Tag: Gwangju

This is a horrible tragedy over in Gwangju:

A building collapsed during demolition in the southwestern city of Gwangju on Wednesday, leaving at least nine people dead and eight others seriously injured, fire officials said.

They received a report at 4:22 p.m. that the 5-story building had collapsed and fell onto a bus that was stopped at a station near the construction site. 

As of 8:40 p.m., nine people were confirmed dead and eight others were seriously injured and taken to nearby hospitals. All of them are bus passengers.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

No apology will ever make the Korean left happy on this issue. Just like with the comfort women issue, they need to keep this issue alive to bash their political enemies with. So in the grand scheme of things this apology is meaningless to the Korean left:

Army Chief of Staff Gen. Nam Yeong-shin apologized Friday for the military’s brutal crackdown on protestors during a 1980 pro-democracy uprising in the southwestern city of Gwangju, vowing to fully cooperate with an ongoing probe into the case. 

This is the first time in 40 years that an Army chief officially apologized for the bloody incident.

“I believe that the military’s involvement in the May 18 Democratization Movement is gravely wrong,” Nam said during a parliamentary audit of the Army on Friday. “I’d like to offer a sincere apology to victims and bereaved families.”

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

Condolences to the friends and family of the British English teacher who was found deceased recently at her school in Gwangju:

A British woman in her 20s has been found dead at a middle school in the southwestern city of Gwangju, police said Thursday.

A janitor found the 25-year-old woman, who has been teaching English, in a research room of the school around 4:50 p.m. on Wednesday and reported the case to police.

The English instructor, whose name was withheld, was lying on her back, and there were no signs of fighting with any intruder at the scene, according to the police. 

Her acquaintances have told police that she was supposed to undergo a surgery the same day for a disease that hurt her back and made it difficult for her to breathe.

Yonhap

In addition to being an odd story, I am some what surprised he actually received 7 years in jail for rape:

A Korean man was sentenced to seven years in prison for raping the sister of his Filipino wife. The man, 39, surnamed Jeon, was also ordered to receive 120 hours of sex-crime prevention education.

An appellate court in Gwangju handed down the ruling on Wednesday, overturning a lower court’s acquittal.

“The accused raped his sister-in-law who came from the Philippines to attend his wedding ceremony. It’s really a bad crime,” wrote Judge Lee Jae-kwon in a ruling statement. “The victim experienced a great deal of humiliation, shame and mental shock, which caused serious depression, stress-driven emotional disorder and chronic insomnia.”

According to court documents, the incident happened on Feb. 15 last year, three days before the wedding ceremony. The groom-to-be raped his sister-in-law after they went out together to buy gifts for wedding guests.

A lower court acquitted him based on circumstantial and tangible evidence, with which it presumed the two to be in a romantic relationship.  [Korea Times]

I think no matter what the evidence says this was something that was going to happen regardless because this is more about politics than fact finding:

South Korea’s defense minister offered an official apology Friday for the military’s brutal use of force against pro-democracy protesters in Gwangju in 1980.

“As the minister of national defense, I offer a sincere apology and (words of) comfort to Gwangju citizens that our military has left suffering in the process of the May 18 Democratization Movement 38 years ago,” Song Young-moo said in a statement.

It came two days after the ministry’s special fact-finding team announced the results of five months of investigation into suspicions about the military’s role in the suppression of those protesting against the junta of Chun Doo-hwan.

The civilian-government panel said the Army launched helicopter gunship attacks on citizens in the southwestern city, with fighter jets armed with bombs on standby as a backup. The findings were based on the review of documents and interviews on witnesses.  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link, but I always recommend people read Linda Lewis’, Laying Claim to the Memory of May: A Look Back at the 1980 Kwangju Uprising for a good analysis of what happened back in 1980.