Gwangju Uprising | Facts, Massacre, & Dates
britannica.com/event/Gwangju-Uprising
Chong-suk Han
Politics, Law & Government Law, Crime & Punishment Crime & Anti-Crime
Gwangju Uprising
South Korean history
Also known as: Gwangju Rebellion, Kwangju Rebellion, Kwangju Uprising
Quick Facts
Gwangju Uprising, mass protest against the South Korean military government that
took place in the southern city of Gwangju between May 18 and 27, 1980. Nearly a
quarter of a million people participated in the rebellion. Although it was brutally
repressed and initially unsuccessful in bringing about democratic reform in South
Korea, it is considered to have been a pivotal moment in the South Korean struggle for
democracy.
The roots of the Gwangju Uprising may be traced to the authoritarianism of the
Republic of Korea’s first president, the anticommunist Syngman Rhee. During his
almost 18 years in office, Rhee grew continuously more repressive toward his political
opposition in particular and the country’s citizens in general. Those conditions
precipitated massive student-led demonstrations in early 1960 and Rhee’s ouster in
April of that year. After the country was governed for a brief period by a parliamentary
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system, a military coup led by Gen. Park Chung-Hee displaced the government in May
1961. Park became president the following year and remained in office for the next 18
years.
As president, Park repressed the political opposition and the personal freedom of South
Korea’s citizens and controlled the press and the universities. In December 1972 he
introduced the Yushin Constitution, which dramatically increased presidential powers
and created a virtual dictatorship. When Park was assassinated on October 26, 1979, a
power void resulted that was filled by Chun Doo-Hwan, a brigadier general who had
taken control of the South Korean military through an internal coup. Once in power,
Chun persuaded the new president, Choi Kyu-Hah, to name him chief of the Korean
Central Intelligence Agency in April 1980. The military, under Chun’s leadership,
declared martial law the following month.
The situation soon escalated with a series of nationwide protests against military rule
that were led by labor activists, students, and opposition leaders, who began calling for
democratic elections. Gwangju—the provincial capital of South Jeolla, in southwestern
South Korea—which had a long history of political opposition and a simmering
grievance toward the Park regime, was a center of the pro-democracy movement. On
May 18 some 600 students gathered at Chonnam National University to protest against
the suppression of academic freedom and were beaten by government forces. Civilian
demonstrators joined the students.
With the approval of the United States, which had maintained operational control over
combined U.S. and Korean forces since the end of the Korean War, Chun’s
government sent elite paratroopers from the Special Forces to Gwangju to contain the
unrest. When the soldiers arrived, they began beating the demonstrators. Rather than
squelch the protest, the brutal tactics had the opposite effect, inciting more citizens to
join in.
As the uprising continued, protesters broke into police stations and armories to seize
weapons. They armed themselves with bats, knives, pipes, hammers, Molotov
cocktails, and whatever else they could find. They faced 18,000 riot police and 3,000
paratroopers. On May 20 a newspaper called the Militants’ Bulletin was published to
counter the “official” news being published by government-run or highly partisan media
outlets such as the newspaper Chosun Ilbo, which had characterized the protesters as
hoodlums with guns. By the early evening of May 21, the government had retreated,
and the citizens of Gwangju declared the city liberated from military rule.
The relative quiet lasted only six days. In the predawn hours of May 27, Chun’s military
forces unleashed tanks, armored personnel carriers, and helicopters that began
indiscriminately attacking the city. It took the military only two hours to completely crush
the uprising. According to official government figures, nearly 200 people—the great
majority of them civilians—were killed in the rebellion, but Gwangju citizens and
students insisted that the number was closer to 2,000.
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Despite the uprising’s failure to bring about democracy in the Korean peninsula, the
sentiments surrounding the episode continued to simmer afterward. By the late 1980s
public demand and scrutiny had led to the reinstitution of direct presidential elections
under Chun’s chosen successor, Roh Tae-Woo, and in 1993 Kim Young-Sam became
the first president democratically elected by the Korean people. In 1998 Kim Dae-Jung,
who had once been arrested and sentenced to death for his role during the Gwangju
Uprising, became the second democratically elected president; Roh Moo-Hyun, who
became president in 2003, also had a connection to the uprising. In 1996 Chun and
Roh Tae-Woo had been convicted of mutiny, treason, and corruption in connection with
the 1979 coup and the Gwangju massacre, but Kim Dae-Jung upon taking office as
president in 1997 pardoned both men.
The events of 1980 in Gwangju continued to have a significant impact on the Korean
people and the politics on the peninsula. The role played by the U.S. military during the
uprising led to an increase in anti-American sentiment among South Korean students
Chun Doo-Hwan, 1985 Former
and activists. A national cemetery in Gwangju is dedicated to the victims killed during
South Korean president (1980-1988) Chun
the struggle for democracy. A Gwangju museum Doo-Hwan
devoted to thea uprising
was andfigure,
controversial the known
for his military
designation of May 18 as a national day of commemoration coupmark
likewise and subsequent
the
significance of the Gwangju Uprising in the development authoritarian
of democracy government.
in South Korea.
Chun Doo-Hwan
Chong-suk Han
president of South Korea
Written and fact-checked by The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
Last Updated: Oct 7, 2024 • Article History
Quick Facts
Born:
January 18, 1931, Hapcheon, South Gyeongsang, Korea [now in South Korea]
Died:
November 23, 2021, Seoul, South Korea
See all related content
Chun Doo-Hwan (born January 18, 1931, Hapcheon, South Gyeongsang, Korea [now
in South Korea]—died November 23, 2021, Seoul, South Korea) Korean soldier and
politician who was president of South Korea from 1980 to 1988.
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Born into a peasant family, Chun entered the Korean Military Academy in 1951.
Following his graduation in 1955, he became an infantry officer and in 1958 married
Lee Soon Ja, daughter of Brig. Gen. Lee Kyu Dong. Chun commanded a South Korean
division in South Vietnam during the Vietnam War and rose rapidly through the ranks.
After Park Chung Hee seized power in 1961, Chun served as civil service secretary for
the junta (1961–62) and, in 1963, with the nominal restoration of civilian government,
as chief of personnel of the Korean Central Intelligence Agency (KCIA; now the
National Intelligence Service). He served in various other official posts and was made a
brigadier general in 1978.
After the assassination of President Park in 1979, Chun, as the chief of army security
command, took charge of the investigation of his death. In December 1979 he arrested
several suspects, including his rival, the army chief of staff, Gen. Chung Seung-
Hwa(Jeong Seung-Hwa). Following these arrests, he purged many of Chung’s
supporters in a virtual coup by one military faction against another. Although the official
president was Choi Kyu Hah, Chun emerged as the real holder of power, and in April
1980 he became head of the KCIA. In May the military under Chun’s leadership
dropped all pretense of civilian rule, declared martial law, and brutally suppressed
democratic civilian opposition in the city of Gwangju.
After President Choi resigned on August 16, Chun resigned from the army and on
August 27 became president. With the country still under martial law, Chun pushed
through a new constitution in late 1980 that allowed him to govern with a firm hand.
Chun’s tenure was punctuated by several crises, notably a financial scandal in 1982
that forced him to replace half his cabinet and an assassination attempt in Burma
(Myanmar) by North Korean agents in 1983 that resulted in the deaths of several top
aides and ministers. As president, Chun devoted his efforts to maintaining economic
growth and political stability. South Korea continued its export-led economic growth
under Chun, and the nation industrialized rapidly.
Chun was prohibited by the terms of the 1980 constitution from serving more than one
seven-year term, and in 1987 he picked Roh Tae Woo to be the candidate of the ruling
Democratic Justice Party (now part of the Grand National Party). He retired from
politics after being succeeded by Roh in 1988. Despite public gestures of atonement for
abuses of power during his presidency, Chun could not distance himself from the
lingering public memory of his actions. In December 1995 both he and Roh were
indicted on charges of having accepted bribes during their terms as president. In
addition, the outcry over the extent of the fraud (hundreds of millions of dollars)
prompted prosecutors to pursue charges (which had been brought by the prosecutor’s
office in 1994) related to their involvement in the 1979 coup and their actions during the
1980 uprising in Kwangju. Both were found guilty of all charges in August 1996. Chun
was sentenced to death and Roh to 221/2 years in prison. Chun’s sentence was later
reduced to life imprisonment and Roh’s to 17 years; both received presidential pardons
in December 1997.
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The Editors of Encyclopaedia BritannicaThis article was most recently revised and
updated by Ethan Teekah.
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