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Solidarity—from Gwangju to Falluja

Published Jun 9, 2005 8:05 PM

About 100 people from the Korean community in Los Angeles and the progressive movement listened to two veteran activists from South Korea who wound up a speaking tour of the U.S. and Canada with a final stop here on June 3 in Koreatown.

The meeting was co-chaired by Kim Hyong Chon of One Korea-L.A. Forum and Maggie Vascassenno of the International Action Center.

The tour commemorated the 25th anniversary of the heroic people’s uprising at Gwangju, South Korea. In May 1980, the people of Gwangju actually took control of the large port city and fought to hold it for 10 days.

Like the Paris Commune 109 years earlier, the uprising was drowned in blood, but continues to inspire the progressive and anti-imperialist movement around the world.

The Chun Doo Hwan regime was secretly given the green light to use the military by U.S. Secretary of State Cyrus Vance of the Carter administration.

The meeting satisfied the crowd’s hunger for information about Gwangju, and was truly inspirational in many ways. For instance, Kim Hyo-seok, a veteran of the uprising who was imprisoned for his activities, was visibly moved when he reported, early in his talk, that the two had participated in a commemoration of Malcolm X during the tour.

He spoke solemnly of the horrors of the repression and of his personal losses during the Gwangju uprising, but was at the same time hopeful and positive because of the anti-imperialist movement that Gwangju spawned in South Korea.

Lee Shin defended the right of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea—North Korea—to defend itself from U.S. aggression, describing the ongoing military provocations by the United States since the close of the Vietnam War as a grave threat to all Koreans.

He recounted a recent poll that asked South Koreans who they would support in the event of a nuclear confrontation between the DPRK and the U.S. Some 48 percent said they would side with North Korea and only 36 percent with the U.S.

Both men spoke of the struggle of the Iraqi people, and Kim referred to Falluja as the “Iraqi people’s Gwangju.” Lee reminded the crowd of a widely circulated photo of an anti-war demonstration in Seoul on March 19 in which there were candles held by demonstrators as far as the eye could see. He vowed that when Bush returns to South Korea there will be even more protests.

The great feeling of solidarity in the hall was expressed by John Parker who sang a song about the Gwangju Uprising and a poem in Korean by Harim Kim of One Korea.