Recently, political conflict has erupted in South Korea over the legacy of the pro-democracy demonstrations that took place in Gwangju, the capital of South Jeolla Province, in May 1980. The latest trouble has been sparked by defector testimony, featured in a number of conservative cable TV channel reports, suggesting that the “5.18 pro-democracy movement” was incited in part by a team of around 200 members of North Korean special forces travelling south on the orders of Kim Il Sung.
There is considerable dismay in left wing circles that the conservative media was prepared to broadcast the claims, and this shows few signs of dying down. Meanwhile, defectors have come forward to say that while they have heard rumors of North Korean involvement in Gwangju, they never saw any evidence to support them.
The initial televised claims were made by Kim Myung Guk, who says he was in the employ of the Central Party Liaison Office, an entity dealing with operations inside South Korea, at the time of the May 18th protests, and Lee Joo Sung, the director of KPIPO, an NGO that promotes human rights and democracy in North Korea, who says he interviewed Kim.
Aggregating the testimony of defectors, it appears that rumors of North Korean involvement in the events in Gwangju are common in North Korea; however, these rumors have not been and probably cannot be confirmed. Rather, it is considered equally likely that the North Korean authorities deliberately spread rumors of involvement to exaggerate the successfulness of operations against the South.
According to Kim Kyung Nam, who used to work in the North Korean media, “There was this story that in the 1980s these special forces guys grew their hair long for large-scale deployment to South Korea. An older friend of mine also worked for the Liaison Office and he had long hair like a girl, but that was after 5.18 had been and gone. It was because had been ordered to grow his hair like a South Korean university student.”
A second defector, former National Security Agency officer Park Chun Seok agreed, saying, “At that time, the story that one battalion or regiment of the North Korean military had been dispatched to Gwangju was widespread inside the NSA, too; most of us knew of it.” A third, who served in the military, confirmed that many of his military colleagues had heard rumors of sniper units being dispatched to Gwangju.
However, Kim also noted, “If you look at the atmosphere in North Korea at the time, groundless rumors forbidden by the state would have found it hard to spread, whereas rumors that were a mouthpiece for the state could spread quite rapidly. Groundless rumors about May 18th can be seen in that way, but actually there is no way to check whether the authorities dispatched special forces to the South or not.”
