year, providential authorities permitted several local NGOs to organize a public memorial service under the careful surveillance of intelligence agents. The collaboration of representatives from several NGOs to plan the first authorized, public memorial service, led to creation of an effective advocacy network. In turn, the strength of this network contributed to the success of the 4.3 justice movement over the next ten years.

13 In addition to the advocacy network, art and local media played a large role in

increasing public awareness of the 4.3 events. Month long art festivals accompanied the memorial services including art exhibitions, traditional plays, literature nights, testimonials, documentaries, and traditional ceremonies. In this way, the official narrative of the Jeju 4.3 events as a “Communist Rebellion” was eroded by alternative interpretations.

Local media also proliferated alternative discourse of the Jeju 4.3 events. In March 1988, the Jeju Sinmun planned a special report called “Testimonies of 4.3.” After preliminary investigations indicated that the projected one-month project would be insufficient, the reporters decided to conduct a one-year investigation. Immediately following the publication of the first report on April 3rd, 1989, police and intelligence agents pressured the paper’s board of directors to discontinue their work, claiming that the pieces disturbed social stability by stirring up concluded history. The Jeju Sinmun continued to publish the reports despite pressure from the authorities. Local police responded by visiting the villages, included in the reports, and questioning witnesses to ensure all events were accurately reported. Any inconsistencies were grounds to sue the paper for libel. The police force’s careful fact checking resulted in more accurate and meticulous reporting, a precedent that carried over to the Jeju Commission.

In June 1990, a newly formed Jeju paper the Jemin Ilbo addressed one of the key debates surrounding the 4.3 events – what to call the incident. The paper began publishing a biweekly report on the 4.3 events under the title “4.3 Speaks.” Reporters chose to use “4.3” without labels such as “uprising” or “rebellion.” This careful omission departed from the four decade tradition, in which the Jeju 4.3 events were understood and

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referred to as a “Communist rebellion” (gongsan pokdong) in all government documents, public records, textbooks, and mass media publications. Yang Jo-hoon, a developing 4.3 expert and later leader of the Jeju Commission, strongly believed that the Jeju events should not be defined until after the facts were established. Yang can not be faulted in his thinking; however, since 1990 and the development of the Jeju Commission, the events have been labeled a democratic movement, popular uprising, massacre, revolt, antiAmerican struggle, riots, rebellions, a unification movement, and simply 4.3. The diversity of terms highlights the ideological controversy and historical misconceptions that remain. While alternative labels like “popular uprising” (minjung hangjaeng) and democratic movement (minjuhwa-undong) gained appeal during the democratization movement, there are still scholars and cautious activists that prefer to refer to the tragedy as an incident (sageon) or simply 4.3 (sa-sam) to avoid defining its characteristics. The use of these terms avoids political controversy, but does not rightfully acknowledge the magnitude of the tragedy that occurred on Jeju.

In addition to the media, researchers also played a critical role in the advocacy process. In May 1989, the Jeju 4.3 Research Institute was created with the goal of collecting and disseminating information related to the Jeju 4.3 events through newsletters, articles, and reports. The first report produced by the Jeju 4.3 Research Institute, Now I Speak (Ijesa Malhaemsuda) was published in 1989. The title alone speaks to the overdue development of a platform for victims to tell their stories. Researchers experienced difficulties in the compilation of the report, as virtually no written records of the 4.3 events existed at the time. One researcher noted: It took a year to finish Now I Speak, which was a two-volume report based on testimonies. It was extremely difficult to collect testimonies from victims, so we

15 first went to the elders in the village. But, still we had to spend long hours chatting on other issues such as the weather, agriculture, economy, politics, and so on in order to get a few sentences on the Jeju 4.3 events (Kim, 91).

Village elders were afraid to discuss the 4.3 events after decades of fierce repression and fear of being labeled a communist for speaking out. The persistence of researchers at the Jeju 4.3 Research Institute ensured that these accounts were not lost to history.

Darangshi Cave While the Jeju 4.3 Research Institute was successful in recording individual victim’s accounts, the excavation of Darangshi Cave provided concrete evidence that the killings in Jeju were indiscriminate and targeted unarmed civilians (Ko, personal interview, 11/30/2013). On April 2, 1992, both local and national media covered the discovery of the remains of nineteen civilians in Darangshi Cave – this marked the first time Jeju 4.3 events were covered by the national media since 1948. Investigation of the remains and testimonies revealed that the bodies belonged to three children under the age of ten, three elderly persons over the age of fifty, and four women and nine men between the ages of twenty and forty-nine. The evidence of gruesome state violence against women, children, and elderly people, shifted the advocacy movement from mainly students, activists, and journalists, to include the general public. With the support of the general public, activists were finally able to work effectively with the local government to memorialize the Jeju 4.3 events. Following the excavation of Darangshi Cave, the advocacy movement entered a new phase, which centered around three key activities: a united memorial service, a province-wide investigation, and a petition movement.

Jeju Special Law and the Jeju Commission

16 The next leap forward in the justice movement occurred in 1998 with the

inauguration of Kim Dae-jung. During his campaign, Kim pledged to enact a special law to investigate civilian massacres in Jeju. In addition, activists in Jeju were eager to leverage the, “fiftieth anniversary of the 4.3 Jeju events,” to substantiate their calls for justice (Kang, personal interview, 5/11/2013). President Kim and his ruling party set up the Special Committee on the Jeju 4.3 Events, which prompted the national media to cover the 4.3 as a current issue. The same year, the Jeju 4.3 Research Institute hosted the 2nd International Conference on Peace and Human Rights in the 21st Century East Asia.

This was a watershed event, as it was the first time the Jeju 4.3 events were framed as human rights violations, instead of being defined as a Communist Rebellion or a Prodemocracy Uprising (Kim, 136). The change in language and attitude towards the Jeju events paved the way for the creation of the Jeju Special Law and the Jeju Commission.

On January 13, 2000, President Kim signed the Jeju Special Law, which mandated the creation of two central bodies – the Jeju Commission and the administrative committee to finally bring justice and recognize the magnitude of the tragedy that occurred on Jeju. The Jeju Commission was designed specifically to investigate the Jeju 4.3 events, to identify victims, and to restore honor to these victims.

The prime minister was appointed to lead the commission, comprised of twenty commissioners including the governor of Jeju Province, state officials, and representatives of victims (Kim, 155). The administrative committee was charged with carrying out practical business such as accepting applications from victims, conducting preliminary fact-finding, and administrating reparations to victims.

17 The Jeju Commission had three key mandates. The first and most important

granted the commission two years to collect and analyze information and evidence and an additional six months to prepare and publish a report. Second, the commission had to receive individual applications from victims and their family members and provide medical and financial reparations. Finally, the commission had to carry out four commemoration projects and establish a memorial park with a museum, common graveyard, and monument.

The final report compiled by the Jeju Commission was published in October 2003, almost three years after the creation of the commission. The commission released seven policy recommendations: 1) issue an apology, 2) declare a memorial day, 3) use the report to educate students and the general public, 4) establish a memorial park, 5) provide essential living expenses to bereaved families, 6) support excavations of mass graves, and 7) continuously support further investigation and commemoration projects. As of the March 2014 declaration of April 3rd as a national memorial, the Korean government has worked to implement all seven policy recommendations. The first recommendation was carried out immediately following the release of the report with President Roh Moohyun’s apology to the victims, families, and Jeju islanders in his visit to Jeju on October 31, 2003. President Roh stated: In response to the recommendations from the Jeju Commission, I, in my capacity as President, would like to apologize for the wrongdoings of the previous government an depress my sincere condolences to the victims and the bereaved.

The government will actively will activity support the implementation of the commission’s recommendations such as building a memorial park and honoring the victims at the earliest time… By applying the valuable lessons that we have learned from the Jeju 4.3 Incident, we should try to promote universal values such as peace and human rights (Kim, 188).

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Roh’s apology was significant as is was the first apology issued by a head of state in South Korea, regarding human rights violation caused by state violence (Kim, personal interview, 3/17/2014). Additionally, the swift implementation of the first recommendation paved the way for implementation of the remaining suggestions.

Education, the second recommendation, was addressed with the distribution of the Jeju Commission to public offices, research institutions, high schools, and libraries nationwide. Government documents and high school history textbooks were edited after the release of the report and no longer characterized the events as a Communist rebellion and included a more balanced description of the armed uprising and civilian loses. The education office in Jeju decided to teach about the event in schools and published an educational manual. Schools throughout Jeju take annual field trips to the Jeju 4.3 Peace Park to further students’ awareness of the event (Kang, personal interview, 5/11/2014).

The Jeju 4.3 Peace Park was established by a 59.5 billion won budget from the Korean Government. The park opened in 2003 and the accompanying museum opened in 2008 (Jeju Peace Park).

The sixth and seventh initiatives, excavating mass graves and continually supporting future commemorative projects, were implemented after the Special Law was revised and passed by the National Assembly on December 22, 2006. The revision prompted the Jeju local government to launch a long-term excavation project of mass graves and to identify the remains of the victims. By 2010, the government had provided 4.3 billion won and eight mass murder sites had been unearthed, uncovering the remains of 396 victims (Kim, 193). The largest excavation took place near Jeju International Airport. Witness testimony indicated that hundreds of civilians were taken to the airport,

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forced to dig trenches, and then shot to death. Two trenches were discovered at the site – one with the remains of 123 victims and another with the remains of 261 victims.

Following the excavation, the remains were enshrined at the memorial park and a replica of the trenches was built to memorialize the magnitude of the airport killings.

The revision of the Special Law also led to the creation of the Jeju 4.3 Peace Foundation – a permanent institution charged with maintaining the museum and peace park, as well as, conducting additional research and investigations. The Jeju Commission was instated as a temporary institution; therefore, the development of a permanent institution was critical to ensure the success of future projects and the legacy of the Jeju 4.3 Memorial Movement.

The Roh Moo-hyun administration viewed the Jeju Commission as, “A successful case that illustrates how the investigation of past atrocities and restoration of the honor of victims can pave the way for the future” (Kim, 194). Furthermore, President Lee Myungbak who followed President Roh stated, “The evaluation of the Jeju 4.3 events has been properly done, and we should acknowledge the investigation” (Kim, 195). This statement was particularly important, as President Lee was a member of the conservative party, which historically had been more resistant to the 4.3 advocacy movement.

Success of the Jeju Commission What factors allowed for the success of the Jeju Commission? Hun Joon Kim, a senior lecturer at Griffith University with a research focus in international human rights and transitional justice, has pointed to four key conditions, which he believes led to the success of the Jeju Commission. The first condition is the careful redefinition and selection of language to use in regards to the incident. Under the Special Law, the Jeju

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4.3 events were defined as both an armed conflict and human rights violation that started with the police-shooting incident on March 1st, 1947. Definition of the start date removed any ambiguity regarding the sequence of events or should what be included in the dialogue regarding 4.3. Furthermore, clarifying the language used elucidated the precise nature of the tragedy, cleared up lingering misconceptions, and allowed groups with differing points of view to come to an agreement in regards to the events. Debates in subcommittees for the Jeju Commission centered on the use of the words, “scorchedearth operations” (chotohwa jakjeon), “mass killings” (jipdan salsang), and “armed uprising” (mujang bonggi) (Kim, 174). Military groups demanded the removal of “scorched-earth operations” from the draft, as the military did not use this specific term in regards to their tactics. “Excessive force during suppression” was suggested as an alternative. The military also proposed “massive life sacrifice” instead of “mass killings,” which seemed to suggest that the civilian deaths were collateral damage to the military operations. The last debate centered on the use of just “uprising” over “armed uprising,” as this term was thought to reflect the Communist point of view. In the end both “armed uprising” and “mass killings” were retained, but the use of “scorched-earth operations” was restricted to the discussion of consequences not specific military actions. Such an agreement was essential to move forward with reparations for victims and memorial initiatives.

Kim further elaborated on the success of the Jeju Commission due with its reliance on evidence, utilization of existing resources, and reaction to opposition. The commission was built on meticulously collected evidence, compiled in a twelve-volume report, containing 3,019 items covering 5,848 pages (Kim, 176). All documents and

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testimonies were systematically organized within a database where the information could be easily retrieved and sorted. Kim also praised the commission’s use of existing resources. Given the magnitude of the massacre and the amount of time that had passed, two and a half years was not enough time to complete an exhaustive investigation. By leveraging the previous work of local newspapers and absorbing the Research Institute, the Jeju Commission was able to accomplish its objectives in the allotted time. Finally, Kim suggested that the challenges and attacks from conservatives ultimately contributed to the success of the commission. Such challenges made the members of the investigation more attentive to detail and ensured that the report was based on concrete and indisputable evidence.

The final policy recommendation of the Jeju Commission was accomplished in March of 2014 with the declaration of April 3rd as a national memorial day. The 2014 ceremonies marked the sixty-six anniversary of the event and the ninth anniversary of Jeju’s designation as “The Island of World Peace.” The victims of 4.3 finally have received a tribute befitting of the magnitude of the tragedy that occurred. Yet while a national memorial has been declared, the truth exposed, and the victims honored, there are still 3,429 tombstones that dot the hillside at the 4.3 Jeju Peace Park (Jeju Peace Park). These tombstones mark the 3,429 victims that were never found. Tragically, there are still 3,429 families who will never know what happened to their loved ones.

22 Works Cited

“Cyber Exhibition Halls.” Jeju April 3rd Peace Park. The National Committee for Investigation of the Truth about the Jeju April 3rd Incident. 13 June 2014. <http://jeju43.jeju.go.kr/index.php?mid=EN> “Interview Kang Tae Ok.” Personal interview. 11 May 2014.

“Interview Kim Yeon hi.” Personal interview. 17 March 2014.

“Interview Ko Ji Hee.” Personal interview. 30 November 2013.

“Interview Ko Ji Hee.” Personal interview. 7 December 2013.

“Interview Ko Ji Hee.” Personal interview. 14 December 2013.

Jiseul. Dir. O Muel. Jin Jin Films. 2012. Film.

Katsiaficas, George N. “Against Korea's Division: Jeju Uprising and Yeosun Insurrection.” Asia's Unknown Uprisings. Oakland, CA: PM, 2012. 115-26.

Kim, Hun Joon. The Massacres at Mt. Halla. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 2014.

Moon, Tae-young. “History of the Jeju Peace Institute.” Jeju Peace Institute. 12 June 2014. <http://www.jpi.or.kr/index_en.html>