[Download PDF] Korea's Grievous War - Su-Kyoung Hwang
Korea's Grievous War In 1948, two years before Cold War tensions resulted in the invasion of South Korea by North Korea that started the Korean War, the first major political confrontation between leftists and rightists occurred on the South Korean island of Cheju. Communist activists disrupted United Nations-sanctioned elections and military personnel were deployed to Cheju. What began as a counterinsurgency operation targeting 350 local rebels resulted in the deaths of around 30,000 uninvolved civilians, 10 percent of the island's population.Su-kyoung Hwang's Korea's Grievous War recounts the civilian experience of anticommunist violence, beginning with the Cheju Uprising in 1948 and continuing through the Korean War until 1953. Wartime declarations of emergency by both the U.S. and Korean governments were issued to contain communism, but a major consequence of their actions was to contribute to the loss of over two million civilian lives. Hwang inventories the persec...
