Kwangju incident

Kwangju incident

Kwangju incident, the five hundred and eighteen Kwangju incident occurred from May 18 to May 27 in 1980. The event took place in Gwangju, Korea. Is a request from the local people spontaneously democratic movement, then attacked by military power, General Chun Doo Hwan ordered the force to suppress the movement, resulting in a high number of deaths and injuries among civilians and students. Kwangju incident sounded the death knell for the Korean military dictatorship, accelerated the arrival of democracy.

After World War II, the Korean peninsula has become the East Asian continent during the Cold War against the Soviet Union and the United States in East Asia forefront of the camp. After the end of August 1945, Japanese colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula was divided former Soviet Union (1922 to 1991) to support North Korea, backed by the United States and South Korea on the grounds. June 25, 1950, the Korean War broke out. Early postwar period, the Korean economy is appalling. After that, South Korea under President Park Chung-hee’s "economic development" policy and US funding, achieved rapid economic development, and for the first time beyond the Korean economic growth. But President Park Chung-hee did not allow any demonstrations or democratization movement, and often arrested and tortured dissidents.

With the demand for democracy from the general public, the movement certainly broke up in a violent fashion. It’s very similar to see the trend of the Asia people that use protest as a tool to pursue their political desire, in particular against a military government. Chun Doo Hwan is certainly a general with the deep military background that wanting to use violent force to rule the country and by applying military force against civilian. It’s obvious that the conflict moved to another level and eventually ended the military control in South Korea.