Talk:Gwangju Uprising - Misplaced Pages

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Tim Shorrock's Article

Having read Tim Shorrock's article a few times, I think it carries significant biases, and comes to a lot of unsubstantiated conclusions. I am not averse to citing it, but I would recommend we add some more sources to balance it out and completely rework the "Background" section into a "U.S. involvement" section, rather than having a whole section of this dedicated to one article by one author. Additionally, the way the information is presented now is very slanted:

Tim Shorrock, through his analysis of recently declassified U.S. government documents, has shown the following discoveries regarding U.S. involvement with the incident

Saying he has "shown" the following is very definitive when his article is, in fact, very controversial and not by any means authoritative. I suggest this be reworded to something like, "Freelance Journalist Tim Shorrock analyzed recently declassified U.S. government documents, and came to the following conclusions in his article '"The U.S. Role in Korea in 1979 and 1980"':"

U.S. officials in Seoul and Washington knew Chun's contingency plans included the deployment of Korean Special Warfare Command troops, trained to fight behind the lines in a war against North Korea. The Black Beret Special Forces, who were not under U.S. command, were modeled after the U.S. Green Berets and had a history of brutality dating back to their participation alongside American troops in the Vietnam War.

The first sentence is too general. Though Shorrock claims that U.S. officials knew of the deployment of South Korean SF to Gwangju, the actual quotes and documents he uses do not back up that assertion. What they show is that U.S. officials were aware that SF had been deployed and used for riot control at times in the past, that they had been used recently in Seoul (with results far better than what occurred in Gwangju), and that there was some knowledge of general movements of SF units within South Korea. DIA speculated that one unit might be used in Gwangju, because it remained outside of Seoul. However, the document clearly shows that this was speculation, albeit perhaps well-founded speculation. But it does not show that DIA or any other U.S. officials in Seoul knew that Chun would deploy that unit to Gwangju. I suggest this be reworded to something similar to, "U.S. officials in South Korea had some indication that Chun would use..." as it is currently written, it is far to definitively stated given the actual evidence Mr. Shorrock cites. The second sentence I recommend be deleted, as it is very inflammatory ("a history of brutality") and does not really add anything to the article.

On May 22, 1980, in the midst of the Gwangju uprising, the Carter administration approved further use of force to retake the city and agreed to provide short-term support to Chun if he agreed to long-term political change. At a White House meeting on that date, plans were also discussed for direct U.S. military intervention if the situation got out of hand.

The second sentence, about plans for direct U.S. military intervention, is not mentioned anywhere in the article that I can see, nor have I seen any evidence to suggest this was the case. I am going to delete that sentence, because it does not appear in the cited article, and no other evidence is presented for it. Rooster3888 07:20, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

Both Don Oberdorfer and Bruce Cummings seem to suggest if not propose outright that Commander US Forces in Korea was complicit in General Chun's decision to pull frontline Korean troops from the border to aid in quelling the riot/massacre. The impression I got was that they felt Chun could not have done so without at least tacit approval. I remember hearing Shorrock at Univeristy of San Francisco, Center for the Pacific Rim in the late nineties actually propose that US Embassy Seoul was directly involved in allowing Chun to move 'combat troops' off the line to supress activities in Kwangju. The supporting documentation was to a significant extent obtained under Freedom of Information Act and as most government-produced material, dry and boring...but justified drawing the inferences Shorrock presented.

Oberdorfer also notes that the US officials were essentially rubber-stamping a fait accompli. He also says they believed that the troops being sent were not the special forces troops who had earned a nasty reputation in Vietnam.--ThreeAnswers 05:02, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

Oberdorfer and Cumings can suggest all they want, but they ought to have some evidence to back up their assertion. Without it, all they have is speculation. If there are better sources that support the idea that the U.S. Embassy was involved in allowing Chun to move troops, then I have no issues adding it. However, the article cited here does not present any evidence of that, and I am somewhat skeptical of Shorrock's documentation. If he does have documentation that supports it, then great. But I am very skeptical of the inferences he draws, especially given the article cited here. He cites numerous documents, but draws conclusions from them that I do not think are substantiated.Rooster3888 06:38, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

This should probably be a new thread, but the 1985 Heritage Foundation article (citation number 5, presently) isn't really up to snuff. It's bizarre, reactionary, and inaccurate (there aren't many, these days, who'd associate the Chun regime with "law and order". Etc.). I suggest it be removed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mudeungsan (talk • contribs) 02:01, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

The primary evidence that the U.S. authorized deployment of the 20th Division are Ambassador Gleysteen's repeated statements that this was so. I would suspect, even, that Wickham acknowledges as much in his memoirs. Anyway, I included one such statement, along with the State Department notation that, technically, it didn't mean anything. For balance. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mudeungsan (talk • contribs) 04:07, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

(1) There's not really anything superceding Shorrock's analysis, so we need to include it. (2) The U.S. may not have had any clear alternative to acquiescence (in the Chun coup), and that perhaps should be made clear. (3) However, most offensive, and telling, to Koreans, was "not that the U.S. did nothing, but" the subsequent spectacular/economic embrace of the Chun regime (first head of state invited to the Reagan White House, the notorious Import/Export loan, etc.). —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mudeungsan (talk • contribs) 04:21, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

Redefine?

Any objections to redefining this article to include the whole uprising, and renaming it to Gwangju People's Uprising? The deaths are important, but they aren't the only important part of this epochal protest. -- Visviva 07:31, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

List of Asia-related topics calls it "Gwangju Uprising". wasn't the official name changed a few years ago, to something like Gwangju Democratization Movement? Appleby 06:05, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

This really should be named to Gwangju Riot or something. Massacre gives the wrong idea. 15357 02:15, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

It was definitely a riot. 70.71.4.163 21:24, 4 December 2006 (UTC)Don Baker

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