Jeju 4.3 & Protest

Warning: this post contains mentions and references to intense violence, including sexual violence.

I am dedicating a specific post to the Jeju uprising and massacre on April 3rd 1948 (known commonly here as “Jeju 4.3”), as I have seen frequent memorials to this historical horror around the island and, like most if not all of you reading this, had no idea what it was prior. But the more I read about it, the more it settles within me, the more it coalesces with my befuddled fury over what is developing in my own country. Nearly all of the information I’ve found on this event has been on Korean-based websites, very few US sites, but good thing I’m currently in South Korea.

One of the approximately 90 memorial sites on Jeju Island dedicated to Jeju 4.3, Seogwipo.

In a nutshell, following decades of Japanese occupation of Korea and the end of World War II, the US Army established a military presence and control of Jeju Island. Many left-leaning Koreans on Jeju were vehemently opposed to the formation of separate Korean governments as would follow in the upcoming election, but the United States’s sole focus was snuffing out any and all communist leanings or sympathies, as it was everywhere in those years. The US Army bolstered the police presence on Jeju to try to manage this concern, and also imposed a punitive restriction on barley imports following a poor harvest season. Tensions escalated, and protests and mass arrests ensued.

In March of 1947, police fired gunshots into a crowd of protesters, killing six civilians. The US Army did nothing about this; no repercussions for the police officers who fired the shots. This enraged the citizens, and violence erupted around Jeju. The US Army armed and backed right-wing groups to counter what they perceived to be a rising “Red Island”. This was the tinder to ignite a massacre that would cost Jeju Island 10% of its population.

On April 3rd, 1948, armed rebels attacked police stations and the powder keg of both right-wing and left-wing forces on Jeju exploded into a bloodbath of murder, rape, the burning of farms and villages, torture, and destruction with a death toll of around 30,000. During this time, the US Army was the governing authority of Jeju, and did nothing to prevent the violence. According to the foreign policy journalist organization Inkstick - one of the only US sources on Jeju 4.3 that I could find, with many citations from the 2000 Jeju 4.3 Committee for Investigation - the US Army wasn’t apathetic, it was strategic: “One US official saw the 4.3 uprising as an opportunity for South Korean military forces to gain combat experience.”

The United States was ultimately successful in the containment of communism to the north. The election in May of 1948 secured South Korea as a separate entity from North Korea. To once again quote Inkstick, “Jeju had the lowest voter turnout in the country, the highest election-related injury and death rate, and the election results were deemed invalid.”

To be clear, I am not suggesting that the division of Korea was good or bad, or making any statement about communism. That isn’t the point. A foreign occupying entity - the United States - not only oppressed the voices of Korean citizens on the fate of their country, but it also actively participated in their mass execution as a way of controlling the outcome of their election.

Furthermore, it weaponized their protests and incited their civil dissidents as a means to an end that had nothing to do with the well-being or future of the people of Jeju Island.

Prison camps were all the rage under the police state and US Army-controlled Jeju in 1947-1948.

Now you know why you haven’t heard about it.

The horror is indisputable. The scene and the players are predictable. The inhumanity is familiar.

In my 20+ years of teaching science, there are often these lunch table conversations where my teaching colleagues and I jest about which subject is the most important one. As the scientist at the table, my argument is always easy: you can’t write plays or learn history or make art without clean water or air, can you? Isn’t climate change our worst problem? Etc etc. These kinds of silly debates are always a false dilemma anyway. We all need each other. Without writing skills, science doesn’t get communicated, and without understanding history, people vote for administrations who defund all the science, and without art, none of this insanity is remotely bearable.

But I have to give this one to the history teachers. They are the ones who say, “Hey, here is this thing that has happened many times and here is what it looks like.” And whether on every bookshelf in the West depicting 20th Century Germany, or on scattered memorials across an island remembering 20th Century South Korea, or on countless other means of communicating the truth of our past, history always says “yep, yep, here is what the thing looks like.” And even when Hollywood says, “Look! Here’s what the thing looks like. We can even dress it up as Star Wars and make it go pew-pew with lasers so you’ll watch it.”

We watch it, we cheer for the “good guys”, and then, we (Americans) either vote for the fascists or for the team that appears to do not a single goddamn thing about the fascists. A concentration camp is opening in Florida this month. Our Secretary of Homeland Security believes Habeas Corpus to be precisely the opposite of what it means. There are too many examples of madness to name, and yet right this second, I can’t even conjure a nice round third to bring balance to this paragraph because of the daily onslaught of fresh “Breaking News” horrors in my email inbox from the NY Times has me overwhelmed with options. Someone go spin a roulette wheel, it could seriously be anything.

Yes, I am well aware of the fact that these little slivers of what are mind-numbingly stupid at best and outright inhumane at worst are a far cry from a 30,000 dead bloodbath. How quickly did Jeju 4.3 escalate, by the way? And my dear frogs, how does the water in the pot feel right now?

We turn on the news, and it says, “Protestors are a problem.” That tells you where we are in this story. In the German resistance story, in the Jeju story, in the Andor story, history or fiction, the mile markers are all the same.

Another Jeju 4.3 memorial at Cheonjeyeon Falls.

So far on my trip, I have not encountered any other Americans (there must be some here somewhere, but we certainly aren’t the primary tourist clientele for Jeju). This is simultaneously isolating and liberating most of the time, but today, it felt heavy. I felt a deep shame for my country and the only notable role it has played in Jeju’s history. The people of Jeju deserve a formal apology from the US government, and I so wish it had happened during the Obama or Biden administrations; it will certainly not happen now, and sadly, survivors or anyone who would remember Jeju 4.3 are not likely to be around too much longer to witness such a thing in the future (except some of the haenyeo, maybe. They seem to be quite badass at longevity, too).

Do we ever get this right?

Another Jeju 4.3 memorial at Cheonjeyeon Falls.