Families of Gwangju uprising witnesses to visit Korea
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Charles Betts Huntley, center, a late American missionary who documented the 1980 pro-democracy uprising in Gwangju, and his wife Martha, left, speak in this undated file photo./ Korea Times file
By Yi Whan-woo
Families of two late American missionaries who witnessed and documented the massacre of the pro-democracy uprising in Gwangju on May 18, 1980, will come to Korea next month.
The May 18 Memorial Foundation said Wednesday the families of Charles Betts Huntley and Arnold Peterson will join the commemoration of the 38th anniversary of the uprising. The Moon Jae-in government will host the ceremony in Gwangju.
“Their visit is meaningful considering we still have a lot of work to do in revealing the truth behind the uprising,” the foundation said.
It added Huntley’s family will bring some of his remains and bury them in Gwangju in line with his wishes before he died in the U.S. at age 81 on June 26, 2017.
The remains will be buried at a cemetery for Christian missionaries who devoted their lives to Gwangju.
The two families will attend a human rights awards ceremony, also in Gwangju, before returning home on May 20.
Huntley was serving as the chaplain at a Christian hospital in Gwangju when Army Major General Chun Doo-hwan’s military junta brutally suppressed the uprising.
Huntley secretly took photos of dead and injured civilians to avoid censorship.
He later wrote for foreign media outlets about the massacre and contributed the photos with his articles.
He delivered some of the photos to Jurgen Hinzpeter, a German journalist who witnessed the Chun-led atrocities and helped expose the incident worldwide.
Chun deported Huntley four years after the suppression.
Huntley spent the rest of his life in the U.S.
He lived in Korea for 20 years. He helped American families adopt Korean orphans and worked as an auxiliary chaplain for the U.S. Air Force as well.
He is survived by wife Martha and four children.
Peterson, a former professor of history, came to Korea in 1973 as a missionary.
He witnessed the massacre in Gwangju and testified about related events, including a military helicopter firing a machine gun from the air.
A mystery remains about who gave the order to open fire in each incident to quell the protests scattered around Gwangju.
It was only revealed in 2017 that the Army Headquarters ordered the helicopter machine gun to open fire as part of an operation to help paratroopers land safely on a building and begin the crackdown.
Chun’s supporters tried to taint the uprising as a riot but Peterson claimed consistently the protesters inevitably stood against the military junta and that the military was responsible for the bloodshed.
The foundation said the U.S. government sought to evacuate both Huntley and Peterson as well as their families to a nearby U.S. Air Force base during the crackdown. But they all refused and documented the massacre.