Korea's Grievous War

Pennsylvania Studies in Human Rights

by Su-Kyoung Hwang

In 1948, two years before Cold War tensions resulted in the invasion of South Korea by North Korea that started the Korean War, the first major political confrontation between leftists and rightists occurred on the South Korean island of Cheju, where communist activists disrupted United Nations-sanctioned elections and military personnel were deployed. What began as a counterinsurgency operation targeting 350 local rebels resulted in the deaths of roughly 30,000 uninvolved civilians, 10 percent of the island's population.

Su-kyoung Hwang's Korea's Grievous War recounts the civilian experience of anticommunist violence, beginning with the Cheju Uprising in 1948 and continuing through the Korean War until 1953. Wartime declarations of emergency by both the U.S. and Korean governments were issued to contain communism, but a major consequence of their actions was to contribute to the loss of more than two million civilian lives. Hwang inventories the persecutions of left-leaning intellectuals under the South Korean regime of Syngman Rhee and the executions of political prisoners and innocent civilians to "prevent" their collaboration with North Korea. She highlights the role of the United States in observing, documenting, and yet failing to intervene in the massacres and of the U.S. Air Force's three-year firebombing campaign in North and South Korea.

Hwang draws on archival research and personally conducted interviews to recount vividly the acts of anticommunist violence at the human level and illuminate the sufferings of civilian victims. Korea's Grievous War presents the historical background, political motivations, legal bases, and social consequences of anticommunist violence, tracing the enduring legacy of this destruction in the testimonies of survivors and bereaved families that only now can give voice to the lived experience of this grievous war and its aftermath.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Asia, Politics, War

261 pages, Kindle Edition

Published July 15, 2016

Reviews

[Z · Rating 5 out of 5]

Essential read for anyone seeking to understand the political culture of South Korea and its diaspora communities today. Through a number of interviews with bereaved individuals and families, we are met with raw, visceral pains of war, placing us face-to-face with its brutal realities and the lifelong trauma it leaves behind. I had no knowledge of the National Guidance Alliance or the extent of guilt-by-association that persists to this day. The victims of anticommunist terror campaigns—closely orchestrated and monitored by the U.S. military—must not be forgotten or relegated to the margins of history. While I don’t agree with every perspective on the war itself, given the nature of the research Hwang conducted there are many insights that I think demand further reflection, and will definitely return to.

[Juhyundred · Rating 5 out of 5]

A really indispensable study on anticommunist violence in Korea. Hwang looks at the Jeju Massacre, the development of "states of emergency" in the US and ROK in light of conditions in Korea, the National Guidance Alliance, and US bombing of the DPRK—drawing not only on national archives of the ROK and US, but also through extensive interviews with survivors of anticommunist violence. The inclusion of interviews with the actual people who lived through these horrors is rare among academic English literature on Korea. Some obligatory anticommunism is included in the book, but this largely appears on a kind of lip-service basis that, to me, suggests it is responding to pressures from the extant National Security Law. That could of course just be the narrative I prefer. Nonetheless, I think this is an incredibly valuable book. I did pause in reading it for a couple of weeks because the content was so heavy.

[Nick · Rating 4 out of 5]

4/5
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It’s so wild, yet unsurprising, that my education included virtually nothing about the Korean War.

[Ravi]

brutal exploration of government suppression in u.s. occupied korea

[Rob · Rating 4 out of 5]

Brutal, depressing content.

Just what I look for.