Vol. 72/No. 27      July 7, 2008

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission, led by Kim Dong-Choon, has investigated the killings over the course of two years and estimates that there are around 150 mass graves in south Korea from the period of the Korean war. The government commission estimates that 25,000 were killed in the province of South Gyeongsang alone.

The commission is also handling petitions filed with the government by more than 7,000 south Koreans who were affected by the mass executions.  
 
History of struggle
Coming out of World War II, the Korean people fought to end their colonial domination by Japan. On Sept. 6, 1945, a new government was formed based on popular mobilizations. It announced plans for land reform, nationalization of key industries, and improved working conditions. The U.S. government invaded Korea two days later and occupied the southern part of the country.

The Rhee dictatorship was installed in 1948 by a rigged election conducted by Washington under the cover of the United Nations. The regime was characterized by brutal repression of workers’ rights, and by 1950, prisons in the south held up to 30,000 political prisoners. Rhee was in power for 12 years before being overthrown by popular mobilizations of workers and students in 1960.

In north Korea, meanwhile, capitalist property relations were overturned and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) was founded in 1948.

Between 1949 and early 1950, the DPRK built up its military in response to provocations by the U.S.-backed Rhee regime. In June of 1950, war broke out between UN forces led by Washington and the DPRK’s Korean People’s Army.

In this context the mass killings in the south were organized as a way to prevent the DPRK from absorbing political prisoners in the south into the ranks of its army. As forces from the north progressed southward, prisoners were either executed on the spot or trucked to remote locations where they were killed.  
 
U.S. complicity in atrocities
Complicity on behalf of the U.S. government fueled much of the killings, the commission points out. According to the AP article, U.S. military officials considered the situation a Korean “internal matter,” despite having direct oversight on all military forces in south Korea at the time. Now declassified U.S. military documents regarding the Korean War include army photographs of one of the mass killings.

The workers and farmers of Korea defeated the UN forces in 1953, handing U.S. imperialism its first military defeat.

Since then, the United States has maintained a large military presence on the Korean peninsula and continues to this day to enforce the partition of the country. Today, there are about 28,000 U.S. troops in south Korea. According to the U.S. State Department website, $11 billion from the U.S. war budget will go toward “force enhancements” in the region around south Korea over the next four years.
 
 
Related articles:
Korean truckers strike, win pay raise to offset fuel costs  
 
 
Front page (for this issue) | Home | Text-version home