[제주 4․3사건 70돌] 미군정 ‘초토화 작전’ 명령으로 제주 주민 3할 증발... 반복되는 '정치적 고통'
[제주 4․3사건 70돌] 미군정 ‘초토화 작전’ 명령으로 제주 주민 3할 증발... 반복되는 '정치적 고통'
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  • 승인 2018.04.03 06:15
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오늘로 제주 4․3사건 발발 70돌을 맞는다. 아름다운 자연과 문화가 어울어진 제주는 유네스코 세계유산으로 세계의 관광객들에게 ‘꼭 가보고 싶은 여행지’ 중 하나로 꼽히지만 한편으로 정치적으로는 ‘불운의 섬’이다. 제주의 역사는 미국의 군국화를 보여주는 중심에 있다.

미국 내 역사 교육에서는 크게 다루지 않는 미국의 공격적인 외교 정책은 인류, 문화, 환경에 헤아릴 수 없을 정도로 막대한 피해를 줬다.

인류의 존속을 위해 군국주의와 전쟁을 멈춰야 한다는 자성의 목소리도 커지고 있는데, 역사학자이자 미국 외교 정책 비평가인 윌리엄 블럼은 2차 세계대전 이후 미국의 간섭에 대해 다음과 같이 정리했다.

‘50개 정부에 대한 전복 시도, 20개국의 민족주의 운동 진압 시도, 최소 30개국의 민주주의 선거 개입, 30개국의 민간인 폭격, 50명 이상의 외국 정치 지도자들 암살 시도.‘

미국이 2차 세계대전 이후 거의 100개국에서 400번의 군사적 개입을 해왔다는 것이 조사로 밝혀지고 있으며, 은밀한 개입은 셀 수 없이 많다고 한다. 이런 무법행위들로 인해 수백만의 사람들이 살해당하거나 장애를 입었고, 추방당했다. 법 준수와 정직한 외교는 계속 어겨졌다.

가장 음흉하고 은밀한 미국의 개입 중 하나가 6.25 전쟁 전에 한국에서 있었다. 1945년 미 육해군 합동 정보국은 대다수의 한국인들이 자주독립을 강하게 원하고, 일본에 이어 그 어떤 외세에 의해 통치되는 것을 강하게 반대한다고 보고했다.

그러나 트루먼 대통령은 해방 이후 한반도를 반으로 분할했고, 맥아더에게 한반도 이남에 사는 사람들을 통치하도록 명했다. 1945년 10월 미국의 편에서 줄 사람이 필요했던 맥아더는 이승만을 미국에서 한국으로 전용기를 통해 데려왔다.

1948년 이승만은 남북한 국민들의 격렬한 반대에도 불구하고 일방적으로 분리 선거를 열기로 했다. 여기에 제주 주민들 역시 반대했다. 1948년 4월 3일에 시작되어 1950년까지 이어진 제주 항쟁 사건은 한국 현대사에서 가장 큰 규모의 단일 학살 사건이다.

CIA는 이승만이 너무 지지를 얻지 못해 남한이 생존하기 위해서는 미국의 대규모 지원이 있어야 한다고 결론내렸다. 미 대사관은 제주 진압을 ‘전멸을 위한 초토화 작전’이라고 기술했다. 미군정 지휘 하에 있던 한국의 모든 경찰대, 군대, 무장단체들에 비밀 협약이 내려졌다. 그리고 CIA는 이전의 일본 식민지 때처럼 무지막지한 정책들로 대다수의 반대자들을 억압하는 소수 한국 엘리트들이 이승만 정권에서 지배적이라고 봤다.

미 군정사령관, 존 리드 하지는 미국 의회에 제주는 공동체 지역으로 주민위원회에 의해 평화적으로 통치되고 있다고 보고했다.

이러한 시각에도 불구하고 그는 할리 풀러 대령, 존 리드 대위, 제임스 하우스만 대위, 세 명에게 초토화 작전을 설계할 것을 명령했다. 일제에 협력했던 사람들이 이제는 미군정 하의 경찰대에서 일하게 됐다.

이승만의 편에 선 무장단체들이 악랄한 역할을 했고, 미군관들이 한국 경찰대의 활동에 함께 했다. 미군 수송기들이 군사와 무기 전쟁 장비들을 실어 나르고, 때때로 폭격을 했다. CIA는 매일 정보를 제공했고, 미 군함들이 반대 세력들의 입도와 물자 공급을 막기 위해 제주도를 봉쇄하고 폭격하며, 제주민들의 탈출을 막았다.

하지의 후임 윌리엄 로버츠 대령은 반대자들을 가능한 빨리 제거하는 것이 급선무라고 선포했다. 보도연맹은 일제강점기 시대의 조직이 이승만 정권 때 확장된 것으로, 일본에 반대한 조선인들을 조직적으로 색출한 조직이 이제는 미군정과 이승만에 반대하는 사람들을 색출하는 것이었다. 수천명의 사람들이 죽임을 당하고 투옥되고 고문당하고 바다에 던져졌다.

당시 제주의 도지사는 30만 제주도민들에 대한 탄압으로 6만명이 죽었고 4만명이 배를 타고 일본으로 탈출했다는 사실을 인정했다. 이 초토화 작전이 진행되는 동안 제주도민의 3분의 1이 죽거나 섬 밖으로 탈출한 것이다.

거의 4만 채의 가옥들이 파괴됐고, 400개의 마을 중 270개가 소실됐다. 로버츠 대령 소속의 로스웰 브라운 대위는 제주도민들이 한낱 무식하고 배우지 못한 농부나 어부들이라서 탄압이 타당하다고 변명했다.

정세균 국회의장이 제주 4.3사건 추모행사에 참석하고 있다. [사진=연합뉴스]
1949년 미 국무장관, 딘 애치슨과 정책기획실장, 조지 캐넌은 남한의 내부 위협, 즉 한국의 자주독립 열망에 대한 진압이 이승만 세력을 지키고 미국의 세계 견제 정책을 확고히 하기 위해 중요한 것임에 의견을 일치했다. 냉전시대의 부상 아래 CIA의 은밀한 활동들을 통한 미국의 노력이 2차 세계대전 이후 유럽에서 일어난 사회주의 운동들을 좌절시키는 데 일조하며, 1949년 중국 혁명으로 한국의 민족자결에 대한 열망을 탄압하는 것은 필수불가결한 일이 되어버렸다.

미 국가안전보장회의는 1949년에서 1950년 NSC-68이라는 보고를 통해 미국의 시스템이 생존하고 번영하기 위한 글로벌정치 시스템을 확고히 하려는 미국의 목표를 설계했다.

이후 6.25 전쟁을 통해 딘 애치슨은 NSC-68에 담긴 전략을 실행할 수 있었다고 결론지었다. 이는 이승만이 1960년 85세의 나이로 정권에서 물러난 이후로도 미국이 지속적으로 한국에 독재 정부를 굳건히 해줬다는 의미였다. 1953년 이후 한국과 미국은 상호 방위조약과 한미 행정협정, 그리고 미군 장성이 지휘하는 연합군 사령부로 함께 길을 걸어왔다.

암울한 역사에도 불구하고 한국은 90년대에 민주 정부를 만들었다. 그러나 또 다시 탄압에 직면해야 했다. 제주 4.3 사건이 얼마나 왜곡되고 인정되지 않는지에 대한 예는 수 없이 많았다.

2002년 노근리 학살의 진실 공개로 퓰리처상을 받은 뉴욕타임즈 한국특파원 최상훈은 보수당은 진상위원회의 활동이 중단되기를 원하고, 언론과 함께 제주 사건과 그 밖의 사건들을 재정립하려는 시도를 했었다고 말한 바 있다.

한참 공식적인 화해 분위기가 조성되던 때에도 진상위원회의 성과는 큰 주목을 받지 못했다. 최상훈은 주요 언론들이 대부분 보수성향이기 때문에 위원회의 활동에 대해 크게 주목하지 않았다고 언급했었다.

그리고 그는 많은 노년 세대들에게 아직도 학살 사건들은 생생한 기억으로 남아있지만, 젊은 세대들은 잘 모르고 있다고 말했다. 역사책들은 학생들에게 이념적으로 민감한 문제들을 진정으로 알려주지 않고, 소위 ‘진보적인 교과서’를 저지하려는 보수 학자들의 조직적인 움직임이 있어왔다고도 말했다.

진상위원회에 있던 김동춘은 언론사와의 인터뷰에서 위원회의 보고가 교과서에 반영되지 않았다고 했다. 그는 이명박 정부가 반대로 이런 학살 사건에 대한 내용을 적게 다루는 교과서로 수정했다고 주장했다.

박근혜 정권 시 총리 내정자였던 문창근이 제주 4.3 사건을 공산주의자들의 폭동이라고 주장했던 일도 있었다.

그리고 70여년 전 사건을 소설로 다룸으로써 위험을 무릅쓴 소설가도 있다. 오사카에서 태어난 92세의 재일동포 김석범 작가는 제주 4.3 사건을 다룬 ‘화산섬’이라는 소설 시리즈를 썼다.

그런데 2015년 그는 한국 입국을 거부당한 바 있다. 그 해 초 그는 제주 4.3 사건이 이승만과 미국에 의해 주도된 것이라고 발언했었다. 그는 한국에 거주하고 있었다면 ‘화산섬’을 쓸 수 없었을 것이라고 말했다. 그랬다면 행동주의자들에 의해 살해됐을 것이며, 국외에 있었기 때문에 집필을 할 수 있었던 것은 정말 운명의 아이러니라고 말했다. (올해 김석범 작가는 광화문 분향소에서 추념 행사를 진행할 예정이다)

그리고 과거와 데자뷰를 이루는 듯한 또 하나의 사건. 제주 사람들은 역사적으로 평화와 조화를 이루며 살아왔지만, 1940년대 말 자주독립을 원했다는 이유로 탄압을 당했고, 또 다시 비슷한 일이 일어났다. 이지스 구축함을 배치하기 위한 기지를 제주 강정마을에 건설하는 것을 도민들이 반대한 것이다. 이명박 정부는 헌법으로 보장된 언론의 자유를 억압했다.

강정마을 해군기지 건설에 있어 제주도민들의 열정적이고 비폭력적인 반대는 완전히 무시당했고, 미국의 정치적 압력과 한국 정부의 언론의 자유 억압이 국민들의 자주권을 가로막았다. 수많은 정치인, 언론인, 민간인들을 은밀하고 불법적으로 감시했던 이명박 정부는 제주도의 군 기지화 반대를 지지하는 제주도 안팎의 민간인들과 단체들을 불시에 조사했다.

미국으로서는 여기에 걸린 사활이 매우 컸다. 자원 경쟁자인 중국을 에워싸려는 의도로 오바마 대통령은 아시아태평양 지역을 기지화하기 위한 위험한 정책을 선택했다. 제주도는 한국과 일본, 중국 사이의 전략적 해상 루트에 위치해 있다.

생태적 다양성을 지니고 있는 제주도는 고도로 무장된 한미 해군함을 위한 기지로서 적합하다고 볼 수 없다. 노무현 대통령은 제주 4.3 사건에 대해 사과하며 제주를 세계 평화의 섬으로 지정한 바 있다.
[위키리크스한국= 최정미 기자]



Before and during the Korean War, the South Korean army and semi-official militias were responsible for massacres in which hundreds of thousands of civilians and political prisoners perished. Some work has been done under past governments to uncover the truth and restore the honor of the victims, but the memory of the massacres remains highly contentious and divisive. Many South Koreans do not even know they happened, and some deny they ever took place.

This history battle goes back to the period between liberation from Japanese rule and the start of the Korean War, when the Korean peninsula was a hotbed of political struggle. Before and during the war, hundreds of thousands of civilians and suspected communists were massacred by the South Korean army and anti-communist guerilla groups. In cases like the Jeju, Yeosu and Sunchon massacres, operations aimed at suppressing communist insurgents led to the deaths of thousands of civilians. In the largest case, the Bodo League Massacre, between 100,000 and 200,000 innocent people and suspected communist sympathizers were killed in an organized effort by the state.

For a long time, families of the victims kept silent out of fear as being branded as “reds” by the state if they spoke up. Under the rule of liberal president Roh Moo-hyun, a Truth and Reconciliation Commission was formed in 2005 despite heavy opposition from conservative groups and politicians. The commission gave many families official recognition by concluding that the death of their relative had indeed been unlawful.

However, many conservatives criticized the commission’s work, and saw it as a tool for political campaigning directed against them. In his book The War With Memory, Kim Dong-choon, one of the former commissioners, describes how conservative groups and media outlets consistently tried to undermine their efforts. The Lee Myung-bak administration disbanded the commission when its mandate expired in 2010, but many claim that much work still remains to be done.

“Little has happened since the [commission] disbanded, except that Presidents Lee and Park and their supporters pretend that none of this happened, not the investigation, not the massacres,” Bruce Cumings, professor of history at the University of Chicago told me in an email interview. As of this summer, victim’s families are still conducting excavations of mass graves from the massacres, on their own accord, without government support.

Despite the commission’s work, the massacres remain left out of much of the official historical narrative. Many South Koreans have barely even heard of the massacres, which are often excluded completely from school history lessons.

When visiting the Korean War Memorial Museum in Seoul this summer, I was unable to find even a single word about the massacres, in English or Korean. Events such as the Jeju and the Yeosu massacres are still described only in terms of communist rebellions that were quashed. Park Geun-hye’s former nominee for prime minister, Moon Chang-keuk, is among those who have claimed that the Jeju Massacre was merely a communist uprising.

These are only a few of many examples of how the memory of the massacres is distorted or denied. Choe Hung-san is the South Korea correspondent for New York Times. In 2000, he won a Pulitzer Prize for his uncovering of the No Gun Ri Massacre during the Korean War. He has long followed how the memory of the massacres is treated in South Korea, and paints a bleak picture when I meet him in Seoul.

“I think conservatives just wanted to shut down the commission, he says. I don’t think conservatives are willing to do more than pay lip service these days, and there have been attempts by conservative activists and newspapers to redefine the Jeju Massacre and other incidents. “

Even in the heyday of the formal reconciliation work, the commission’s findings never garnered much attention.

“It never really became a hot issue. Mainstream media didn’t pay much attention to the work of the commission, partly because the top mainstream newspapers are all conservative.”

For many in the older generation, says Choe, the massacres are still a vivid memory, but the younger generation doesn’t know much about them.

“History books don’t really teach young people about these ideologically sensitive issues, and there has been a systematic campaign by conservative scholars to stop so-called ‘progressive’ textbooks in schools. I don’t even think textbooks that ‘liberals’ approve of go into much depth about the massacres.”

Just as in the history debacle between Japan and Korea, textbooks are a focal point in South Korea’s history battles. In an email interview, former commissioner Kim Dong-choon agrees, and says that the report of the commission was never used to feed into textbooks used in schools. The Lee Myung-bak government, he claims, instead revised textbooks in the opposite direction, to include even less information about events such as the massacres.

Not much is likely to change in the future. It is easy for the South Korean government to push Japan to come clean over its past, because there, the Korean nation remains united. The memory of the massacres, on the other hand, divides the political right and left. Unlike the history conflict with Japan, there is virtually nothing to be gained politically by calling for investigations and reconciliation.

Those in the older generation who have direct memories of what happened are becoming fewer, and the younger generation, despite the massacres having figured in a number of popular movies and books, seems to care very little. In the case of the massacres, in contrast to the Japanese atrocities against Koreans, history will perhaps remain just history.

For more than two decades, Kim Sok-pom risked repercussions from South Korean nationalists by writing a novel about a taboo subject that scarred the Korean Peninsula 70 years ago.

The 91-year-old Zainichi Korean writer, who was born in Osaka, is now in the spotlight in South Korea for his “Kazanto” (Volcanic island) novel series, which highlights the Jeju massacre, or the “Jeju 4/3 incident,” on Jeju island off the southern tip of the Korean Peninsula.

Kim said “Kazanto” helps to fill a void in South Korea’s modern history.

In September, Kim received the first Lee Hochul Tongilro Literature Prize, a unanimous choice among the five judges over nominees from India and Germany.

The international award, organized by the Eunpyeong district government, commemorates Lee, a South Korean novelist who wrote extensively about the division of South and North Korea and died in 2016.

Kim’s award came two years after a Korean-language edition of “Kazanto” was published in South Korea as a 12-volume series. The books have sold steadily, and the series has already been reprinted.

Kim started the series in Japanese in a literature magazine in 1976 and completed it in 1997.

The Jeju massacre was a purge of suspected communists and rebels who, on April 3, 1948, started a rebellion against the election for the South Korean administration. The United States and the United Nations pushed this election instead of seeking an independent and united Korea.

Several tens of thousands of Jeju island residents were believed killed by South Korean authorities during the years of crackdowns.

The massacre had been taboo for many decades in South Korea.

“Kazanto” centers on the repression of young islanders who revolted against the elections and the one-sided establishment of the South government.

Although Kim’s novel is fiction, it is based on real interviews with survivors who were visiting Japan, as well as Kim’s first-hand research conducted on Jeju island.

Considering the length of the series, even Kim admitted that just looking at the amount of printed paper made him “weary” of checking the proofs of the Korean transcripts.

But he says he was delightfully surprised when he heard that all 50 members of a book club organized by a South Korean scholar had read every volume of the 12-part series.

“It must have taken them a good three or four months at the least to finish it,” Kim said.

“Kazanto” has been described as the pinnacle of “diaspora” literature. However, Kim believes his book is “literature of South Korea itself in South Korea, not just of diaspora.”

“North Korea’s threat is growing, and the day of unifying the Koreas may have become more distant,” said Kim, who was born in 1925 to Korean parents from Jeju island. “But when North begins to democratize in the future, it (‘Kazanto’) would become literature of the entire Korea.”

Kim said that is because there is “almost no literature in South Korea on the three years between its liberation (from Japanese colonial rule) in 1945 and the foundation of the Republic of Korea (South Korea) in 1948.”

“Its modern history itself is not completely established,” he said. “I literally wrote history in the gap.”

He also explained that the Jeju massacre remains a difficult topic for South Koreans to write about “because it is literature about the suffering of repressed revolutionists.”

“Jeju islanders who rose up in revolt against the separate elections by the South administration were revolutionary fighters, not mere rioters. But even the South Korea of today has not accepted that. In that sense, South Korea still does not have freedom of speech,” Kim said.

His claims seemed to be supported by how the South Korean media reported on the translated edition of “Kazanto.” They described the books as centering on the Jeju 4/3 incident but never used such terms as “revolt” or “suppression.”

After the end of World War II, Kim chose neither South Korean nor North Korean citizenship in Japan. Instead, he has remained a “Korean” in Japan.

Kim said he did not pick a citizenship because he has not given up hope for a unified Korean Peninsula, and he has doubts about the process of the foundation of South Korea.

In 2015, Kim was refused entry to South Korea.

“Earlier in the year, I said on Jeju island that the Jeju massacre was caused by an invasion led by Syngman Rhee (the first South Korean President) and the United States,” Kim said. “I said that because the way the South administration steamrolled the independent elections while sacrificing the revolt was illegitimate.

“I understand this remark upset some conservatives there.”

Kim continues to write and be vocal about the incident at citizens groups’ meetings and other events, and he has demanded a reinvestigation to uncover the truth.

“It would have been impossible for me to write ‘Kazanto’ if I were living in either South or North Korea. I would have been killed as an activist long ago. That I could produce the long-running series (about my mother country because I was living outside it) was an irony of fate.”

He added: “The dead live on in the living. Inside myself, I am with many comrades whom I outlived. That gives me energy to continue writing. That is what writing history is all about, isn’t it?”

Kim is currently working on a series called “Umino Soko Kara” (From the bottom of the sea) in Japanese about the aftermath of the Jeju massacre. It is being run in a monthly review magazine.

The beautiful island of Jeju in South Korea is packed with natural and cultural treasures and designated a UNESCO world heritage site. But it has the misfortune of appearing to the U.S. military strategically positioned to play a part in surrounding China.

Most Americans are unaware of Jeju or of the U.S. policy of increasing its military presence in Korea, Japan, and the rest of the Pacific -- even moving the Marines into Australia. But for the people of Jeju, attempting to nonviolently resist the construction of a new military base, there is an eerie sense of déjà vu.

In fact Jeju's history is central to how the United States became the militarized nation it has been for over half a century.

Veterans for Peace (VFP) recently sent members to Jeju to monitor the local resistance to this militarization, but they were refused entry by Korean security officials who gave no reasons other than following orders. VFP represents thousands of U.S. military veterans who have participated in various overt and covert U.S. interventions violating the sovereignty of countless countries. This aggressive foreign policy, little mentioned in our history classes, has caused incalculable harm to people, cultures, and the environment. Our personal experiences summon us to carefully re-examine the nature and patterns of U.S. foreign policy. Our clear understanding of past and present imperial adventures compel us to passionately and tenaciously oppose further militarism, war and aggression which we see as severe obstacles to the continuation of our species.

In examining U.S. interventions since World War II, historian William Blum has recently catalogued the following disgraceful record: (1) attempted overthrow of more than 50 governments; (2) attempted suppression of populist and nationalist movements in 20 countries; (3) interference in democratic elections in at least 30 countries; (4) bombing of citizens in 30 countries; and (5) attempted assassinations of more than 50 foreign political leaders.

Shockingly, when all the empirical evidence is scrutinized, the U.S. has militarily intervened nearly 400 times since World War II in nearly 100 countries, while covertly intervening thousands of times. Millions of human beings have been murdered, maimed, and displaced as a result of this egregious, unlawful behavior. Adherence to international and Constitutional law, and honest diplomacy, have been thwarted over and over.

One of the darkest, virtually unknown chapters of U.S. intervention occurred in the southern portions of Korea prior to the Korean War. In 1945, a Joint U.S. Army-Navy Intelligence Study reported that the vast majority of Koreans possessed a strong desire for independence and self-rule, and were vehemently opposed to control by any successor to the hated Japanese who had ruled them since 1910. A subsequent U.S. study reported that nearly 80 percent of Koreans wanted a socialist, rather than capitalist system.

Despite the conclusions of these internal documents, U.S. President Harry Truman, after the Japanese surrender in August 1945, imposed a purportedly temporary partition at Korea’s 38th Parallel dividing a 5,000-year homogenous culture. He then commanded U.S. General Douglas MacArthur to “govern” the people living south of the 38th Parallel. In October 1945, needing a trusted Korean with “an [U.S.] American point of view” to be the U.S. strongman, MacArthur flew 71-year-old Korean-born Syngman Rhee from the U.S. to Seoul on MacArthur’s personal plane. Rhee, a Methodist who had lived in the United States for 40 years, was to be a surrogate ruler of Korea that was largely Buddhist and Confucianist.

Rhee unilaterally chose to hold separate elections in 1948 to “legally” create an artificially divided Korea, despite vigorous popular opposition throughout the Peninsula, north and south of the 38th Parallel, including residents of Cheju Island (now called Jeju, hereafter identified as such). What is referred to as the April 3 (1948) uprising on Jeju in response to these elections, actually lasted into 1950, and is the single greatest massacre in modern Korean history. The Jeju uprising in 1948 may be seen as a microcosm for the impending Korean War.

A CIA National Intelligence Estimate concluded that Rhee was so unpopular that the newly-established Republic of Korea (ROK) would not survive “without massive infusion of U.S. aid.”

The U.S. Embassy described the repression in response to the Jeju opposition to Rhee as a “scorched earth” campaign of “extermination.” Secret protocols placed all Korean Constabulary, police, ROK forces, and paramilitary units under USAMGIK’s (United States Army Military Government In Korea) control.

CIA documents concluded that politics under the USAMGIK and Rhee regime were dominated by a tiny elite class of wealthy Koreans who repressed dissent of the vast majority, using “ruthlessly brutal” policies similar to those of the previous Japanese machinery hated by most Koreans.

Then U.S. Military Governor of Korea, John Reed Hodge, briefed U.S. Congressional Representatives that “Cheju was a truly communal area that is peacefully controlled by the People’s Committee.” Despite this understanding, he commanded three U.S. military officers (among others) – Colonel Harley E. Fuller, Captain John P. Reed, and Captain James Hausman – to advise and coordinate the “extermination” and “scorched earth” campaign. Koreans who had collaborated with the hated Japanese occupiers now served in the U.S.-trained Korean Constabulary and police. Right wing paramilitary units became a brutal element of Rhee’s security apparatus. U.S. advisers accompanied all Korean Constabulary and police (and additional ROK units after 1948) in ground campaigns; U.S. pilots flew C-47s to ferry troops, weapons, war materiel while occasionally directing bombings; and U.S. intelligence officers provided daily intelligence. Additionally U.S. Navy war ships, including the USS Craig, blockaded and bombed the Island, preventing supplies and additional opposition forces from arriving, while preventing flight of boatloads of desperate Islanders.

Hodge’s successor, General William Roberts, declared it was of “utmost importance” that dissenters “be cleared up as soon as possible.” The repressive Japanese organization, “National League To Provide Guidance” (Bo Do Yun Maeng), was expanded by the Rhee regime. Used to systematically identify any Koreans who had opposed Japanese occupation, the League now worked to identify those who opposed the de facto brutal U.S./Rhee rule. Thousands were murdered, jailed, and tortured, and many dumped into the sea as a result.

The Governor of Jeju at the time admitted that the repression of the Island’s 300,000 residents led to the murder of as many as 60,000 Islanders, with another 40,000 desperately fleeing in boats to Japan. Thus, one-third of its residents were either murdered or fled during the “extermination” campaign. Nearly 40,000 homes were destroyed and 270 of 400 villages were leveled. One of Robert’s cohorts, Colonel Rothwell Brown, claimed that the Islanders were simply “ignorant, uneducated farmers and fishers,” a weak excuse for repressing those who, Brown asserted, refused to recognize the “superiority” of the “American Way.”

U.S. Secretary of State Dean Acheson, and George Kennan, head of the State Department’s Policy Planning, agreed in 1949 that suppression of the internal threat in South Korea, (i.e., Koreans’ passion for self-determination), with assistance of the newly created CIA, was critical to preserving Rhee’s power, and assuring success of the U.S.’s worldwide containment policy. The 1949 Chinese Revolution made repressing the neighboring Korean’s passion for self-determination indispensable for success in the emerging “Cold War,” complementing successful U.S. efforts using CIA covert actions to thwart any socialist movements in Europe following World War II.

The 1949-50 National Security Council study, known as NSC-68, laid out U.S. aims to assure a global political system to “foster a world environment in which the American system can survive and flourish.”

The Korean War that lasted from June 1950 to July 1953, was an enlargement of the 1948-50 struggle of Jeju Islanders to preserve their self-determination from the tyrannical rule of U.S.-supported Rhee and his tiny cadre of wealthy constituents. Little known is that the U.S.-imposed division of Korea in 1945 against the wishes of the vast majority of Koreans was the primary cause of the Korean War that broke out five years later. The War destroyed by bombing most cities and villages in Korea north of the 38th Parallel, and many south of it, while killing four million Koreans – three million (one-third) of the north’s residents and one million of those living in the south, in addition to killing one million Chinese. This was a staggering international crime still unrecognized that killed five million people and permanently separated 10 million Korean families.

Following the Korean War, Dean Acheson concluded that “Korea saved us,” enabling the U.S. to implement its apocalyptic imperial strategy laid out in NSC-68. In Korea, this meant that the U.S. consistently assured dictatorial governments for nearly 50 years, long after Rhee was forced out of office at age 85 in 1960. Since 1953, the U.S. and South Korea have lived under a Mutual Defense Treaty, Status of Forces Agreements, and a Combined Forces Command headed by a 4-star U.S. general. The fact is that despite claims to the contrary, Korea has never assumed sovereignty since the U.S. imposed division of Korea in 1945. The U.S. has possessed more than 100 military bases and nearly 50,000 troops on Korean soil, and even today has dozens of bases and 28,000 troops stationed there. For decades, the U.S. maintained its main Asian bombing range south of Seoul.

Despite this gruesome history, Koreans began to successfully assert some semblance of democratic governments in the 1990s. However, despite creation of a constitution that protects free speech and basic human rights, Koreans once again are experiencing egregious repression. The Korean residents of pristine Jeju Island vigorously oppose the construction of a deep-water port to host Korean and U.S. guided missile-equipped Aegis Destroyers at the village of Gangjeong. The South Korean government headed by reactionary President Lee Myung Bak is ruthlessly repressing their legitimate, constitutionally-protected free speech. This is not acceptable. The residents of Jeju have a long history of living in peace and harmony. They were brutalized in the late 1940s for wanting independence, and are being brutalized once again for attempting to preserve self-determination. It is déjà vu.

We have been following the daily brutal repression by as many as 1,500 Korean police and security forces of Jeju’s 1,500 residents whose voices of passionate and nonviolent opposition have been completely ignored. When we called the Korean Embassy in Washington, D.C. to ask why this deep-water port construction continues in Gangjeong over objections of more than 90 percent of its residents, the answer has been, “Don’t call us, call your own (U.S.) government.” Political pressure from the U.S. continues to interfere with sovereignty of the Korean people as their own government disrespects, then represses, the free speech of its own citizens despite protections inscribed in the Korean constitution.

We read reports in the Korean press of more than 2600 politicians, journalists and civilians being secretly, illegally spied upon during the current Lee administration. In January 2009, Korea Broadcasting Service (KBS) aired a program that disclosed a secret deal made by the CIA-style Korean National Intelligence Service (NIS), Korean police, and components of the Jeju Island government, to quash any opposition movement to the planned construction of a Jeju deep-water military port, saying such opponents are, in effect, traitors. It is being built by the huge South Korea conglomerate, Samsung, despite watchdog Public Eye citing its history of over 50 years of environmental pollution, trade union repression, corruption and tax flight. Samsung’s power in South Korea is so great that many citizens speak of the “Samsung Republic.”

And we note that the NIS has raided Korean citizens and organizations, even on the mainland, who support the valiant villagers of Gangjeong on Jeju Island who resist the militarization of their Island, of their coastline, of their villages.

The stakes are much higher now that U.S. President Barack Obama has chosen a dangerous policy to militarize the Asia-Pacific region, due to obvious U.S. political intentions to encircle resource-rival China. Jeju, only 300 miles from China’s mainland, is located in a strategic sea route between Japan, Korea, and China. Obama recently dispatched U.S. troops to a northern port of Australia (2,500 miles from China) as part of this plan, while possessing existing jet landing strips in Okinawa (400 miles), Guam (1,900), and new landing bases in Afghanistan (1,000) and Turkmenistan (1,500), and increased strategic relationships with Singapore (1,200) and Philippines (750).

The immensely biodiverse Jeju Island is a most inappropriate location for a deep-water port to host highly armed U.S. and Korean Navy war ships. Former Korean President Roh Moo Kyum designated Jeju as “Jeju Island of Global Peace” when he formally apologized for the April 1948 massacre. A popular tourist vacation spot, famous for honeymooners and sometimes called “women’s Island” due to its matriarchal history, it is also called the “Island of the Gods.” It is Jeju’s incredible unique ecosystem that makes the island so inappropriate for militarizing a deep-water port in quiet coastal village of Gangjeong. It is sheer madness to blow up sacred lava rocks to make way for violent war machines. UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) has designated no less than three World Heritage sites on Jeju, including the Gureombi Lava Rocks being blown up for construction of the Navy destroyer port that are being covered with cement along the coast. UNESCO has also designated nine Geo-Parks on Jeju, as well as designating it as a protected Global Biosphere Reserve that includes Jeju coastlines and its fragile coral reefs.

The Korean government has claimed the deep-water port will also host commercial cruise ships. Their huge weight and 1,000-foot length makes them twice as heavy and long as the 500-550 foot Aegis Destroyers. The port will not be capable of hosting these tourist ships, revealing this dual-use claim as fanciful propaganda.

Our military experiences tell us this plan by Korea and the U.S. to host missile-equipped Aegis Destroyers as part of its global anti-ballistic missile system on the pristine Island of Jeju is extremely threatening to world peace, destroys the peace of the residents of Jeju and Gangjeong village, and flaunts Korea’s Constitutional assurances of protecting free speech of its citizens. We urge the Korean government act decisively to end its continued deference to pressures from the United States, and instead commence pursuing Korea’s legitimate dignity and sovereignty.



<참조 문서>
1) https://goo.gl/hBta5n
2) https://thediplomat.com/2014/08/south-koreas-own-history-problem/
3) http://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/AJ201710160003.html

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