77 years after April 3

April 3 marks the 77th anniversary of the Jeju 4/3 incident. Very few foreigners know that Jeju Island, an iconic island of peace and prosperity loved by the Korean people and the world, has experienced the most tragic event in Korea's modern history.

According to the "Jeju April 3rd Incident Fact-Finding Report" released in 2003 by the Jeju April 3rd Incident Fact-Finding and Victims' Honor Restoration Committee, the incident is defined as follows. "Starting with the police firing incident on March 1, 1947, the armed forces of the Jeju Island Party of the Southern Workers' Party broke out on April 3, 1948, under the banner of resistance to the repression of the police and the Northwest Youth Brigade and opposition to the disconnection and categorical government, until the opening of the Mount Halla Forbidden area on Sept. 21, 1954, and the armed clashes between the armed forces and the punitive forces on Jeju Island, in which a large number of residents were sacrificed."

The name April 3rd incident was derived from the large-scale unrest that ocurred on April 3, 1948. The special conditions of Jeju Island and the conflict between the police, the Northwest Youth Brigade and the people of Jeju Island that arose after the the March 1 Memorial Ceremony in 1947, and the resulting tension were combined with the struggle against the May 10, 1948, unilateral elections by the Jeju Island Chapter of South Korean Socialist Workers' Party.

After the liberation of Korea in 1945, the situation on Jeju was that people had returned from Japan and were without jobs.There were also shortages of necessities and food, a cholera epidemic and the failure of the U.S. military government's rice grain policy. It aggravated public sentiment toward the military government.

During a March 1 rally in 1947, a child was hit by a police sword and the police opened fire on citizens who had gathered to protest, which led to a general strike launched by the Jeju Island Chapter of South Korean Socialist Workers' Party. The military government analyzed the cause of the general strike against the police firing and the instigation of the South Korean Socialist Workers' Party to take advantage of it, but as a follow-up response, it focused on the latter and dispatched the Northwestern Youth Brigade to carry out a hard-line arrest operation.

On April 3, 1948, the Jeju Island chapter of the South Korean Socialist Workers' Party, which had its organization exposed, carried out an attack on a police station and right-wing figures under the slogan of "opposition to the unilateral election," and disrupted the May 10 election. The incident is a collection of virtually all types of massacres, starting with the government's violent suppression of protests, massacres in the name of suppressing communist rebels, massacres based on ideology and religious beliefs, massacres targeting residents of specific areas and retaliatory ones. The tragedy and dark history of Jeju, which subsided in 1954, finally saw the light of day thanks to the efforts of well-meaning Jeju residents, journalists and scholars. In 2004, then-South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun officially apologized and declared his intention to uncover the truth.

Roh's speech at the time ended like this: “The people of Jeju have rebuilt a beautiful island from the ruins and are showing a higher level of self-governance than any other region. The residents themselves have always achieved higher results than expected by the central government. As much as you take the lead, the government will also support you and push you hard.

"Let's work together to create a rich and vibrant Jeju. Let us achieve peace in Korea, Northeast Asia and the world through this island of peace. And as I watched this event from here today, I had the expectation that the immense pain and anger would become a history that we can look back on over time, and that it would become a new culture of Jeju Island in the decades that would become an important symbol of love, faith and reconciliation for all our people, not anger, mistrust and hatred. Let's work together.”

Lee Sang-ki is CEO and publisher of AsiaN. He is founding president of the Asia Journalist Association.