Poetry category winner: “Yeongnam-dong” by Han Seung-yeop
Fiction category winner: “Through The Evening Light” by Lim Jaehee

 

The 11th Jeju 4·3 Peace Literature Awards ceremony was held at the Jeju Literature Museum on April 18. A plaque and prize money (20 million won for poetry and 50 million won for fiction) were given to Han Seung-yeop (in Jeju) in the poetry category and Lim Jaehee (in Seoul) in the fiction category. In addition to the awards ceremony, literary events such as poetry recitation and reading performances with music were also held.

“Yeongnam-dong,” the winning poem, depicts the mountainous village with that name on Hallasan Mountain which disappeared due to the scorched-earth operation of the counterinsurgency forces at the time of Jeju 4·3.

The juries said, “It was highly praised because the reality of Jeju 4·3 was vividly recalled while avoiding explicit descriptions.” Born in Jeju in 1966, the author graduated from the Department of the Korean Language and Literature at Dongguk University. He started his literary career in 2006 by publishing poems in the literary journal “Literature and Arts” and has since published poetic works such as “West of Immersion” and “Starlight Theater.”

The winning work of fiction, “Through The Evening Light,” tells the story of three women living with memories of violence and loss after the Virginia Tech shooting.

The juries announced that the novel contains vivid language that can only be created by those who have deeply experienced the pain of the diaspora and that the story reads like a horse that rushes to the enemy. The author was born in 1964 in Cheorwon, Gangwon-do, and wrote “Your Paradise,” which won the Excellence Prize of The 2013 Segye Ilbo World Literature Award.

The 11th Jeju 4·3 Peace Literature Awards was held nationwide from May to December 2022, with 1,021 poems, 86 novels, and 10 non-fiction entries. The winning works were announced through preliminary and main competitions, but the non-fiction category failed to select a winner.

The Jeju 4·3 Peace Literature Awards was established in 2012 by the Jeju Special Self-Governing Province to sublimate the painful memories of Jeju 4·3 into literary works and realize the values of peace, human rights, reconciliation, and mutual prosperity. The Jeju 4·3 Peace Foundation has organized its execution since 2015.

 

 

 

Acceptance speech by Han Seung-yeop

“When my literary imagination encountered this historical tragedy, I experienced a limit that I dared not express, despairing and crying a lot. Jeju 4·3 is such a heavy and difficult topic. Now, I hope that its documentary heritage will be broadly shared around the world and that Jeju 4·3 will establish itself as a symbol of peace.”

 

 

Acceptance speech by Lim Jaehee

“This novel could be considered a work of condolence for those left behind after violence. Although my novel does not deal with Jeju 4·3, nor is it set on Jeju Island, I was able to understand the misery of the Jeju 4·3 victims and those left behind by writing a story where violence, swept over everything.”

Jeju 4·3 Film Festival marking the 75th anniversary of Jeju 4·3 to open on June 23

Film screenings and dialogues with the audience to continue until November at Jeju CGV

 

Lee Jeong-won

Executive Committee Member, Jeju 4·3 Film Festival

Professor, Cheju Halla University

 

 

There was a ray of light that cleared the curtain of darkness.

It left the projector, went through the screen, and reached beyond to the truth.

The light of the movies projected history and testimonies, cries and roars, and reflection and vows.

For 75 years, Jeju 4·3 movies were a medium of resistance that desperately recorded memories.

They were a democratic, public forum that gathered wisdom to realize peace and human rights.

Jeju 4·3 movies say that a future full of warmth of camellia can be a reality, not a dream.

They pat us on our shoulders and walk in undisturbed solidarity.

The Jeju 4·3 Film Festival is inviting you.

The Jeju 4·3 Film Festival, marking the 75th anniversary of Jeju 4·3, will open on June 23 (Fri) at Jeju CGV. Until November, movies full of hope featuring Jeju 4·3, peace, human rights, democracy, solidarity, and the future will “meet” the audience every month. The main screenings will be at Jeju CGV near Jeju City Hall. Special screenings will also be held in Seogwipo and Seoul.

When asked what a film festival is, I refer to it as an academic seminar and a democratic public forum where topics are presented and discussed in movies, rather than in papers.

Just as papers and presenters are selected based on strict standards when preparing for an academic symposium, the festival has also been prepared to meet the same standards.

We searched for films and directors that helped unearth the truth about Jeju 4·3 in the early days of the truth-finding movement. We also gathered films that desperately recorded and embodied aspirations of peace, human rights, and mutual prosperity. We explored movies that can walk with their arms around the shoulders of global citizens and future generations.

As of May, a total of 18 films have been selected. There is a possibility that other works will be added if requested by the audience during the film festival. The movies have been classified by theme, content, and meaning and grouped into three sections: Records of Memories; Peace and Human Rights; and Solidarity and the Future.

 

 

Records of Memories — Testimonies from Gwangju, Ireland, and Indonesia, going beyond Jeju

An early documentary on Jeju 4·3, which is indispensable in the history of the truth-finding movement, marks the beginning of the festival. “Last Will” and “An Outcry That Can’t Sleep,” directed by Kim Dong-man (professor, Cheju Halla University), will be screened as the opening films. Make sure to watch them, as it might be the last chance to see them in a movie theater.

The festival will also present Ken Loach’s “The Wind That Shakes The Barley,” which won the Palme d’Or at the 59th Cannes Film Festival, and Joshua Oppenheimer’s “The Act Of Killing,” a film that reproduced the tragic 1965 massacre in Indonesia from the perspective of the perpetrator.

You can also see Kim Ji-hye’s “The Land Never Ages,” a film about Jeju 4·3 produced in Jeju, and Kang Hee-jin’s “May, Jeju, Day,” which testifies about Jeju 4·3 in animation from the perspective of Jeju people. “Kim-Gun,” a documentary film directed by Kang Sang-woo, will present memories of Gwangju citizens that were recorded for solidarity between Jeju 4·3 and the Gwangju Democratization Movement.

 

Peace and Human Rights — An opportunity to watch all episodes of Yang Yong-hi’s trilogy

A retrospective for Yang Yong-hi, a second-generation Korean director in Japan, has been organized. You can watch the director’s family documentary trilogy, “Dear Pyongyang,” “Goodbye Pyongyang,” and “Soup and Ideology.” There will be a talk with the audience involving director Yang. The three films will be given special showings at Lotte Cinema in Seogwipo as well.

There is also a place to witness the present of Jeju 4·3 documentaries in broadcasting. A music documentary titled “Songs of the Mountain, Field, and Sea” directed by Kwon Hyuk-tae, who heads Jeju MBC’s newsroom, will be screened. You can also watch “Memories of the Land,” a special ‘newsmentary’ produced by reporters Kim Yong-min, Kim Yong-won, and Moon Soo-hee of KCTV Jeju Broadcasting. “Memories of the Land” won the Grand Prize for the first Jeju 4·3 Journalism Awards.

“Life is Beautiful,” directed by and starring Roberto Benini and which satirizes the disastrous life of a Jewish camp during World War II through comedy, will be screened. The film won the Grand Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival, the Academy Award for Best Actor, and the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film.

 

Solidarity and the Future — Watch movies and talk with directors Im Heung-soon and Cho Sung-bong

An Im Heung-soon retrospective will be held. It will screen “Binyeom” and “Next Life,” films that aim to heal Jeju Island and its people who were hurt by Jeju 4·3. There will also be a talk featuring director Im with the audience.

You can watch the documentary “Kondo Hajime” directed by Eriko Ikeda. It contains the testimony of Hajime Kondo, who was a Japanese soldier during the Pacific War.

This section will screen symbolic Jeju 4·3 movies, which include “Red Hunt,” directed by Cho Sung-bong, and “Jiseul,” directed by O Muel. After the screening, there will be a talk with director Cho Sung-bong.

We are ready to shine the light of the festival on the screen. Hopefully, the festival seeds will take root well. In the years to come, I hope that the film festival will continue to “meet” the audience in the name of peace, consolation, and solidarity.

Truth and Reconciliation Commission uncovers truth about unlawful 1961 detention and coercive investigation of “Association for Jeju 4·3 Truth Discovery”

 

Yang Jeong Sim

Head of Investigation and Research Office, Jeju 4·3 Peace Foundation

 

The official decision has been made that the suppression of the movement to find out the truth about Jeju 4·3 was a violation of human rights by the state. On Feb. 7, 2023, South Korea’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission announced its decision on the investigation into the “suppression of the Association for the Bereaved Families of Massacred Victims after the May 16 coup.” The commission affirmed that the unlawful detention and coercive investigation of members of the Jeju 4·3 Truth Commission in 1961 were serious human rights violations by the state.

++Decision by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission on the uncovered truth.

 

++ In Gwandeokjeong Square, Jeju City, at 9 p.m. on April 26, 1960, the head of the Jeju Provincial Policy Agency talks to students at a rally to denounce the rigged election of March 15. Jeju National University students and local high school student council members are gathered, some in school uniforms. While being pushed and breaking free, some students had their uniforms pulled off. Ko Gong-yeong (a student in the Department of Commerce, Jeju National University) stands on the podium, having escorted the police chief to the podium, while Lee Moon-gyo (a second-year student in the Department of Law, Jeju National University) stands in the front with a speaker. He recalls that after his clothes were torn off, a female student kept them and brought them to him later. The national flag of the Republic of Korea is visible and the students are sitting around the area. The demonstrators packed the Gwandeokjeong Square and expanded to the nearby road. Other residents are said to have watched and to have applauded in encouragement. Lee Moon-gyo and Park Gyeong-gu, leaders of the demonstration, later formed the Association for Jeju 4·3 Truth Discovery but were quickly arrested on May 17, 1961, shortly after the May 16 military coup in 1961. They were imprisoned in Seodaemun Prison for six months and released on Nov. 13 of that year on probation.

 

 

The decision is an example of official recognition that a regime-inflicted suppression of attempts by civil society to reveal the truth, not only at the time of Jeju 4·3 but also after the incident, was misconduct of the state.

In June 2022, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission initiated, by virtue of its authority, the investigation into the “suppression of the Association for the Bereaved Families of Massacred Victims after the May 16 coup.” The investigation discovered the truth about 31 cases of suppression enforced nationwide by the military regime immediately after the May 16 coup broke out. As a result of the investigation, the commission decided to recognize Lee Moon-gyo, former president of the Jeju 4·3 Peace Foundation, as a person representing the truth about the case. In relation to the suppression of the Association for the Bereaved Families of Massacred Victims in the Jeju area, Lee suffered from being imprisoned in Seodaemun Prison for serving as a member of the Association for Jeju 4·3 Truth Discovery.

In 1960, the April Revolution (April 19) took place, followed by a nationwide movement to discover the truth about civilian massacres committed around the time of the Korean War. Families of victims formed the Association for the Bereaved Families of Massacred Victims, calling for restoring honor to the victims through government investigations about the truth. In line with the demand, the nation’s fourth National Assembly formed the Special Investigation Team on the Civilian Massacres on May 27, 1960. This aroused a public opinion in Jeju about the need to discover the truth about Jeju 4·3.

Shortly after the April Revolution, seven Jeju National University students (Ko Soon-hwa, Ko Si-hong, Chae Man-hwa, Yang Gi-hyeok, Park Gyeong-gu, Lee Moon-gyo, and Hwang Dae-jeong) formed the Association for Jeju 4·3 Truth Discovery to investigate the case. This is considered the first move toward the revelation of Jeju 4·3. The Association for Jeju 4·3 Truth Discovery issued a plea letter in The Jeju Shinbo, a local newspaper outlet. Despite so many conciliations and suppressions, its members conducted a fact-finding survey for the entire area of Jeju Island .

 

++ Seven members of the Association for Jeju 4·3 Truth Discovery. (Clockwise from the left of the back row) Ko Soon-hwa, Ko Si-hong, Chae Man-hwa, Yang Gi-hyeok, Park Gyeong-gu, Lee Moon-gyo, and Hwang Dae-jeong.

 

Immediately after the 1961 coup, however, the military-led Military Revolutionary Committee arrested, without a warrant, Lee Moon-gyo and Park Gyeong-gu, members of the Association for Jeju 4·3 Truth Discovery, and Shin Du-bang, the executive director of The Jeju Shinbo. Lee and Park were detained in Seodaemun Prison and subjected to coercive investigations and cruel acts, but were released without prosecution in November, six months after the beginning of the unlawful confinement.

According to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, the government conducted “arrests without a warrant under the preliminary arrest policy” and “illegal interrogations involving torture and other cruel acts. In the decision, the commission also pointed out that the victims had subsequently been subject to “continuous surveillance and inspection,” all of which are serious violations of the constitutionally guaranteed rights to freedom, privacy, and pursuit of happiness. It also recommended that the state take appropriate actions to apologize for these acts and to exonerate the victims.

Lee Moon-gyo, former president of the Jeju 4·3 Peace Foundation, said, “As the Truth and Reconciliation’s decision focused on human rights violations, there might be a view that the decision does not recognize the suppression of the truth-finding movement itself as an instance of misconduct by the state.” However, he refuted that possibility by asking how the suppression of activists involved in the truth-finding movement could be distinguished from the suppression of the movement itself. “Admitting the wrongdoing committed by the state as is shown in its suppression of the truth-finding movement with regard to Jeju 4·3 conversely proves the legitimacy of the movement,” he stated.