The following is derived from Hujiang Korean
It was a popular uprising that took place on Jeju Island from April 3, 1948 to September 21, 1954, and many Jeju residents were sacrificed in the process of opposing the re-emergence of pro-Japanese forces by the US military government that ruled the Korean peninsula after the defeat of Japan and the establishment of a single South Korean government, led by the South Korean Workers' Party.
The March Fourth Incident was a Jeju Islander sacrifice incident that took place on Jeju Island from April 3, 1948 to September 21, 1954. After Japan's defeat in World War II, pro-Japanese forces that relied on the U.S. military, which ruled the Korean Peninsula, reappeared, and the Workers' Party of South Korea established a separate government. In the course of the rebellion centered on these two forces, many Jeju islanders died.
The Jeju April 3 Incident is defined in the Special Act on the Investigation of the Truth of the Jeju 4.3 Incident and the Restoration of the Honor of the Victims, as it was an incident in which both people were sacrificed during the armed conflict and suppression that occurred on Jeju Island from March 1, 1947 to April 3, 1948, and the uprising that occurred on April 3, 1944, and September 21, 1954.
The "Jeju 43 Incident" is defined in the Special Act on the Investigation of the Truth and the Restoration of the Honor of the Victims of the Jeju 43 Incident as the incident of the riots that occurred on April 3, 1948, starting with the opening of police fire on March 1, 1947, and the deaths of the good citizens in the armed clashes and suppression of Jeju Island from September 21, 1954 to September 21, 1954.
Note: Don't speak for the people of Jeju Island. The sticks of modern Jeju Island like to bully the countrymen.
Jeju Island 43 Incident
The "Jeju Island 43 Incident" (Korean: 제주 4.3사건) refers to the popular protests that took place on Jeju Island in South Korea on April 3, 1948. According to the report of the fact-finding team on the April 3 incident, the number of casualties in the April 3 incident is "tentative" between 25,000 and 30,000, of whom 86.1 percent were killed by government forces and 13.9 percent by guerrillas.
On Jeju Island, which is suppressed by the U.S. military government, anti-American and anti-Korean Peninsula separatist progressive forces have an advantage on Jeju Island. In the early morning of April 3, 1948, the Jeju Island branch of the Workers' Party of Korea (WPK) launched an armed uprising to resist the suppression. U.S. troops exchanged fire with the guerrillas, and residents took refuge in the mountains for fear of going up the hill. On May 10, 200 electoral districts in South Korea held simultaneous elections for members of the National Assembly. On October 17, 1948, the U.S. military sent Colonel Ren Bolang, commander of the 20th Brigade of the U.S. Army, to lead the garrison, the coast guard, and the U.S. military, and on October 17, 1948, all those who pass in the middle of the mountainside area of the island more than 5 kilometers from the coastline will be regarded as communists and immediately executed, and within five months until March 1949, they will kill anyone they see and carry out the so-called "three exhaustion plans" of burning, starving, and killing, so that Hallasan will become a sea of fire.
Background to the event
The Jeju April 3 Incident, also known as the Jeju Island Massacre, was a popular protest that occurred on Jeju Island, South Korea, on April 3, 1948. It took place on Jeju Island during the U.S. military administration and early in the First Republic of Korea period, and was a tragic event in the modern history of South Korea that suffered a lot of human life, second only to the Korean War. Although this incident came to an end in May 1949, the repression caused by the aftermath did not end completely until the end of the Korean War in 1953. The death toll and property damage caused by this incident are still under investigation.
Due to its geographical peculiarity in Northeast Asia, Japan used Jeju Island as a strategic base at the end of the Pacific War, and stationed 60,000 Japanese troops to prevent the landing of American troops.
On August 15, 1945, Japan surrendered unconditionally, ending World War II. Although Korea broke away from Japanese rule, the Korean Peninsula was divided and occupied by the United States and the Soviet Union. The south of the 38th parallel was occupied by the U.S. military.
After the end of World War II, the retreat of the Japanese army and the return of 60,000 Jeju villagers from other places caused a rapid change in the population. The disillusionment of the early days of the liberation led to a combination of the difficulties in finding employment for the returnees, the shortage of daily necessities, the death of hundreds of people due to cholera, and severe crop failures, as well as the failure of the rice grain policy, the transformation of the Japanese Imperial police into military and political police, and the profit-making behavior of military and political officials.
During the three years that the U.S. military was in power, due to the interaction of various domestic and foreign factors, there were many incidents of popular protests or riots in various parts of South Korea. In such an atmosphere, the firing incident that broke out on the "March Day" in 1947 further deteriorated the people's morale. Among them, the people of Jeju Island resisted the most, and the "Jeju Island 43 Incident" caused the most pain.
Cause of the incident
Shooting Riots in Protests Calling for South-South Reunification It is worth mentioning that 50 years after the Jeju Island massacre, South Korea has not yet completed a concrete and comprehensive investigation of the truth, which has led to endless public resentment. It was not until January 12, 2000, when the Jeju 43 Special Act was enacted and promulgated, that the government began to investigate the truth.
On March 1, 1947, the Jeju Island People's Committee organized a march of islanders (completely peaceful) to demand the reunification of the North and the South, and was shot at by the police, killing six islanders.
The March Day firing incident was an incident in which the police opened fire on a crowd of demonstrators, killing six people and seriously injuring eight others, and most of the victims were ordinary residents who were onlookers. This incident was the fuse that detonated the April 3 incident. At this time, the Jeju Island Party of the Workers' Party of South Korea launched an organized "anti-police" campaign. In protest against police fire, more than 95% of Jeju Island's workplaces, including public institutions and private companies, participated in a general strike on March 10, which was the first of its kind in South Korea.
The whole island of Jeju decided to hold a mass protest on March 10, 1948. The Military Administration Department of the U.S. Army Command stationed in North Korea sent the police and right-wing groups (such as the Northwest Youth League) organized by young people who had fled from the north of Korea to Jeju Island and began the White Terror. On April 3, 1948, the people of Jeju began an armed riot in response to the 43 Incident.
Martial law was declared after the incident took place in a "mass murder plan"
In 1945, the U.S. occupation authorities stationed in Jeju as neo-colonists inherited the Japanese colonial police rule, and the people's lives worsened rather than improved, and the pro-Japanese elements continued to hold power on the island.
On the anniversary of the March 1 Movement in 1947, the horsemen of the police kicked and injured young children, arousing the anger of the crowd, and the police opened fire on the unarmed crowd, killing six people on the spot. In protest against the tyranny of the authorities, Jeju residents staged a massive general strike of the government and the people.
The U.S. military and political authorities and the Syngman Rhee government sent support troops and far-right members of the Western Youth League to Jeju to carry out a bloody crackdown, and more than 400 villagers, many of them children, were massacred.
On November 17, Syngman Rhee's government declared martial law in Jeju.
Prior to this, the commander of the 9th Regiment, Song Yaozan, issued a notice saying that those who passed in the mountainous area five kilometers from the coastline would be treated as violent elements and would be killed. Since then, a vigorous crackdown on the "scorched earth" of mountain villages has been launched. The U.S. military intelligence report on this related issue recorded: "The Ninth Regiment adopted a 'mass massacre plan' against the inhabitants of the villages on the assumption that all the inhabitants of the villages in the mountainous areas were clearly providing guerrilla help and convenience.
After martial law was declared, many residents of mountain villages were killed. Not only the hill tribes, but also the scattered inhabitants of the coastal villages were executed for providing assistance to armed teams. As a result, the number of refugees fleeing to the mountains to save their lives has increased, and they hide in the cold winter in the Hantao Mountains, and if they are caught, they are either shot or sent to prison. The repression has even been carried out by the military and police to classify those who are absent from the family as "family members of those who have escaped" and to brutally substitute the killing of their parents and siblings.
At 2 a.m. on April 3, 1948, the South Korean Workers' Party (WPK) guerrillas on Jeju Island revolted and rebelled against the repression by the police and members of the Western Youth League.
After the establishment of the government of the Republic of Korea on August 15, 1948, the repression further expanded.
On November 17, 1948, Syngman Rhee signed and issued martial law in Jeju Province, killing all people who operated in the mountains five kilometers from the coastline, killing and arresting a large number of islanders, and overcrowding the prison, with 35 prisoners in an 11-square-meter cell.
On January 17, 1949, soldiers drove villagers to gather on the playground of Bukchon Elementary School in Chocheon-eup, Jeju City, and shot them one by one. According to statistics, before the incident, there were 323 families living in the North Village. A total of 479 innocent people, including 338 men and 141 women, were brutally murdered in 207 families during the April 3 incident. For a time, Kita Village became a "maleless village".
On May 10, 1949, the re-election of the Jeju constituency in the National Assembly of the Republic of Korea, which had been boycotted, was successfully held, and in June, the guerrillas were largely wiped out.
On September 21, 1954, Jeju Island was lifted from martial law and began to rebuild.
On April 3, 1978, when more than 700 villagers gathered again in the place that had once been stained with the blood of their loved ones, the crowd finally erupted in cries of pain.
In 1992, researchers of the April 3 Incident uncovered for the first time the remains of 11 people persecuted by South Korean government forces in the Wollang Peak Cave, a full 45 years after the incident. At the end of March of the same year, the Korean National Daily, Jemin Daily, Dong-A Ilbo and other media reported on the incident. It was only then that people in other parts of Korea learned about the history of Jeju for the first time.
In 1998, South Korean President Kim Dae-jung agreed to investigate the truth about the April 3 incident in Jeju
In 1999, the Jeju April 3 Incident Truth Investigation and Restoration of the Victims' Honor Special Act was passed by the National Assembly of the Republic of Korea.
The investigation began in 2000 and ended on 29 March 2003 with the report of the Commission of Inquiry revealing everything to the public. After the investigation report was made public, the Roh Moo-hyun government apologized to the victims and their bereaved families of the Jeju April 3 incident.
Findings
Fifty years after the incident, the investigation of the truth has not yet been completed, and the people are full of grievances. It was not until January 12, 2000, when the Jeju 43 Special Act was enacted and promulgated, that the government began to investigate the truth.
Officially, there were 30,000 casualties, 280,000 on the island, and only 30,000 remaining
It is estimated that between 14,000 and 60,000 people have been killed in the course of armed clashes and repression. On October 15, 2003, the South Korean government endorsed the "Jeju April 3 Incident Truth Investigation Report", acknowledging that more than 30,000 innocent people had died as of September 21, 1954, when martial law was lifted. The number of victims actually registered by the National Truth Investigation Commission of the Korean government's 43 events is 14,373, but it is believed that the total number of unconfirmed and unrecorded people is about 25,000~30,000, and this number is based on the information and demographic statistics of the committee before and after the incident.
Jeju islanders, on the other hand, believe that as many as 40,000 people may have been killed. On the other hand, the incident also caused nearly 4,000 Jeju islanders to flee to Japan for refuge, and their descendants are mostly scattered in the Kansai region of Japan. As a result of the purge, the number of Jeju islanders dropped sharply from 280,000 to only 30,000.
According to the report of the fact-finding team on the April 3 incident, the number of casualties during the April 3 incident was "tentative" at 25,000 to 30,000, of whom 86.1 percent were killed by government forces and 13.9 percent by guerrillas. On April 3, 1948, an armed uprising broke out on Jeju Island in opposition to the possible division of separate elections in South Korea under the occupation of the United States. The guerrilla forces were wiped out a year later, during which the government army's scorched earth strategy reduced the entire island to rubble.
After that, the April 3 incident was sent into the darkness of history, and all memories were erased. Where there is no memory, there is no people, and there is no history. Don't look, don't speak, don't hear. The erasure of memories brought about by terrible state power. Out of fear of power, the islanders themselves erase their own memories. The obliterated memory sinks deep and deep, and sinks all the way to the unconscious world, and finally becomes oblivion, a silence that borders on death.
Social impact
The Jeju 43 incident was considered taboo until the 80s, and for various reasons, it was not allowed to be widely discussed in South Korea, so it was not well known to the general public, and even some sources gave official data. In the 90s, the demand for restoring the truth of the incident and restoring the honor of the victims gradually increased. The Jeju 43 Incident, which took place on Jeju Island from the U.S. military administration to the early Republic of Korea during the First Republic of Korea, was a tragic event in the modern history of South Korea that suffered heavy casualties, second only to the Korean War.
On January 28, 2013, the South Korean film "Jiseul" (directed by O Muel), about the 1948 Jeju massacre, won the Sundance Film Festival Prestige Award.