By Kim Hyo-jin
The military conducted various maneuvers to divide the families of victims of a deadly crackdown on a pro-democracy movement in Gwangju in 1980 on orders from then-President Chun Doo-hwan, lawmakers said Thursday.
Citing newly found documents, Rep. Rhee Cheol-hee of the ruling Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) said the Defense Security Command (DSC) under Chun’s leadership sought to break the unity of the bereaved families by financially supporting the “moderates” while isolating the “hardliners.”
Rhee unveiled a series of behind-the-scenes maneuvers based on the documents made by the DSC between 1981 and 1988, part of which were acquired by the defense ministry’s investigation panel into the May 18 movement.
The move was aimed to diminish the influence of Chun’s critics after the bloody suppression and prevent further unrest, according to the documents.
They stated that the DSC conducted one-on-one surveillance on radical families and persuaded them to drop their calls for justice.
At the same time, it approached the soft-liners with job offers or exempting education fees for their children.
The strategy appeared to work, Rhee said, as the DSC later wrote they succeeded in causing conflict between the families.
The maneuvering was widely applied to students and religious groups in the city.
One document showed the DSC provided money to the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps of Chonnam National University, whose students were the main force of the 1980 uprising, and had them collect information and sabotage activities of an anti-government academic circle in the school.
The military body also blocked church services to commemorate the victims of the bloody suppression and sent Christian and Catholic leaders on a “security tour” to the truce village of Panmunjom on the inter-Korean border and the third tunnel north of Seoul, the largest tunnel dug by North Koreans to infiltrate into the South after the armistice.
Another document shows the DCS sought cooperation with the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency when suppressing a demonstration of families of imprisoned Gwangju protesters at the U.S. Information Service.
Meanwhile, Rep. Park Ju-min of the DPK unveiled more documents, showing Chun had played a direct role in dividing the bereaved families of the victims.
Chun ordered South Jeolla Province’s governor at the time to use compensation as a means to do this, Park said based on the documents, by giving it only to the moderate families and excluding the hawkish ones.
The bereaved families were treated based on its own standard which divided them into three categories ― A, B, and C ― depending on the level of complaints against the government, he added.
The lawmaker also unveiled that Chun ordered to relocate the burial sites of the victims further away from each other, saying, “It intended to remove the possibility of the location being an epicenter of other protests.”
The lawmakers called for a thorough investigation into Chun and his military body’s illegal activities, stressing the need to pass a special law to set up an independent panel.
“The division policy or plans to move the graves were only rumors before, but now, the documents, actual evidence, are proving it was all true. Shockingly enough, the person who ordered this turned out to be Chun himself,” Park said.
“I urge the opposition parties to cooperate with the passage of the pending special law so we can dig deeper into the allegations and hold accountable those responsible for the illegal activities.”
The May 18 pro-democracy movement in Gwangju was a historic uprising in 1980 against Chun’s military junta, which killed hundreds and wounded thousands of protesters and other citizens of Gwangju.
On May 21, 1980, the army opened fire on citizens in front of the South Jeolla provincial government building, killing 54 and wounding about 500. By May 27, when it brought the city under control, the army had killed at least 165 citizens and injured around 1,600, according to government estimates.
Bereaved families of the victims and civic groups estimate the numbers are much higher.