On Feb. 8, members of National Assembly including members of Kim Jin-tae, Lee Jong-Myong and Kin Sun-rye from the opposition Liberty Korea Party and conservative disputant Chi Man-won sponsored a public hearing at the National Assembly. They described the Gwangju popular uprising as a disturbance caused by a north Korean special unit and defamed the bereaved families of the uprising as a monster group organized by the pro-north Korean leftist force.
They claimed that the Gwangju popular uprising should be reappraised, while speaking highly of Chun Doo-hwan as a “hero”. They threw the civic organizations that were protesting it against out of the National Assembly.
As is well known, the Gwangju popular uprising was the south Korean people’s eruption of pent-up wrath and anger on colonial domination of the foreign forces and military fascist rule. It was a nationwide resistance of the Gwangju citizens who wished to lead an independent and democratic life.
It is intolerable that the LKP, oblivious of the lesson of history, is so impudent as to slander the Gwangju popular uprising for independence, democracy and reunification.
The ruling and opposition parties including the Democratic Party and the Party for Democracy and Peace made public statements of indignation and resolutions one after another against the LKP. They are strongly putting pressure upon the LKP by demanding their expulsion from the party, dismissal from National Assembly, legal action and criminal punishment.
More than forty civic bodies and university professors in Gwangju said that all the Gwangju citizens are inflamed with surging indignation against the LKP. They declared that they would set up tents on the street and launch candlelight resistance outside the National Assembly until the LKP oust those responsible for it and make an official apology to the Gwangju citizens.
The south Korean people should show no mercy to the LKP and throw it into the cesspit of history.
