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http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/K/KOREA_MASS_EXECUTIONS_COVERED_UP?SITE=DCTMS&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT
Fear, secrecy kept 1950 Korea mass killings hidden
By CHARLES J. HANLEY
AP Special Correspondent
Latest News
AP IMPACT: Thousands killed by US's Korean ally
Fear, secrecy kept 1950 Korea mass killings hidden
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) -- One journalist's bid to report mass murder in South Korea in 1950 was blocked by his British publisher. Another correspondent was denounced as a possibly treasonous fabricator when he did report it. In South Korea, down the generations, fear silenced those who knew.
Fifty-eight years ago, at the outbreak of the Korean War, South Korean authorities secretively executed, usually without legal process, tens of thousands of southern leftists and others rightly or wrongly identified as sympathizers. Today a government Truth and Reconciliation Commission is working to dig up the facts, and the remains of victims.
How could such a bloodbath have been hidden from history?
Among the Koreans who witnessed, took part in or lost family members to the mass killings, the events were hardly hidden, but they became a "public secret," barely whispered about through four decades of right-wing dictatorship here.
"The family couldn't talk about it, or we'd be stigmatized as leftists," said Kim Chong-hyun, 70, leader of an organization of families seeking redress for their loved ones' deaths in 1950.
Kim, whose father was shot and buried in a mass grave outside the central city of Daejeon, noted that in 1960-61, a one-year democratic interlude in South Korea, family groups began investigating wartime atrocities. But a military coup closed that window, and "the leaders of those organizations were arrested and punished."
Then, "from 1961 to 1988, nobody could challenge the regime, to try again to reveal these hidden truths," said Park Myung-lim of Seoul's Yonsei University, a leading Korean War historian. As a doctoral student in the late 1980s, when South Korea was moving toward democracy, Park was among the few scholars to begin researching the mass killings. He was regularly harassed by the police.
Scattered reports of the killings did emerge in 1950 - and some did not.
British journalist James Cameron wrote about mass prisoner shootings in the South Korean port city of Busan - then spelled Pusan - for London's Picture Post magazine in the fall of 1950, but publisher Edward Hulton ordered the story removed at the last minute.
Earlier, correspondent Alan Winnington reported on the shooting of thousands of prisoners at Daejeon in the British communist newspaper The Daily Worker, only to have his reporting denounced by the U.S. Embassy in London as an "atrocity fabrication." The British Cabinet then briefly considered laying treason charges against Winnington, historian Jon Halliday has written.
Associated Press correspondent O.H.P. King reported on the shooting of 60 political prisoners in Suwon, south of Seoul, and wrote in a later memoir he was "shocked that American officers were unconcerned" by questions he raised about due process for the detainees.
Some U.S. officers - and U.S. diplomats - were among others who reported on the killings. But their classified reports were kept secret for decades.
never heard of it till now
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Eh, nevermind.
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Over 170 million people were killed by their own governments in the 20th century. That doesn't include those were sent to war.
This doesn't surprise me in the least.
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disappointed we played along heck support the folks that did it
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disappointed we played along heck support the folks that did it
Durring the Cold War, the threat of the Soviets taking over the world (literally) was believed to be so great that many people saw it as justified to support almost any anti-Soviet government or movement, no matter what its ideology and methods.
You may argue it WAS justified, and no doubt some will.
The pity is the Cold War is over, and some people want to carry on the same policy when there are no longer any Soviets.
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No surprizes. For me.
Interesting though; I thought such an enormous conspiracy of silence would be "impossible" to keep secret. That such an enormous horror - a huge crime involving the deaths of thousands ... someone would speak out. The media would grab it! You'd need to be able to control "thousands of people" to keep them silent.
Interesting, now where have I seen this expressed before .. hmm.
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.
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Did you post this in an attempt to make us feel guilty about injustices we have allowed against off-white people without shift keys?
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lol got ashift key brand new never used i actually was surprised to hear the story and surprised it was kept secret so long and no i don't need to try to generate white guilt.white guilt comes from within. no need to help its a spectator sport for me
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Wars always have these gray areas to them. It is nothing new. The US had the Phoenix program during the VN war. No doubt there were a few killed in that program that maybe should not have been. But the vast majority were legitimate VC and VC sympathizers that needed to be killed.
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ilbob i'd agree about phoenix the grey areas often relate to folks using programs for personal payback
but my understanding is the numbers here are fairly large though asian contrys take these events more in stride
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ilbob i'd agree about phoenix the grey areas often relate to folks using programs for personal payback
but my understanding is the numbers here are fairly large though asian contrys take these events more in stride
There is also no way to know just what percentage of those killed truly were commie sympathizers. Just because a relative comes forward 50 years later and claims they were not aiding the commies, that does not make it so. When you are fighting for your very existence against true evil, there are bound to be some causalities that were unintended.
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No surprizes. For me.
Interesting though; I thought such an enormous conspiracy of silence would be "impossible" to keep secret. That such an enormous horror - a huge crime involving the deaths of thousands ... someone would speak out. The media would grab it! You'd need to be able to control "thousands of people" to keep them silent.
Interesting, now where have I seen this expressed before .. hmm.
Please. This is nothing compared to the breadth, complexity and longevity of most alleged conspiracies I've seen bandied about. BTW, I'm not one of those who dismisses conspiracy notions out of hand.
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South Korean authorities secretively executed, usually without legal process, tens of thousands of southern leftists and others rightly or wrongly identified as sympathizers. Today a government Truth and Reconciliation Commission is working to dig up the facts, and the remains of victims.
How could such a bloodbath have been hidden from history?
Breadth: we'll just call it "pretty darn wide"
Complexity: secretly executing "tens of thousands" - that qualifies as "more than moderately complex". And look at the co-conspirators of silence; a major british publisher. Now why would a british publisher want to squelch this at the time? That is easy, however I seriously doubt that Mr. Hulton was acting on what he knew was "the right thing to do".
Longevity: more than 50 years - that's a good while. And longer than most.
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RE: longevity.
No. The secret was kept for fifty forty years. The dirty deeds themselves occupied only a few years' time. The typical conspiracy theory purports dark deeds over a much longer span than that.
The same could be said of the breadth and complexity aspects.
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see below.
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Among the Koreans who witnessed, took part in or lost family members to the mass killings, the events were hardly hidden, but they became a "public secret," barely whispered about through four decades of right-wing dictatorship here.
Just because we didn't know about this doesn't make it a secret. I only recently learned about the "trail of tears". That doesn't mean there was a conspiracy to keep it secret all these years. People who actually had a reason to know/care about this dark episode of the Korean war seem to have been whispering about it for decades.
Interesting though; I thought such an enormous conspiracy of silence would be "impossible" to keep secret. That such an enormous horror - a huge crime involving the deaths of thousands ... someone would speak out. The media would grab it! You'd need to be able to control "thousands of people" to keep them silent.
Although the Korean government seems to have repressed this information, they were unsuccessful. Everyone who wanted to, knew about it. We're even hearing about it now. Controling thousands of people is impossible. Controlling a handful of publishers is not.
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Fistful,
Let's count decades from 1950; let's see, one .... two ... three ... four ... five. That brings us to the year 2000. Add eight and you have fifty-eight years.
Fifty-eight years ago, at the outbreak of the Korean War, South Korean authorities secretively executed, usually without legal process, tens of thousands of southern leftists and others rightly or wrongly identified as sympathizers. Today a government Truth and Reconciliation Commission is working to dig up the facts, and the remains of victims.
I think most of the major contraversial acts you are thinking of prior to that have not involved any conspiracy of silence per se; outside of legitimate military secrets around WW2 - like some of the code breaking aspects which were secret until about 1975 for example - mosts aspects of these things have been all but in plain sight to anyone who wanted to look.
silliman89,
Certainly controlling thousands of people is impossible, however it is quite obvious, and clearly noted in the article, that fear was used to silence the majority of those that did, and discouraged them from creating a ruckus at any opportunity. Fear comes in many forms - it does not have to be a threat of death or a gulag. It could a number of forms of financial or social ruin. This is really not uncommon.
Outside of the country it can not possibly have been a handful of publishers alone who knew about this. That governments who had embassies or other operations in the country, their intelligence services, and a host of others that had business there of one form or another were unaware of this alleged mass killing is not believable. For every one foreign person who was aware of it, there would have been their families, friends, colleagues and aquaintances - and each one in turn would have to have remained silent with people they knew, and so on. For fifty-eight years worth of family trees and all the others these people would have known.
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LAK, I was going off of this line from the article.
Among the Koreans who witnessed, took part in or lost family members to the mass killings, the events were hardly hidden, but they became a "public secret," barely whispered about through four decades of right-wing dictatorship here.
I think most of the major contraversial acts you are thinking of prior to that have not involved any conspiracy of silence per se; outside of legitimate military secrets around WW2 - like some of the code breaking aspects which were secret until about 1975 for example - mosts aspects of these things have been all but in plain sight to anyone who wanted to look.
No, that's not what I'm talking about.
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the brits can and do control their press when need be
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Fistful,
Ah; so what are you talking about?