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SUMMARY:Contested History\, Kwangju and Korea's Cold War Politics: New per
 spectives on South Korea's Democratization and Foreign Policy from the Bri
 tish Archives - Dr John Swenson-Wright (Senior Lecturer\, Japanese Politic
 s and International Relations)
DTSTART:20120228T131000Z
DTEND:20120228T140000Z
UID:TALK35291@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Xinyi Liu
DESCRIPTION:May 18\, 1980 was arguably a pivotal moment in the democratiza
 tion of South Korea. The brutal suppression of a civic protest in the Sout
 hern city of Kwangju by the military government of General Chun Do-Hwan\, 
 with the death of as many as 2000 protesters (many of whom were university
  students or younger) marked the beginning of a decade of public protest t
 hat ultimately led to the establishment of democratic government in the Re
 public of Korea. The events of May 1980 were controversial not only becaus
 e of the deployment of armed troops against a vulnerable civilian populati
 on\, but also because the decision to use force required\, in principle\, 
 the approval of the US military authorities in South Korea. The United Sta
 tes\, as South Korea's senior military ally\, had formal jurisdiction over
  the combined ROK-US forces on the peninsula\, and the suggestion that the
  US government might have been complicit in a civilian massacre raised dif
 ficult human rights questions for the administration of then President Jim
 my Carter. In the aftermath of the repression\, South Korea's leading oppo
 sition politician\, Kim Dae-jung was arrested by the South Korean authorit
 ies and indicted for treason\, for allegedly inciting the Kwangju rebellio
 n. For Western governments\, including the Thatcher Administration of the 
 United Kingdom\, public pressure to speak out against the actions of South
  Korea's military government\, often conflicted with wider strategic and e
 conomic objectives in the context of the Cold War. \n\nThe talk will explo
 re the background to the events of May 18 and the response of the British 
 government to the rise of popular democratic activism in South Korea. Arch
 ival evidence\, based on newly released government records\, suggest that 
 the Thatcher government was willing to place the UK's narrowly defined eco
 nomic interests ahead of the democratic and human rights of the South Kore
 an people\, in a manner that reflected a strikingly dismissive attitude to
 wards local political conditions in the Republic of Korea.
LOCATION:Entertaining Room\, Darwin College
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