When the citizens of Gwangju rose up to defend themselves against the military regime which was on a runaway rampage (because Chun wanted to show everyone that he was not going to mess around), they were absolutely sure that the United States, symbol of democracy in the world, would come to their aid. And of course at that time, the US was in an understandable bind and could not come to the aid of people of Gwangju. The dissapointment and sense of betrayal felt by the student demonstrators in Gwangju was extremely bitter. So I can imagine that when Chun began to propagandize that the US was on the side of the Korean military dictatorship, many bitter Koreans believed it. Thus began the anti-Americanism in Korea. That is how I surmise and interpret what went on.

In either the US Amb. in the Kwangju period or the USFK commander’s book it is said that a Korean officer (or was it high ranking government official?) came to him with information about a counter-coup that was in the works including top government people and high ranking military leaders who didn’t favor Chun. The group wanted to know what kind of support or reacion they could get. The US poured cold water on the idea, and the coup never took place.

That was a clear moment of decision, and whenever I bring it up with a Korean when the topic of US guilt for Kwangju or Chun’s rule comes up, and I ask whether the US should have supported a coup to put back in place the constitutional government or not, the question is avoided……

Yes, that matter also came up in the drama. I agree it was a tough position for the US to have been and I believe they made the right and the only call. After all they were fighting a Cold War at the same time also.

On a side note, I’ve watched the MBC drama the Fifth Republic, about Chun Doo Hwan’s rule. For the episodes dealing with Gwangju, I was expecting the US to get blamed for the Korean Special Forces getting moved out of the DMZ, into Gwangju - which has been a popular gripe about the US role in Korea. But interestingly enough, the drama portrayed it all as Chun’s doing. From this show, I learned that Chun had a grudge aginst the US because the US military and intelligenza in Korea did not like Chun (and made it clear to him) when he first started climbing the power ladder. So that’s why I believe you when you say Chun probably engineered the rumour that the US allowed the troops to go to Gwangju to massacre hundreds of civilians.

You are entirely correct that the immediate (aupposed)affront to Korean soveriegnity in the case at hand is attributable to the Korean prosecution.

I just wanted to draw attention to the really fundamental flaw in the position of the anti-SOFA crowd.

I’d also like to add, apropos my immediately previous post, that another interesting feature of the revelations at the Asia Foundation conference is that they were never reported anywhere.

This was borne home to me in a very drmatic fashion a few years ago, when I attended a forum in Seoul sponsored by, I believe, The Asia Foundation and the ROK-US Frindship Society. It was entitled something along the lines of “Press Perspectives on the ROK-US Alliance”; and brought together a group of panelists comprised of representatives from USFK, US Embassy, local newspapaers and foreign newspapers. My recollection is that the Dong-A Ibo and The Chosun Ilbo were represented by senior editors from their respective political or in’tl affairs desks. A senior editor of the Hanky also was on the panel.

This wasn’t too long after the accident in which the two schoolgirls were killed, so that incident provided most of the grist for the mill; but Gwangju also figured large.

USFK and the Embassy provided VERY detailed accounts of the ways in which the US effort to explain both its positions and, more importantly, just to get into play some of the basic facts regarding the accident and Gwangju, respectively, were simply stonewalled by the Korean press.

The most revealing moments came when the Dong-A and Chosun reps made the follwing admissions (I no longer remember which made which, but that’s beside the point):

1. One fellow admitted that when he had been assigned some years ago to look into a story concerning environmental damage at an American base and was refused admission to the base, he just went ahead anyway with a story in which he claimed that he had gained access and seen various things, which he then purported to report as facts. [That's shocking enough, but perhaps even more remarkable is that instead of getting sacked, he was promoted , eventually to his then position as a senior editor].

2. The other guy, responding to the well-documented charges made by USFK and Embassy reps of both the failure initially to report the facts correctly and then subsequently to report the attempted correction of the record by USFK/Embassy re both the accident and Gwnagju, acutally justified the editorial judgment involved on the ground that the paper “inevitably” [that word again] couldn’t report facts that would “upset the sensibilities of the Korean people”.

Again, there guys were from conservative papers generally inclined to favor the Alliance.

The other really sad incident at the conference for me involved a member of the audience. The ROK-US Friendship Assocoation, one of the co-sponsors, is (as one might imagine) pretty pro-US. It’s Korean membership consists mostly of increasingly elderly retired members of the ROK Army officer corps, including a lot of higher field grade officers and generals, and older members of some sectors of the business elite. The gentlemen in question was a retired general who, despite his obvious deep devotion to the Alliance was himself convinced by Korean propaganda,ironically originally launched by Chun Doo Won’s regime itself and then adopted and adapted by the Korean left, that Gwnagju was the fault of the US. What’s particularly galling about this charge is not just its inconsistency with the facts, but that if the US were to have taken the action necessary to intervene in the Gwangju incident, or earlier to have put down Chun’s rolling coup, it would have been just the sort of gross violation of the Korean sovereignity that suppposedly is the holy grail of the knuckleheads of anti-Americanism in Korea.

The Korean media is reporting what Korean society wants to hear. It isn’t simply a case of the media misinformaing the public. The public wants to be misinformed.

Like back in 2002 when the students fire bombed the gate guard shack at a small US base in Seoul. The female anchor said after the reporting clip was run something like, “It’s a shame to see that.”

And she was canned the next day, because the station was flooded with complaints about her unKorean attitude. She tried to say what she meant was that it was a shame that Koreans had to resort to such things because the US military was untouchable even by the Korean government. No sell. She was out….