[626] in peace2
James "Jimmy" Carter & Korea
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Saurabh Asthana)
Wed Apr 4 12:21:10 2001
Message-Id: <200104041614.f34GE0528573@chaos11.bwh.harvard.edu>
To: peace-list@mit.edu
Reply-to: rednblack@alum.mit.edu
Date: Wed, 04 Apr 2001 12:14:00 -0400
From: Saurabh Asthana <angrymob@chaos11.bwh.harvard.edu>
This is for those of you going to the Habitat for Humanity sleep-out
tonight at Harvard, in case someone has something good to say about
Jimmy Carter. I was familiar with Carter's efforts to stymie Archbishop
Oscar Romero's activism in El Salvador, and his general support of
Latin American dictatorship, but this bit just blew my mind. I felt
like crying, which, in the middle of Cell Bio lecture, would have been
quite something.
This is taken from Chomsky's "Year 501: The Conquest Continues", chapter 4:
...consider the response when General Chun's military dictatorship in South
Korea crushed the democracy movement in Kwangju in May 1980. Paratroopers
"carried out three days of barbarity with the zeal of Nazi storm troopers,"
an Asia Watch investigative mission reported, "beating, stabbing and
mutilating unarmed civilians, including children, young girls, and aged
grandmothers." Two thousand people were killed in this rampage, they estimate.
(The government claims 191 deaths - Korean activists say 2000, but admit they
cannot prove it, as the military carted away most of the bodies. - S.A.) The
U.S. received two requests for assistance: the citizens committee that had
called for democracy requested help in negotiations; General Chun requested
the release of 20,000 troops under US command to join the storm troopers. The
latter request was honored, and US naval and air units were deployed in a
further show of US support.
"Koreans who expected help from Carter were dumbfounded," Tim Shorrock
writes, as "the news of direct support from the US was broadcast to the people
of Kwangju from helicopters and proclaimed throughout the nation in blaring
newspaper headlines." A few days later, Carter sent the head of the Export-
Import Bank to Seoul to assure the military junta of US economic support,
approving a $600 million loan. As Chun took over the presidency by force,
Carter said that while we would prefer democracy, "The Koreans are not ready
for that, according to their own judgment, and I don't know how to explain it
any better."
Chun arrested thousands of "subversives" calling for democracy, sending
them to military-run "purification" camps. Hundreds of labor leaders were
puged; new legislation severely weakened unions, leading to a 30 percent drop
in membership. Censorship became even more harsh.
Gotta love this Great Democracy we live in...
Saurabh Asthana
------
Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice;
moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.
-- Cicero
