"The students killed during the democracy movement symbolized the terror and the lack of democratic values that the dictatorial government of then President Chun Doo Hwan represented. The senseless torture death of Park Jong Chul stirred the emotions of a majority of the nation and symbolized what was wrong with maintaining a government that was not directly elected by the people."
-Kim Newton, personal interview.
“Police saturated protesters with tear gas. They escaped through alleys and regrouped. Shopkeepers pulled down their shutters but opened them to rescue stragglers sputtering from the gas. The battle line kept shifting. The rubble of street warfare was everywhere. Fist-sized chunks of paving stone littered main thoroughfares. But there was an order. No shops smashed, no cars overturned, nothing burned, and miraculously, no one killed.” |
© Kim Newton All Rights Reserved, South Korean Democracy Movement 1987.
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Guide map for Seoul Olympic Games. National Museum of Korean Contemporary History.
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Fear of a nationwide protest, the concern of a canceled Olympics, and pressure from an U.S. afraid of another Gwangju Uprising, a triumphant announcement was made.
"...[T]he people were so strong in their demand for change, if the movement had been suppressed it would have resulted in... bloodshed, and the ruling group thought that it would then be difficult to deal with resulting issues. The fear was that the Olympics could be cancelled. So the elite decided to compromise." |
"Are the Olympics more important than democracy? Is there any event that can be more important than democracy?"
-Kim Dae Jung.
Finally, after years of protest and bloodshed, political prisoners such as Kim Dae Jung were released and direct elections would be held in the fall of 1987.
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"In a country like ours, it requires a lot more courage to give up powers than to grab it." |
"...[T]he subsequent elections were the beginning of a new era for the South Korean people."
-Kim Newton, personal interview.
"The June Struggle is a joint mission to all of us. We have a historical debt to nameless young ones and those who lost their lives."
-Ham Sei-ung.