Laying Claim to the Memory of May: A Look Back at the 1980 Kwangju Uprising

Popular Hopes Crushed: The Army Retakes the City

52 Popular Hopes Crushed The Army Retakes the City May 27 6:00 a.m. At dawn—before 5 a.m.—the sound of guns. Not just the ping, ping of guns and the ak-ak-ak of automatics, but big booms that I thought might be tanks and M said was dynamite. It’s a lovely day—clear, cool. F said—they must be all over the city; look on the little hill by the tracks. And sure enough, several soldiers were creeping over it. The damn helicopter sound— 5 (M says 10) circle overhead and have been for 30 minutes. 7:00 There was silence—now the helicopters are ¶ying over broadcasting (I think), “Give up your guns.” Not so much as a baby’s cry in the neighborhood , altho I’m sure every household is like ours—out in the courtyard, washing, shaving, brushing teeth, waiting, rattling dishes. The helicopters have been ¶ying for 30 minutes. But now—in the beautiful morning—I had assumed they would come in and take over. But I looked out and saw a guy in a house behind emerge in a yaebigun [reservist’s] uniform. I asked M— ours or theirs? Oh—it’s okay. He should be out like that—he’s ours. And people are appearing on kimchee pot platforms, looking around. It may be far from over. . . . Popular Hopes Crushed 53 8:30 The Austins say it’s all over. They came in fast and big at dawn and there were few casualties. The soldiers are back in control of the city. 6:00 p.m. Gloom in the family—except for F, who shows obvious relief and is back to his old self. TN is really shell-shocked; he can hardly talk. M is in bad shape, too. I think she has been crying. She feels for the people who have died. And we all think of all the students hauled off. Reports are 207 students arrested, 2 killed. . . . The radio is talking about rebuilding, money, etc. What is there to clean up? It is the govt buildings. And will they give compensation? M says—why should I pay taxes? What has the govt done with my money but make planes and guns to kill our students? And we have to pay 800 W a month on our TV for KBS—it is the national station, but what does it broadcast but lies? Now, is it supposed to do that? I think I’ll stop paying. It is a lovely day—maybe the best of the month. Clear, so clear—and cool. We really are locked in today. They are allowing people with business (govt of¤ce types) to walk around, but only after showing IDs. There are hundreds of troops in the city, and tanks at major intersections (so I hear). No bean sprouts—M checked. They couldn’t get them in, because they would have had to go by the tanks at Sansu intersection. I’ve slept, listened to the radio, and read Levi-Strauss today. I’m about to go stir crazy. Thorpe appeared to chat with me and the family. The family feels secure that the truth is in good hands. I sacri¤ced a can of soup for supper (¤eld journal, May 27, 1980). At midnight the long-distance phone line in the Provincial Of¤ce Building had gone dead; the standoff was over. Small units of simin’gun were strategically deployed around the city. Of the perhaps ¤ve hundred mainly young people who had been in the headquarters during the day, only about two hundred remained, ten of them women.1 About ¤fty members of the women’s bureau (including some wives of the male leadership) were at the YWCA, although most eventually ¶ed to a nearby church. In both public and private memory, the strongest representation of that last night remains the lone voice of a young woman. Pak Yöng-sun, a twenty-one-year-old college student, had been doing 54 Kwangju, 1980 “street broadcasts” (kadu pangsong), a woman’s job, since May 24. The street broadcasters used a makeshift sound truck to drive around the streets of Kwangju disseminating information. In the early morning hours of May 27, the ¤nal broadcast came: “ Citizens! Now the martial law forces are invading! Our beloved brothers and sisters are dying from the soldiers’ guns and bayonets. If we...