Talk:Jeju uprising/Archive 1

More sources!

This is the sort of article that absolutely screams for sources, so I've added a couple external links. --Zonath 01:51, Apr 13, 2005 (UTC)

Good on ya. :-) -- Visviva 8 July 2005 04:58 (UTC)

Which name

Is 'Jeju massacre' the name by which the '3 April massacre' is commonly known in English? Only, there have (unfortunately) been several incidents over the centuries each of which could be called the 'Jeju massacre', so my first instinct is to say that this current name is not specific enough. Should we think about renaming or at least acknowledging the ambiguity in the article? --Iceager 14:54, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

I think the events were called ‘Jeju massacre’ where I first learned about them.

After reading Kim Ik Ruhl's account of the events, I started to wonder who came up with the ‘massacre’ part. When I read that word, I'd imagine many people who were not involved in combat being slaughtered in short period of time, but not something like a civil unrest (or civil war) that went on for years as seems to be the case here. Even if ‘4·3 massacre’ and ‘Jeju massacre’ are the most commonly used terms, I suggest choosing a more appropriate name, perhaps a translation of one of the Korean terms, but without ‘massacre’ in it.

Concerning the term ‘3 April massacre’, it sounds as if a big massacre had taken place that day, shutting out all events that followed later – not like a period of turmoil that started on that day. I guess that's one of the reasons we say ‘Korean war’, not ‘25 June war’.

On a related note: I have not read much about it except for that source, so my view is not a neutral point of view, but I guess a person in Kim's position must have had a better overview of what actually happened than most other survivors. If his account is remotely true, labeling this as a communist uprising (as is apparently very common) seems odd.—Wikipeditor 18:59, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

You're right that the Korean practise of referring to the date 3 April is misleading. As for the Korean term used, as with almost any event from modern Korean history, there are several variations (as can be seen in the way the excellent link you provided uses multiple names including massacre, incident, and uprising). The neutral term that seems in vogue at the moment is "Jeju 4·3 sageon", but the direct English equivalent "Jeju 3 April Incident" would seem to trivialise the matter, and would make it look like a one-off event, not one lasting several years. The Korean Wikipedia article currently uses the version "Jeju 4·3 hangjaeng", "hangjaeng" meaning "resistance" or "struggle". If only in context of the attempts of some people to redefine every single major event in modern Korean history as a Marxist struggle, I don't find this a particularly NPOV term. And as you very rightly point out, the word "massacre" is also misleading. Yes, the mass killings of civilians is certainly an important component of what happened in Jeju Island, but we don't describe World War II or the Iraqi Insurgency as massacres.

So I would tolerate the "Jeju massacre" as the article title only if that really is the common name for the event in English. Most of my knowledge about this comes from Korean-language sources, but in Korea Old and New: A History, the one English-language source I have access to at the moment, Carter Eckert calls it "a bloody, and ultimately unsuccessful, indigenous leftist guerrilla war that erupted on Cheju Island", without giving it a name. No name for the event appears even in the index. As that work is one of the standard general works on Korean history in English, that leads me to think that maybe there is no common name in English.

If that's the case, what should we call it? Most guerrilla wars are simply called wars (e.g. Irish War of Independence, or are referred to indirectly by naming the guerrilla movements behind them. Since neither option is really appealing in our case, the best name for the article I can propose is a descriptive one, like Jeju Island guerrilla war of 1948-1954. --Iceager 17:40, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

If I remember correctly, the source I mentioned describes it as something different from a war. If we call it a guerilla war, then by whom against whom? Wikipeditor

Massacre?

I have to say that suppressing armed rebellion comes with force, which may cause fatalities. The title in itself is biased. 15357 02:23, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

Suppose we change the focus and call it Jeju uprising? -- Visviva 11:23, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

That might draw the focus away from the peninsular youth gangs' marauding which preceded and provoked the islanders' uprising and which should probably be seen as part of the events. How about something like “unrest” to include not only armed reaction on the part of the islanders', but also marauding, rape and killings that lead to it? Wikipeditor 22:13, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

yeah indeed. Now we also must be fair to the nazis. Most of what wikipedia calls "massacre" is actually just an uprising surpression per definition of arcticles dealing with warcrimes in Korean and Vietnam war. Let's take the lidice massacre, they just were trying to anihilate partisans and accidently killed this or that thousand civilians, just as here. Please stop being jinoist.84.167.200.25 17:18, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Too much emphasis on alledged US role in events..

The article clearly has a biased tone and goes out of its way to make the US at least partially responsible for events commited by South Koreans forces in Korea. The use of terms like "US guidance" is POV and unneccesary. Some section of the article are clearly anti-american and seem intended to limit the Koreans' own responsibility for events commited by Koreans in Korea against Koreans. There are no mentions of a direct US role in any of the killings so I see reason to repeatedly mention the US in this article.--84.153.71.238 10:21, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Can you be a bit more specific as to which instances you disagree with? Wikipeditor 22:33, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Okay that's like saying the Jewish Holocaust should not be called a "holocaust" but minor reduction of the Jewish race. Shut up, this was in fact a genocide although it was called a massacre. The reason being that Cheju Islanders were actually not considered fully Korean. Terms like U.S. guidance IS NEEDED due to the fact that it was the U.S.'s idea that had the South Korean government commit this in the first place.

Just for the record

As allegations of inappropriate emphasis of the United States' role have been voiced, please know that I (Wikipeditor) am responsible for these two edits, in case your criticism is about those. It seems I was logged out by the time I submitted the edits.

While I generally consider kimsoft.com a really bad source (for example, presenting Dangun as a real person), I do think the accounts of a directly involved general, albeit translated, are one valid point of view that should be presented in the article. If you feel the article should make it clearer that the statements in question are but his view, feel free to improve it yourself – better yet, present another POV for contrast. Wikipeditor 22:33, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Major Revisions

There are too many problems to categorically list about this article, both in POV and factual terms, so I will touch on a few of the most egregious.

The crackdown on the Workers Party of South Korea and its various cadre began after the rebellion in Ceju, the rebellion was not a reaction to it as the article implies.

Bruce Cummings and his DPKR friends aside, US military involvement during the insurrection consisted of 6 military advisers, all junior officers, attached to the South Korean 9th Regiment.

Washington did not “abandon its promise to organize all-Korea elections” rather UN Rsolution 112 passed on November 14, 1947 calling for a general election under the supervision of the UN Commission. However, the Soviet Union refused to comply with the UN resolution and denied the UN Commission access to the northern part of Korea. The UN Assembly adopted a new resolution calling for elections in areas accessible to the UN Commission.

Obviously the name of the article has to change to Jeju Insurection or Jeju Rebellion, or something NPOV along those lines. Torturous Devastating Cudgel 20:36, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

---

Hey TDC, the changes you made ruined the article. You think you made it more NPOV? You are obviously a right-wing nut who likes to justify killing innocent civilians. Get your head checked, and stop rewriting history to protect your ideologies. Your brushing aside of Bruce Cumings through some ridiculous ad hominem attacks there does not prove your biased view of the events. Stalinists like yourself need to get the F off of Wikipedia.

POV bias against the USSR and "rebels"

I'm finding that there is an ingrained bias within this -and many other- articles which assume the McCarthyist-era view of reality to be the truth - ie., that the USSR was always the evil one, the USA was always the good guy, and that it's A-OK to kill even suspected communists. Such a POV is unacceptable. This article takes care to blame the "rebels" and minimize the atrocities, as well as minimizing the american anti-communist folly's influence. The rebels were actually pretty much all of the Cheju islanders. They had the full support of the population, much as the Workers' Party of Korea had mass support on the mainland before being outlawed by the USAMGIK.

Now, it seems that any change to the current POV is seen as a violation of POV. But what if the POV is already a violation? I don't want to tag every sentence of the article which is POV, so please - review the language used, the facts evaded, the sources cited, and allow some changes to the POV towards neutrality, from its current anti-communist, anti-USSR justificatory tone. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 142.104.241.150 (talk) 03:36, 21 March 2009 (UTC)