Gwangju Uprising

Gwangju Uprising
Gwangju Uprising
Part of the Minjung movement
	Memorial Hall in the May 18th National Cemetery in Gwangju where victims' bodies were buried
Date	18 May 1980 – 27 May 1980
Location	Gwangju, South Korea
Caused by	Coup d'état of May Seventeenth; Coup d'état of December Twelfth; Assassination of Park Chung Hee; Authoritarianism in South Korea; Social and political discontent in the Cholla region;
Goals	Democratization End of dictatorial rule in South Korea;
Methods	Protests; Demonstrations; Civil disobedience; Armed uprising;
Resulted in	Uprising suppressed Pro-democracy protests escalate into an armed uprising after the South Korean government deploys the army to violently end demonstrations; Long-term increase in support for the Minjung Movement, leading to the eventual end of South Korea's dictatorship in 1987;
Parties
South Korean Government Hanahoe; DSC; ROK Army (rebellion); National Police (switched sides);	Kwangju citizenry Protesters; Armed citizens; Citizens' Settlement Committee; Students' Settlement Committee;
Lead figures
	Chun Doo-hwan; Roh Tae-woo; Jeong Ho-yong; Lee Hee-seong; Hwang Yeong-si; Yoon Heung-jung; Ahn Byung-ha (Switched sides due to witnessing brutalities done by the rebel and paratroopers) Decentralized leadership, Governor of the South Jeolla Province Chang Hyung Tae,
Units involved
	Initially:; 7th Airborne Brigade; 11th Airborne Brigade; DSC 505th Defense Security Unit; Jeonnam Police; Gwangju Blockade:; 3rd Airborne Brigade; 7th Airborne Brigade; 11th Airborne Brigade; 31st Infantry Division ; 20th Mechanised Infantry Division; Combat Arms Training Command Unknown; (various civilian militias)
Number
Initially:; 3,000 paratroopers; Gwangju Blockade:; 23,000 rebel troops	200,000 demonstrators; (estimated combined strength)
Casualties and losses
22 soldiers killed; (including 13 by friendly fire); 4 policemen killed(fire with will by rebel troops and paratroopers); (several more killed by the army after the uprising ended); 109 soldiers wounded; 144 policemen wounded; Total:; 26 killed; 253 wounded	165 killed (South Korean government claim); 76 missing (presumed dead); 3,515 wounded; 1,394 arrested
	Up to 600–2,300 killed; see casualties section.

The Gwangju Uprising, known in Korean as May 18 (Korean: 오일팔; Hanja: 五一八; RR: Oilpal; lit. Five One Eight), took place in Gwangju, South Korea, in 1980. The uprising was a response to the coup d'état of May Seventeenth that installed Chun Doo-hwan as military dictator and implemented martial law. Following his ascent to power, Chun arrested opposition leaders, closed all universities, banned political activities, and suppressed the press. The uprising was violently suppressed by the South Korean military. The uprising is also known as the May 18 Gwangju Democratization Movement (Korean: 5·18 광주 민주화 운동; Hanja: 五一八光州民主化運動), the Gwangju Democratization Struggle (Korean: 광주 민주화 항쟁; Hanja: 光州民主化抗爭), the May 18 Democratic Uprising (Korean: 5·18 민주화 운동; Hanja: 五一八民主化運動) or the Gwangju Uprising (Korean: 광주 항쟁; Hanja: 光州抗爭) in South Korea.

The uprising began when Chonnam National University students demonstrating against martial law were fired upon, killed, raped, and beaten by the South Korean military. Some Gwangju citizens took up arms, raiding local police stations and armories, and were able to take control of large sections of the city before soldiers re-entered the city and suppressed the uprising. While the South Korean government claimed 165 people were killed in the massacre, scholarship on the massacre today estimates 600 to 2,300 victims. Under the military dictatorship of Chun Doo-hwan, the South Korean government named the uprising the ''Gwangju Riot,'' and claimed that it was being instigated by "communist sympathizers and rioters" acting under the support of the North Korean government.

In 1997, 18 May was established as a national day of commemoration for the massacre and a national cemetery for the victims was established. Later investigations confirmed the various atrocities that had been committed by the army. In 2011, the documents of Gwangju Uprising were listed on the UNESCO Memory of the World Register. In contemporary South Korean politics, denial of the Gwangju Massacre is commonly espoused by conservative and far-right groups.

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