Korea RPCVs take part in discussion of US Role in Jeju Incident
Read and comment on this story from The Korean Times on a conference held in Korea aiming to mend the decades-old scars of the Jeju April Uprising, a tragic civilian massacre that erupted on the tropical island under U.S. military control. Audience members included Americans in their 50s and 60s who first visited Korea in their youth, working as Peace Corps or stationed in the country as soldiers. Many of them have now become noted experts on Korean affairs, who still have fond memories of the country. Read the story at:
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US Role in Jeju Incident in Spotlight
By Soh Ji-young Korea Times Correspondent
BOSTON, Mass. _ A small but meaningful conference drew to an end here Saturday aiming to mend the decades-old scars of the Jeju April Uprising, a tragic civilian massacre that erupted on the tropical island under U.S. military control.
During the international seminar entitled ``Jeju April 3rd Uprising and East Asian Peace: International Legal Issues and Human Rights in 21st Century Korea’’ held April 24-26 at Harvard University, participants from South Korea and the United States discussed the series of civilian massacres that took place on the southern island of Jeju from 1947 to 1954 to quell uprisings that the then-government said were sparked by communists.
Speakers commented on how the U.S. forces looked on as Korean police and right-wing groups brutally killed as many as 30,000 islanders _ about 10 percent of Jeju’s population at the time.
While not all of the chairs were filled, the earnest manner of those that did take part left a lasting impression.
Audience members included Americans in their 50s and 60s who first visited Korea in their youth, working as Peace Corps or stationed in the country as soldiers. Many of them have now become noted experts on Korean affairs, who still have fond memories of the country.
John Merrill, division chief of the U.S. State Department’s Northeast Asia Bureau of Intelligence and Research, who took part in the discussion, said the conference is very significant in making people in the U.S. more aware of what happened.
``The conference is very important _ it is the first ever and it’s a starting point,’’ said Merrill, who was stationed in South Korea in 1968.
``The level of information on this is very, very low. Even many of the (U.S.) academic specialists on Korea know nothing about it.’’
In 1980, Merrill published a paper on the Jeju April 3 incident before entering government and stating the incident had resulted from a ``failure of U.S. occupation.’’ He said people of Jeju who took part in the uprisings were ``acting basically out of patriotic motives’’ and were ``unjustly accused of all being communists.’’
One of the speakers at the conference, Sungkyunkwan University history professor Seo Joong-seok, said, ``The Jeju incident and other civilian massacres which erupted before and during the Korean War are not affairs related to Korea alone but are also deeply linked with the U.S.’’
``It is very notable that U.S. scholars and Koreans living in the U.S. came here to discuss this issue,’’ he said.
Organizers agreed on the last day of the conference to hold seminars on the Jeju Uprising every year, starting from June of next year in Jeju.
The conference was sponsored by the Jeju Sasam Institute, Harvard Law School’s East Asian Legal Studies department, Harvard’s Korea Institute, the World Association of Island Studies and the Peace Island Foundation. The Korea Times is the sole media sponsor. Click on a link below for more stories on PCOL
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