Report from south Korea
A mountain gives up its secrets
By Sharon Ayling
Kwang Ahm-ri,
South Cholla Province,
south Korea
May 20 was a beautiful spring day as a group of
international visitors, Korean activists and members of the
Korean media gathered in the tiny farming village of Kwang
Ahm-ri in southwestern Korea. The group was making final
preparations for a hike up a nearby mountain.
Those gathered were somber, for this hike was not for
recreation.
The guide, Kim Young Sung, met the delegation in the front
yard of a local farmer. Kim explained that in 1951, in the
middle of the Korean War, a terrible massacre of civilian
villagers had occurred on the top of Bulgap Mountain. The
delegation, which was on a national tour of massacre sites
organized by the Korea Truth Commission, would be the first
investigative team to uncover the remains.
Kim had first-hand knowledge of the mountaintop massacre
because he was there. As a young man before the war, he had
joined the partisan guerrillas resisting the U.S. military
occupation and division of Korea. When the war broke out on
June 25, 1950, a small band of partisans retreated to this
mountain. For nearly a year, they battled the south Korean
military and paramilitary forces until they were overwhelmed.
One of the few to survive, Kim was jailed for 36 years as a
political prisoner.
Until the revelations two years ago that U.S. officers at
Nogun-ri had ordered their soldiers to machine-gun civilians in
a train tunnel over a two-day period, no one in south Korea
spoke about what happened during the Korean War. An estimated 1
million civilians were killed in south Korea during the war,
either directly by U.S. occupation forces or indirectly by
south Korean forces under U.S. command.
Only once before--in 1960--did survivors and families of
victims publicly reveal the horror that they had witnessed. But
the military seized control that same year. Those who had dared
speak were severely punished and the evidence they gathered was
suppressed.
Now thousands of elderly people are courageously speaking
out about their bitter suffering. Over 100 massacre sites have
been identified so far.
Encouraged by this growing movement, Kim recently returned
to the area to search for anyone who might remember what
happened on the mountain so many years ago.
That is how he met Choi Jong Nam, in whose yard the
delegation was gathered. Kim introduced Choi to the visitors.
Choi explained that during the war U.S. planes repeatedly
bombed the villages in this valley. Many homes were burned
down, hundreds of people were killed, and the survivors were
forced to flee into the mountains.
Before the war, about 120 people had lived in Choi's village
in about 30 houses. At the end of the war, 20 people remained
alive and two houses remained standing.
It was Kim and Choi who this past January located the
massacre site the delegation would be investigating. Nine
members of Choi's family had been killed on the mountain; only
he survived. Taking leave of Choi after thanking him and
picking up some tools, the delegation started on its
journey.
It was a slow climb. Kim led the group up an overgrown path,
with many pauses to clear away the brush. The path, which in
the past had been used by villagers to visit a small shrine,
had fallen into disuse.
After climbing for nearly an hour to the top of the
mountain, Kim announced that they had reached their destination
and asked everyone to sit on the forest floor. He then
continued his story.
During the first months of the war, the guerrillas had
engaged small numbers of south Korean troops in combat and were
able to repel them. They dug a long defensive trench near the
top ridge of the mountain.
On Feb. 20, 1951, about 1,500 south Korean troops and U.S.
military advisors charged up the mountain to seize it from the
partisans, who by then were down to 40 fighters. Also on the
mountain were nearly 2,000 unarmed civilian refugees, including
many women with young children. The guerrillas knew they would
be forced to withdraw from this overwhelming force, so they
urged the villagers to flee. Most did not, because they feared
returning to their bombed-out villages.
When the south Korean troops reached the top of the
mountain, they found only civilians. Using the partisans'
trench as a mass grave, they lined up the villagers by the
hundreds and executed them, filling the trench. They then
chased down and executed hundreds more, leaving their bodies
scattered over the mountainside.
After the slaughter, some people who had remained in the
valley gathered up what bodies they could find and gave them a
proper burial. But many remained, including those buried in the
trench.
Over the years, local villagers gathering firewood on Bulgap
Mountain would chance upon remains. There was always whispered
talk of a mass grave. But until Kim, no one who had lived on
the mountain at the time of the massacre had taken up a
search.
Kim led the delegation to an indentation running along the
forest floor about 300 feet long and a foot and a half wide.
With small gardening tools, some members of the delegation
began the painful search for human remains. It didn't take
long. Just below the surface, human bones, shreds of old
clothing, and shoes were unearthed. They were carefully placed
on a burial sheet.
Though no one was a forensic expert, it seemed apparent that
the remains found in one small section of the trench
represented many bodies and were being disturbed for the first
time.
After a simple ceremony honoring the dead, the remains were
wrapped in the cloth and reburied in the same spot. The
delegates dried their tears and promised to work hard to expose
U.S. responsibility for this terrible crime when they returned
home.
Kim explained that on Sept. 8, the Korean Truth Commission
would begin a public excavation of the site. Then the
delegation began its descent back down the mountain.
The team's efforts received extensive coverage in the south
Korean media.
Reprinted from the June 6, 2002, issue of
Workers World newspaper
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
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