Yŏsu-Sunch’ŏn Rebellion

Yŏsu-Sunch’ŏn Rebellion, also spelled Yeosu-Suncheon Rebellion,  (1948) left-wing military and civilian protest against the nascent South Korean government in southern Korea during the post-World War II period. In mid-October 1948, when the Korean peninsula was still coping with its recent division into the two separate political entities of North Korea and South Korea, the violent protest broke out in Yŏsu—a port city of South Chŏlla (Jeolla) province on the southern coast of the Korean peninsula—against the government headed by the anticommunist president Syngman Rhee.

The Yŏsu-Sunch’ŏn Rebellion (or Incident) began when members of a South Korean military regiment in Yŏsu refused to transfer to Cheju (Jeju) Island to suppress a communist rebellion there; they were sympathetic to the communists and against the Rhee government and the decisive U.S. influence in South Korea. The soldiers were soon joined by thousands of civilian sympathizers in Yŏsu and elsewhere in the region, including the neighbouring town of Sunch’ŏn, as the initial spark of military rebellion grew into a more generally populist, leftist, and anti-imperialist protest. The rebels soon occupied parts of eastern South Chŏlla province and attempted to establish their own “Korean people’s republic.” U.S. Army and South Korean government forces were dispatched to suppress the rebellion, and brutality was reported on both sides of the conflict. The insurgents targeted and executed military commanders, local government authorities and police, and those who had collaborated with the Japanese during Japan’s decades-long occupation of Korea (which concluded with the end of World War II). The uprising was largely contained by early November, but scattered guerrilla activity continued well into the following year.

Estimates of casualties from the incident vary widely, from hundreds to thousands of people. The military conducted a large-scale purge of its members who were suspected of having taken part in or sympathized with the uprisings. Meanwhile, the government’s interest in suppressing communism and leftist activity resulted in the December 1948 passage of a strict national security law, which outlawed “antistate” groups and activities but was worded in a way that legally enabled the suppression of dissent in general. After the incidents in Cheju and the southern part of the peninsula, the government began closely examining and conducting purges of its institutions, including the National Assembly, and it cracked down on many public and political organizations. By 1950 tens of thousands of people had been jailed under the national security law, and many more had been barred from political activity.

Lorraine Murray