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Archive 1Archive 2


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. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.50.66.62 (talk)


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)

US control

  • The following statement from the article is absolutely incorrect, shows an obvious anti-US / ROK bias, and should be corrected or deleted as not being really relevant: "From 1945 till 1994 the U.S. dominated Combined Forces Command controlled "Peacetime" activities and thus was responsible for all military actions in Korea.[1]" In reality, the ROK government, albeit with strong US training influence, had control of it's armed forces until shortly after the breakout of the Korean War. The ROK government then turned over operational control of it's armed forces to the United Nations Command, which exercised operational control of main combat forces, but not of reserve, support, or auxiliary units. In 1978, the Combined Forces Command (CFC) was stood up, assuming control of main combat forces (i.e.: First and Third ROK Armies, which were up on the DMZ, but NOT of Second ROK Army, which was down south and other associated reserve and support units). Whereas the UN Command had no ROK officers (other than liaison officers) on staff, the CFC has both US and ROK in alternating positions. In other words, the US has never been responsible, or controlled, internal ROK military activities that were not along the front lines in war, or the DMZ during armistice.206.112.75.239 (talk) 12:11, 3 April 2010 (UTC)
I'm hardly an expert on this conflict and what you say might be true but Wikipedia isn't about the "truth" its about verifiability. If you can verify with WP:RS sources then you can remove the sourced info otherwise it stays. -- Esemono (talk) 11:01, 4 April 2010 (UTC)
Hello I am no fan of the US but yes that part of the article was simply wrong. Even Lankov who on the whole spectrum of the Korea issue is somewhat anti-US doesn't claim these massacres were ordered by the US since it is a simple fact that the US did not have direct command control of constublary forces at any point any only had command of ROK military forces after the start of the Korean War.ProgressiveThinker (talk) 06:45, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

Specific problems with this article must be fixed

  • In the 'Aftermath' section, a dubious claim that North Korea 'rescusitated' the fighting is made, and no reference is given.
  • NPOV is glaringly violated by much of the language in the article, such as "the USSR refused to comply with the UN resolution" - no reference of this is given, and the false caricature of the USSR as some anti-democratic demon is perpetuated. In fact, from what I've read, the US and Syngman Rhee had outlawed the Korea Workers' Party, hence the election would not have been democratic at all (and indeed, was not), and the USSR was actually just boycotting the UN at the time, so their lack of "compliance" could not have been aggressive, as the article implies.
The USSR boycotted the elections in the south because they held their own controlled elections first. This is a different issue than the USSR boycotting the UN. The risk of reactionary forces coming to the fore were too great so the elections weren't "fair" by western standards. I have updated the article to reflect this. By western standards actually the elections in the South were more fair.ProgressiveThinker (talk) 06:50, 28 December 2010 (UTC)
  • The claim that "rebels attacked 11 police stations and mutilated those found inside, killing 85 policemen and rebels" is hilariously biased. In this sentence, the rebels are blamed for ALL the deaths, INCLUDING the rebels who were killed by the police! HOW can you justify THAT as "NPOV" while denouncing the edits I introduced? Are you insane? Besides, the link given as a reference to that sentence is long dead. Unless a new reference can be made, I will delete this egregious claim.
I will give you a few days to justify these contents before again editing the article. Thank you. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.50.66.62 (talk) 22:32, 20 March 2009 (UTC)
I edited your issue with the police stations and added some sources. -- Esemono (talk) 01:47, 29 March 2009 (UTC)


It WAS a massacre

To call this event a "rebellion" justifies the acts of murder taken by the then-undemocratic South Korean government. The acts were NOT justifiable by any but the most insane and stupid individuals. There were a few hundred 'rebels,' who actually enjoyed popular support amongst the people of the island, and the military commanded by dictator Syngman Rhee, WAS basically installed by the US to fight communism, killed thousands of civilians rather than allow the people to democratically choose what path to follow. If not a 'massacre,' it was 'mass murder.' Pure and simple. STOP undoing my edits to the article please, unless you can defend your views (without assuming that it was justifiable to kill communist civilians, because it was NOT).

Again, calling it a 'rebellion' emphasizes the role of the anti-government forces, when the vast majority of criticism ought to be thoroughly leveled at the government. Please change the article's heading name to 'Jeju (Cheju) Massacre.' —Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.50.66.62 (talk) 06:15, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

This is not your blog, you do not write in an unbiased encyclopedic manner, take it somewhere else. Chris (クリス • フィッチュ) (talk) 08:30, 20 March 2009 (UTC)
Chris, something you should realize is that writing/talking in an emotionless tone does not equal objectivity or a lack of bias. Your biases are very clear to me, and this article is currently extremely biased.
I agreed it's not a rebellion. The people who lost his family are still seeking a proper name even in Korean language. Generally, Koreans call it an accident, a neutral term without evaluation. I suggest to rename this article which has the meaning of accident, such as 'April 3rd, Jeju accident'. --Cheol (talk) 08:22, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Let me also say that this was not a "rebellion" or "uprising". Massacre is the best term to refer to this.--68.81.112.197 (talk) 06:36, 10 May 2012 (UTC)--68.81.112.197 (talk) 06:36, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

Why are mass murders in asia (by asians to other asians) always a fucking "incident"? We don't have the 'Katyn incident', or the 'My Lai incident', or the 'Oradour-sur-Glane incident'. What part of an army systematically shooting unarmed women and children is NOT a massacre? 10% of the entire population?!

Attack type- massacre

WTF? This makes no sense whatsoever. Yeah, you could well say the uprising ended in a massacre...but the uprising itself was not a massacre. There was certainly no "Massacre" attack type. That is just...silly. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.174.58.161 (talk) 01:47, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

picture of Syngman Rhee on the right of page has

"Syngman Rhee braced on his forces." what does this mean? it makes no sense since he is standing in front of "his forces" can someone explain or change this title? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 188.220.151.59 (talk) 11:24, 17 August 2012 (UTC)

Rm confusing "on." Now reads "braced his forces." = gave them a pep talk. Maybe whole title needs changing. Student7 (talk) 14:43, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

Requested move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the proposal was not moved. --BDD (talk) 20:03, 9 December 2013 (UTC)

Jeju Uprising → Jeju incident – To correlate with the usage of the Korean-language article on this subject and to respond to the suggestion given above, but using "incident" rather than "accident." GeorgeLouis (talk) 07:57, 30 November 2013 (UTC) GeorgeLouis (talk) 07:57, 30 November 2013 (UTC)

"jeju incident" 7 gbookshits. "jeju uprising" 231 gbookshits. walk victor falk talk 05:04, 7 December 2013 (UTC)
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Whitewashing

"On one occasion, American soldiers discovered the bodies of ninety-seven men, women, and children, killed at the hand of government forces. On another, American soldiers caught government police forces in the act of carrying out a gruesome execution of seventy-six villagers, including women and children."

Does this completely ignore that the place was administered by the United States Army Military Government at the time? Why does it make it look as if Americans incidentally "stumbled upon" these atrocities like they had no hand on it? I also question the neutrality of this line:

"Fearing the elections would further reinforce division, guerrilla fighters for the South Korean Labor party (SKLP) reacted violently, attacking local police and rightist youth groups stationed on Jeju Island."

This acts like they immediately randomly started killing peaceful rightist groups and military officers, which I somehow doubt.--Bataaf van Oranje (talk) 10:06, 7 March 2016 (UTC)

So what do you propose? -- Esemono (talk) 03:36, 8 March 2016 (UTC)

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Article naming and alternate names

I am not suggesting a name change, as I have not looked into the article history, but would like to mention a form of "White washing" like mentioned above. In the pursuit to keep or make sure that we (Wikipedia) are current we need to be careful of falling into some trap of disregarding history and historical facts. The article is currently named Jeju uprising and this may very well be what is presented in in reliable sources of today, but is it correct?. I mentioned this on the Requested move 1 March 2017 (just to "throw it out there) but facts are facts and anything less is watering down of those facts.
While looking into a proposed name change (of which I have been familiar with as Chejudo Island for over 33 years) I ran across this article. While I support the use of common naming I think some consideration would be fundamental when changing the name of an historical event just to make sure we are "up to date".
Chejudo Island, also called Cheju Island, was the name at the time of the "rebellion". Wikipedia has changed the name and the "throw-off" New World Encyclopedia consistently uses "Jeju Island" when referencing the event. The "event" of the uprising or "rebellion" led to mass murders usually referred to singularly as a massacre, if the term is used at all.
Wikipedia editors use "JSTOR" and "Project MUSE" for referencing and creating or adding content to articles. Both refer to the "event", considered the "worst tragedies in modern Korean history" (Note: plural use), watered down to the April 3rd Incident or the even the politically better sounding "4.3 Incident", as The Cheju-do Rebellion. Since the added "-do" could mean the island or the government, it would be correct to use "Cheju Rebellion
My goal at this point, without bias, or any political motive, is to voice that a spade should be called a spade. Societies of the world have determined, on many occasions, that indiscriminate mass killings, are considered mass murders. Such an occurrence does not have to be on the scale of The Holocaust to be atrocious, and such attacks, resulting in these indiscriminate murders of an actual untold number, considered to be from 14,000 to as high as 60,000, likely had some foundation of genocide. The US government uses " Cheju April 3rd Massacre". The NK News :Korea’s Jeju Massacre: Bringing America’s role to light uses "Massacre" and states, "a group of scholars and clergy from the island are endeavoring to raise awareness of the U.S. government and military’s role in the incident", even while calling the investigation of the atrocities as the Jeju 4.3 Incident Investigation. This is certainly a politically correct terminology to prevent stepping on toes.
I hope that editors will consider some of this when the next "naming event" takes place to change the name of the "Cheju Rebellion" (or uprising), and resulting "Cheju Maccacre" to an insignificant incident, like it was a simple fender-bender that can be straightened out at the body shop, as politics should not dictate content. Thanks--- Otr500 (talk) 19:02, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

Daranshi cave massacre

The article contains a picture with the caption "Daranshi cave massacre" and no mention of this subject anywhere in the article. Is this an omission, or is there no available information? If the latter is the case, should the picture be removed?192.249.47.204 (talk) 18:33, 3 April 2017 (UTC)

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Engrish in the article

I've tried fixing it up, but there are many sentences that I really can't even guess the meaning of. I've got a feeling that this was Google translated from the Korean article. Can a Korean speaker try to fix this? It's mostly prevalent in the Controversy section. The Verified Cactus 100% 15:51, 7 July 2017 (UTC)

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Northwest Youth Association?

The article uses the term "Northwest Youth Association". Does it refer to the Northwest Youth League mentioned earlier? --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 13:00, 3 April 2018 (UTC)

Yes, you could easily translate 서북청년회 both ways. I usually lean toward Northwest Youth Association. Junganghansik (talk) 13:27, 16 May 2018 (UTC)

"Communist insurgency"

Calling this a "communist insurgency" rally goes against the vast majority of scholarship on the topic (See Bruce Cumings or Su-kyoung Hwang, for example). Cumings writes, These committees were patriotic and anticolonial groupings with a complicated political complexion, but Americans in Seoul quickly placed them all under the rubric of “Communists.” The point is that, after living under the colonialism of Imperial Japan for 35 years, ordinary Koreas did not just want a replacement by the USAMGIK, they wanted to be free of foreign authority. USAMGIK mistook anti-imperialist organizing for doctrinal communism and cracked down. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 73.238.34.189 (talk) 23:19, 16 June 2018 (UTC)

Agree wholeheartedly. Alexmunger (talk) 15:32, 3 April 2019 (UTC)

My edits to this regard are better I believe, but not perfect for a lead section. Any suggestions/edits for more flowing wording are appreciated. Alexmunger (talk) 15:35, 3 April 2019 (UTC)

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