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Chapter 4 "Law in Whose Name, Order for Whose Benefit?" Police Training, "Nation-Building," and Political Repression in Postcolonial South Korea Beautiful land, Korea our country, covered with flowers of hibiscus in full bloom, That's where our noble brethren live staunchly, That's where the democratic police stand resolutely, with a glorious mission on their shoulders. - Korean National Police song, late 1940s Are you not from the Korean nation? Have you not the same blood and bone? Why do you fire on Koreans? - People's Committee pamphlet, Chinju, 1946 The tragedy of the liberation period and the depth of American responsibility are most evident in the history of the Korean National Police (KNP) during [the] occupation. - BRUC E CUMINGS, TIle Origim afthe Koreal1 War, 1981 In July 1946, as part of an investigation by the American Military Government (AMG) in South Korea, an adviser asked the police chief in Kongju if he believed that left-wing leaders should be suppressed. The chief hesitated and asked, "As a policeman or echoing the opinion of the people'» After the adviser responded, "as a policeman:' the chief replied with a wink: "I cannot say because we are ordered not to express any opinions. Ninety per cent of the people would like to eliminate leftists:'! This conversation sheds light on the political function of the police, which was built up as an integral part of the American occupation (1945-1948) and efforts to stabilize the rule of Syngman Rhee, an OSS liaison exiled for almost forty years under the Japanese, and first president ofthe Republic of Korea (ROK). Following World War II, Korea emerged as a crucial theater of competition with China and with the Soviet Union, which, after the three-year occupation, backed Rhee's rival Kim II Sung, an anticolonial fighter who advocated sweep79 ing land reform, state socialism, and economic self-sufficiency (juche)2 Seeking to counter Kim's radical nationalism, U.S. policy aimed to open up Korea's economy, largely to enable Japan to extract raw materials capable of sustaining its economic recovery, thus preventing the rise ofleftist movements there and keeping Japan in the Western orbit. In January 1947, Secretary of State George Marshall scribbled a note to Dean Acheson: "Please have plan drafted of policy to organize a definite government of So. Korea and connect up its economy with that of Japan:'3 To achieve this objective, the Truman administration promoted the construction of a police surveillance apparatus mobilized to protect Korea from "foreign aggression" and "internal subversion:' Military advisers developed a 24,OOO-man constabulary whose record would prove little different from that of its Philippine and Haitian counterparts in suppressing popular revolts. Despite contributing to extensive human rights abuses, the police programs were seen as effective because the ROK remained pro-West and later experienced rapid economic development, considered in elite sectors as validation of Walt Rostow's influential modernization theory. The intervention thus entrenched the view that a modernized police force was crucial to a nation's internal security, setting the standard for the Cold War. Conscience and Convenience: The Korean National Police and Consolidation of a u.s. Sphere As Bruce Cumings notes in The Origins ofthe Korean War, the ROK was more of an American creation than any other postwar Asian regime. The CIA predicted that its economy would collapse in a matter of weeks if U.S. aid were terminated4 As with Jiang Jieshi in China and Ngo Dinh Diem in South Vietnam , U.S. diplomats tired of Rhee's obstinacy and unwillingness to promote basic land reform, though they stood by him as a bulwark against communism. The CIA considered the Princeton Ph.D. a "demagogue bent on autocratic rule" whose support was maintained by that "numerically small class which virtually monopolizes the native wealth."s The American occupation was headed by General John Reed Hodge, an Illinois farmer known as the "Patton of the Pacific;' who knew little about Korea. He worked to build a professional police force, which he believed to be pivotal to "nation-building" efforts; its central aim was to stamp out the political left and bolster Rhee's power. A secret history ofthe Korean National Police (KNP) argued, "No one can anticipate what insidious infiltration may develop, and [so] the police must be given latitude to carry out the desires of the new government ; more so than would be necessary in normal times:'6 The KNP consequently evolved as a politicized and essentially counterrevolutionary...

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