The Golden Rule boat / credit: Screenshot from video
Editor’s Note: The following is a first-person account.
I’m a Mayan Calendar keeper without a fixed place to stay, so my Veterans for Peace (VFP) activist friend graciously allows me to stay with him when I have medical appointments in Minneapolis. This past August, he told me about the VFP Golden Rule Project, a year-and-a-half long sailing journey promoting the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. It is going around the “Great Loop”: The Mississippi River, the Gulf of Mexico, the Saint Lawrence seaway and the Great Lakes.
The story about the renovation and rebirth of the Golden Rule boat that “set sail in 1958 to stop nuclear weapons tests in the Marshall Islands” moved me deeply. I wanted to at least take a picture of such a piece of history and learn more about its noble cause. I was told the Golden Rule would be in Stillwater, Minnesota, which happens to be another place I live from time to time. Unfortunately, I could not find the location of the vessel and I had to travel to the Black Hills for a conference. Upon my return, I learned the boat was no longer in Stillwater. I figured it had left on its journey and I was very disappointed to have missed it.
Later that week, while in the Minneapolis home of my VFP friend, he informed me that the crew of the Golden Rule would be arriving at his house. I could not believe the turn of events! Now I would get to meet the crew and possibly see the vessel.
I got to meet Helen Jaccard, the administrator of the project. We had a long conversation and she asked if I would be part of the crew for the next year and a half. Such an offer shocked me! After some thought, I agreed to be part of the crew for about a month, and that is how my journey began.
Captain Kiko Johnston-Kitazawa, a Hawaiian native and First Mate Stephen Buck are wonderfully understanding and skilled in how to train and sail with inexperienced sailors like me. Dozens of others also have boarded the vessel over the years, as guests, crew or visitors. Currently, we are a crew of four: The captain, first mate, Mary Ann Van Cura from Minneapolis and me.
The Golden Rule is a wood-plank boat built over a sawn frame, which is when wooden pieces are cut together in a shape. It is 33 feet long with a full-length keel that needs 5 feet of water to sail in. It is steered with a tiller, which is a lever attached to the rudder that helps steer the boat. It has 580 square feet of sail with triangular fore and aft sails, while the main sail is a gaff sail. It has four sleeping berths for up to four crew members. Captain Kiko describes sailing in the Golden Rule as “bumpy, wet, cold and fun.”
The boat set sail on September 26. Everywhere we’ve stopped in Minnesota and Wisconsin—Saint Paul, Redwing, Wabasha, LaCrosse—we’ve been welcomed by many supporters.
But nothing compares to what happened in Dubuque, Iowa. The town has over 800 residents native to the Marshall Islands. As soon as we passed Lock and Dam #11 on the Mississippi River, just north of Dubuque, people waved and cheered from nearby docks.
Upon arrival in the Dubuque marina at twilight, we were joined by a crowd of Marshall Islanders and their descendants, who have suffered the consequences of the inhumane deployment of 67 nuclear devices in their homeland. As if losing their home was not enough, Marshall Islanders suffer the nuclear legacy of cancers and birth defects. And now, because of global climate change, catastrophic sea rise is forcing those who remained to emigrate.
Dressed in traditional clothes, the Marshall Islanders sang and played music in honor of the little boat. They also expressed gratitude to the original four crew members who, in 1958, sailed the vessel to stop nuclear testing, risking everything for the good of the planet and the protection of human beings. Undoubtedly, they were also grateful for the new run of the vessel that reminds the whole world of the madness of keeping nuclear arsenals ready to go at any second.
Observing such sincere manifestation, I had to turn my face away. I was crying, feeling this is what a true human being should be doing for all the people and our planet. I was not alone. The crowd was elated. I wish with all my heart every human in the world emulate those four original crew members. Our planet would then be safe from the impending debacle we face. It may happen sooner rather than later, the way we are going.
At a stop in Burlington, Iowa, the mayor presented us with a proclamation welcoming the Golden Rule and calling on residents to meet and learn more about the project.
The journey continues down the Mississippi River. A major problem is the low water level. The boat has been stuck in the muck at least nine times so far. But thanks to the ingenuity of Captain Kiko and First Mate Steve, solutions have been found to continue. Because of these drought conditions, we will not follow the lower Mississippi River but instead will divert to the Ohio, Tennessee and Tombigbee River system.
You can follow the journey of the Golden Rule here. If you’d like to join as crew at any point in the journey you can fill out this application.
A panel of environmental and human rights activists acted as judges in a People’s Health Tribunal organized by African communities impacted by the operations of extractive corporations Shell and Total Energy. Supported by organizations like Medact, We the People, the People’s Health Movement, #STOPEACOP, and others, they found the corporations guilty of harming the health of people across Africa. Nnimmo Bassey, Jacqueline Patterson, Kanahaus Manuel, and Dimah Mahmoud condemned Shell and Total’s activities, stating that they were “extremely harmful to the livelihoods, health, right to shelter, quality of life, right to live in dignity, quality of environment, right to live free of discrimination and oppression, right to clean water, and right to self-determination.”
This edition of the People’s Health Tribunal was built as activists witnessed extensive greenwashing by the oil and gas industry at COP 27 in Egypt last year. In response, they became even more determined to support the struggles of communities in Africa who are affected by the corporations who attempted to gaslight the public at COP 27.
However, governments in the Global North, where most extractive corporations have their headquarters, still choose to ignore the destruction caused by these industries. In 2022, Shell made a profit of $40 billion, while Total Energy ended the year with US$36 billion in profits. These profits came at the expense of the health and lives of people living in regions where these corporations operate.
Uprooting Set the Ground for Total’s LNG Operations in Mozambique
Decades of exploitation of African land have resulted in devastating consequences, including air pollution, water contamination, deforestation, violence, land grabbing, and forced migration. People in the Niger Delta and Mozambique experience these things daily. Omar Elmawi, who provided an overview of Total’s impact on Mozambique communities, emphasized that in the current situation, “everyone loses, except Total.” Elmawi said he believed that African countries must take control of their own resources and development to make sure that justice is restored.
In Mozambique, Total Energy’s plan to construct an onshore liquefied natural gas (LNG) facility led to the displacement of hundreds of families dependent on farming. Total’s plans also decimated traditional fishing activities, leaving people destitute. Instead of providing the uprooted communities with adequate living conditions and compensation, the company’s plan resulted in people being left without shelter, living in refugee camps, and exposed to violence.
At the same time, pointed out Elmawi, the company was not shying away from tax evasion, bleeding even more resources out of the country and leaving Mozambique without necessary means to build essential infrastructure.
Similar experiences were echoed by activists from Uganda and South Africa, who bore witness to the baleful behavior of Total Energy and Shell in the face of the communities which they so violently entered. The testimonies also highlighted the environmental impacts being shouldered by the same communities, as floods and storms regularly devastate local food production.
Shell Operations in the Niger Delta
Shell has been furiously extracting resources in the Niger Delta for over 60 years, attracting more companies to exploit the region due to its rich reserves. Videos from villages in the Niger Delta clearly show oil contamination of water sources, while Shell ignores the grievances raised by the communities. With Shell’s arrival, people’s health deteriorated, in addition to the environmental devastation caused by oil and gas extraction. People began suffering from previously uncommon diseases, including blindness, respiratory problems, and kidney disease, according to one of the testimony-givers.
However, the people of the Niger Delta aren’t asking for charity or pity; they are determined to fight for justice and see Shell restore the land it has devastated. In the light of that, Shell’s announcement of divesting from operations in the Niger Delta is seen as inadequate by community members. They view it as an attempt to evade responsibility for the damage caused over the years. After all, they pointed out, Shell would not be giving up on their business—they would be simply selling their assets to someone else.
The judges stressed the need to establish infrastructure for a reparative justice process to achieve true reparation for affected communities. They also called for Shell and Total Energy to halt all plans for expanding existing fossil fuel extraction sites, implement a permanent moratorium on exploring new sites, and cease supporting violence against communities through military, paramilitary groups, or private security forces.
In order to achieve that, it is necessary to constantly bear witness about the destruction caused by extractive corporations. By doing that, the people who spoke about their experiences during the People’s Health Tribunal showed extreme courage and deserved respect, said Nnimmo Bassey. “Staying alive and speaking out is the best we can do,” he said.
People’s Health Dispatch is a fortnightly bulletin published by thePeople’s Health Movement and Peoples Dispatch. For more articles and to subscribe to People’s Health Dispatch, clickhere.
The Water Defenders: How Ordinary People Saved a Country from Corporate Greed by Robin Broad and John Cavanagh. Boston: Beacon Press; 2nd edition. March 23, 2021.
At a time when all caring people are seeking a new way forward out of a year of unimaginable death, destruction and rampant inequality, along comes a book that gives us hope that a better world may be possible. The book, recently published, is based on a struggle in a small section of a small country—El Salvador—beginning in 2002, when a group of “white men in suits” entered the province of Cabañas and tried to convince poor farmers that gold mining would be good for them. Their resistance, done at great peril and resulting in the assassinations of some of their leaders, ended up years later in a landmark case against corporate greed, garnering support from around the world. The basis of their success lies in the most fundamental of human needs: Water, for which left-right antagonisms fall apart once the deadly consequences of mining’s misuse of it—including causing cyanide poisoning—become patently clear.
Authors Robin Broad and John Cavanagh have brought us this amazing David versus Goliath story in their new book, The Water Defenders: How Ordinary People Saved A Country from Corporate Greed. Their first-hand accounts of working with front-line communities, both in El Salvador and in the United States. provide lessons along the way about how to fight an immensely powerful entity and win, whether the enemy be Big Gold, Big Oil or Big Pharma (to name a few). As they write in their introduction, “You may find yourselves surprised to find the relevance of the strategies of the water defenders in El Salvador, whether your focus is on a Walmart in Washington DC; a fracking company trying to expand in Texas or Pennsylvania, or petrochemical companies outside New Orleans.” By the end of the book, they added relevant struggles in countries like Bolivia, Venezuela, and Ecuador, as well as in South Africa, South Korea, and India.
In an interview with John Cavanagh, I asked if he and Broad had an inkling of the huge ramifications of their story right from the beginning, and his answer was decidedly no. In fact, when they first got involved, back in 2009, they never expected to win. They knew what they were up against and had no illusions. As they wrote about the ensuing years of twist-and-turn battles lost and won, the authors described a combination of events that made the water defenders’ decades-long struggle unusual… Yet now, with lessons learned, replicable.
Their involvement with the water defenders began in October 2009. That month, the Washington, D.C.-based Institute for Policy Studies (IPS), a progressive organization “dedicated to building a more equitable, ecologically sustainable, and peaceful society,” invited a group of Salvadorian water defenders to accept IPS’s annual Letelier Human Rights Award for their struggle against Pacific Rim (PacRim), a huge Canadian gold-mining company that sought permits in El Salvador. That year’s award was particularly poignant because one of the awardees, Marcelo Rivera, had been assassinated the month before. Five people still came to Washington, with Marcelo’s brother, Miguel, traveling in his place. Leading the delegation was a small-statured, seemingly nervous Vidalina Morales. But when she stepped up to the podium at the National Press Club and began her acceptance speech, her voice filled the room with a sense of urgency. She described the dangers of gold mining—for drinking water, for fishing and for agriculture. By the time she got to explaining the use of toxic cyanide in separating the gold from the rock, she had the audience—including the authors—mesmerized.
Miguel Rivera in front of anti-mining mural in his town in northern El Salvador / credit: John Cavanagh
Another factor made this occasion different. Cavanagh, who is the director of IPS, explained that usually the awardees arrive in Washington to accept their awards and return home. But on this occasion, “They asked for our help. El Salvador had just been sued by PacRim in an international tribunal that argued that El Salvador had to allow it to mine gold or pay over $300 million in costs and ‘foregone profits.’ They also asked if we could help them with research on companies involved in gold mining.”
John had previously engaged with IPS in fighting against the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), and had become familiar with the tribunal and the rules set by the World Bank involved in regulating a global economy. Broad, for her part, had written her doctoral dissertation and first book on the World Bank, and she had worked on the bank at her job with the U.S. Treasury Department in the mid-1980s. But she was less familiar with the workings of the tribunal the World Bank had set up in 1964, “The International Center for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID).” Its mission was to hear cases brought by foreign investors demanding compensation for lost profits from countries that tried to limit or regulate their activities. The couple figured they could be helpful.
“That’s how we were drawn in,” John explained, while emphasizing the extraordinary role local Salvadorans played in educating local communities about the dangers of landfills and then the dangers of gold mining. It was their groundbreaking work, often under dangerous conditions, that had earned them the Letelier award.
What happened next is a remarkable story of a growing North-South alliance that eventually went global, succeeding in two monumental victories: 1) a decision by ICSID in October 2016 that rejected PacRim’s claims for damages, while ordering the corporation to pay El Salvador $8 million in costs, and 2) the world’s first-ever comprehensive metals mining ban, brought by the El Salvador legislature in March 2019.
The Challenge
Up until 2016, Cavanagh explained, “we never thought we would win.” But that did not stop the momentum of coalition building, which had begun as early as 2005 by local village defenders, human rights advocates, farmers, lawyers, Catholic organizations and Oxfam America. They united to call themselves the National Roundtable on Metallic Mining, or La Mesa Frente a la Mineria Metálica—La Mesa for short. Their ultimate goal, beyond building resistance at the local level, “seemed like a pipe dream,” the authors wrote. That goal? “Getting the Salvadoran Congress to pass a new national law banning metal mining.”
Over the years, spurred on by their quest to find out who was responsible for Marcelo’s murder, the water defenders and their international allies yielded a treasure trove of insights on how to fight the Men in Suits, regardless of the outcome. Here are just a few lessons learned from their struggles described in the book:
Listen to the horror stories coming from refugees, in this case, those fleeing Honduras. Marcelo; his brother, Miguel; and Vidalina made several trips to Honduras to learn more about the gold mines there. (Honduras had become a haven for Big Gold after the 2009 coup). They returned with “shocking stories of rivers poisoned by cyanide, of dying fish and skin disease, of displaced communities, denuded forests, and corruption and conflict catalyzed by mining company payoffs.” Those trips, the authors write, made a huge impression on the water defenders and “crystallized their thinking… They were vigilant researchers, thirsty to know more.”
Seek out unexpected allies. One was Luis Parada, a Salvadoran government lawyer with a military background. As it turned out, he was a disciple of Sun Tsu, a Chinese military strategist from 2,500 years ago, who had written The Art of War. Among the lessons Parada (and Sun Tsu) imparted: “Know thy adversaries”—be one step ahead of them, and also know your possible allies. “Befriend a distant state while attacking a neighbor.” Luis also offered valuable practical advice, including the fact that the Sheraton Hotel in the capital, with its bar and pool, “offered some of the best intelligence in El Salvador.” Another unexpected ally was the ultra-conservative Archbishop Saenz Lacalle, a member of the right wing Opus Dei. “All it had taken was the word cyanide,” the authors explain, to cause him to oppose mining. His replacement in 2008, Archbishop Escobar, followed suit. He was “hardly an activist cleric,” but he “had long-held unexpected and firm views on mining,” and in his inaugural messages called on the government to reject mining operations in El Salvador. Getting the Catholic Church behind the water defenders was crucial. The martyrdom of Archbishop Oscar Romero, “whose photo is omnipresent throughout the country,” was no doubt a factor for widespread community support behind the water defenders, as was the encyclical put out by Pope Francis urging priests to take to the streets to defend the environment. Yet another surprise endorsement came from a member of one of El Salvador’s richest families and a leader of the right-wing ARENA party, which dominated the legislature. It turned out that John Wright Sol had a passion for the environment. Also noteworthy: His family’s vast sugar plantations consumed a lot of water. As he studied the impact of mining on water, he reached out to fellow members of ARENA. “I didn’t want to turn this into mining companies are the devil,” he advised. Instead, he chose to emphasize that “every citizen in the country must have access to clear water.”
Be wary of corporate PR campaigns. PacRim put out a report emphasizing that a whopping 36,000 jobs would be created from its mining operations, a vastly inflated claim. In radio interviews, PacRim aimed separate messages to the ARENA party and to the left-wing FMLN party, in which it claimed revenues would fund social agendas. Trips abroad arranged by PacRim often resulted in swaying politicians, whether on the left or right, to support their corporate agenda.
No matter how big, corporations can make mistakes. OceanaGold, a Canadian-Australian mining company which took over PacRim in 2014, had put on a brave face after the ICSID ruled against PacRim, acting as though it had won, and refusing to cough up the $8 million the company owed El Salvador. Yet it made a fatal error by choosing its mining operations in The Philippines as an example of its environmentally pristine practices. Broad knew otherwise, and along with other international allies had cultivated a professional relationship with the governor of the Philippine province where OceanaGold had its mine. Governor Carlos Padilla arrived in El Salvador on the eve of the crucial legislative vote on the mining bill and presented a “before and after” slideshow to the Environmental Committee. He pictured a lush landscape before the mining, contrasted with images of waste-filled “tailings ponds,” dead trees, dried-up springs and rivers, dead fish on river banks, and, as he explained, “No access to water for drinking or for irrigation.” He ended with an appeal to future generations. “Grandpa,” he imagined them asking. “Why did you allow mining?”
His presentation was “sort of a clincher,” Cavanagh told me. “It raised the level of indignation.” The legislative vote followed soon afterwards, on March 29, 2019. The results were stunning, with 69 votes tallied against OceanaGold, zero nays and zero abstentions. Shouts of Sí, Se Puede!—“Yes we can!”—erupted from the floor, as members of La Mesa waved banners that read, “No a la Minería, Sí a la Vida”—No to Mining. Yes to Life!
Children performing on the 10th anniversary of El Salvadorean water defender Marcelo Rivera’s assassination / credit: John Cavanagh
Today, the water defenders remain cautiously optimistic, though constantly on guard. In the past, mining corporations have been able to convince even leftist governments that mining is good for the economy. Cavanagh speculates mayors of small towns, pressured to provide jobs, may have been behind the assassination of Marcelo Rivera and other water defenders.
But to date, Marcelo’s killers have never been identified. On an equally sobering note, he and Broad remind us in the book that “over 1,700 environmental defenders had been killed across 50 countries between 2002 and 2018.”
I asked John for an update since finishing his book in mid-2020. Nayib Bukele, El Salvador’s “new Trump-like president,” he wrote, “hasn’t raised mining, and it doesn’t look like he is personally interested. He knows the public opinion polls that showed that the overwhelming majority of Salvadorans are opposed to mining.”
However, he added, “We remain worried. El Salvador, like all developing countries, is suffering economically after the pandemic, and other countries have increased mining to get more revenues. So, La Mesa remains vigilant against any actions that could indicate that the government wants to mine.”
We can only hope that water defenders around the world will strengthen their alliances. Fortunately, they now have a handbook that will help them in their journey of resistance.
Charlotte Dennett is the co-author with Gerard Colby of Thy Will be Done. The Conquest of the Amazon: Nelson Rockefeller and Evangelism in the Age of Oil. Her new book is The Crash of Flight 3804: A Lost Spy, A Daughter’s Quest, and the Deadly Politics of the Great Game for Oil.
U.S. President Donald Reagan toasts with South Korean President Chun Doo Hwan during a reception at the Blue House, the South Korean presidential palace in Seoul on November 13, 1983 / credit: White House
Editor’s Note: The following is the writer’s analysis, originally published in Hampton Think.
General Chun Doo Hwan was the corrupt military dictator that ruled South Korea (Republic of Korea or ROK) from 1979-88, before handing off the presidency to his co-conspirator General Roh Tae Woo. Chun took power in a coup in 1979, and during his presidency he perpetrated the largest massacre of Korean civilians since the U.S. war on Korea. He died on November 23, in pampered, sybaritic luxury, impenitent and arrogant to the very last breath.
Many western media outlets have written censorious, chest-beating accounts of his despotic governance and the massacres he perpetrated (here, here, here, and here)—something they rarely bothered to do when he was actively perpetrating them in broad daylight before their eyes. Like the light from a distant galaxy—or some strange journalistic time capsule—only after death, decades later, do “human rights violations” in South Korea burst out of radio silence and become newsworthy.
Better late than never, better faint than silent, better partial than absent, one could argue. Still all of them miss out on key facts, spread lies through omission. A key dimension of Korean history and politics looks to be buried with his death. A little background history is necessary to elucidate this.
The Sorrows of the Emperor-Dictator
The “imperial president,” Park Chung Hee
Chun’s predecessor and patron, the aging South Korean dictator Park Chung Hee, had ruled the country as an absolute totalitarian despot for 18 years, but he knew in his bones that his days were numbered. He had survived two violent assassination attempts, mass civil protests, and even opprobrium from his U.S. puppet masters, despite serving them loyally by sending 320,000 South Korean troops to Vietnam. Even Park’s closest advisors were worried about the fragility of his rule.
Park Chung Hee had been a former Japanese military collaborator during Japan’s colonization of Korea. A U.S.-installed puppet Syngman Rhee had smashed socialism in the South through genocide—a method later to be replicated in Indonesia’s “Jakarta method.”
But the puppet-genocidaire Rhee was in turn toppled by student protests in 1960, and the integration of South Korea into a U.S.-led security structure and capitalist order looked precarious due to popular hatred of the United States. Into this foment, Brigadier General Park took power in a vicious putsch. Park was a totalitarian fascist groomed within the Japanese military system, where he had conducted counterinsurgency against Korean independence fighters in Manchuria. (One of them, a legendary guerrilla leader called Kim Il Sung, would escape his clutches and become a life-long nemesis.) He had then been trained and cultivated by the United States during the 1950s, attending military school in the United States. When Rhee was deposed, Park rapidly took power, pledging fealty to the United States and total war against communists. Having already proven his anticommunist credentials through a massive treachery, betrayal and slaughter, he was welcomed by the Kennedy administration. This established the Junta’s legitimacy, while maintaining the continuity of U.S. colonial “hub and spoke” architecture in the region.
Park Chung Hee as a Japanese military officer
Park nominally assumed the presidency through an election but then tightened his regime until he attained the powers of the Japanese emperor, whom he had worshipped and admired during Japanese rule. He formally rewrote the constitution after the Japanese imperial system, legally giving himself the powers of Showa-era Sun God. This, along with his dismissal of colonial atrocities to normalize relations with Japan, in obeisance to the U.S. strategic design for the region, resulted in massive civil insurrection against him. These protests were barely put down with mass bloodshed, torture, disappearances and terror. But even among his inner circle, doubts were voiced about his extreme despotic overreach.
The Insurance Policy: Ruthless and Cunning
From the earliest days of his rule, Park Chung Hee had cultivated high ranking officers to key positions, as loyal retainers in an insurance policy in case a coup happened against him. A secret military cabal, later to be called “Hanahwe” [also, “Hanahoe”; “the council of one”], a group of officers within the 1955, 11th class of South Korea’s Military Academy, had signaled their total fealty to Park during Park’s military coup in 1961. As a result, Hanahwe members were rapidly brought in-house, rewarded with powerful roles within the military government, and formed a deadly, elite Praetorian guard within the labyrinthine power structures of the Park Administration.
Park Chung Hee with U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson, 1963
Two of them were the leaders of this secret-society insurance policy. One of them, Chun Doo Hwan, would be referred to as the “ruthless one”, known for his amoral brutality and utter lack of conscience. He would later be called “the slaughterhouse butcher.” The other was Roh Tae Woo, Chun’s military blood brother, the “cunning one,” known for his strategic, tactical and political cunning.
Leaft to right: Roh Tae Woo, Chun Doo Hwan, Cha Ji-Chul
Together, “Ruthless and Cunning” would prove their mettle in Vietnam, auditioning as understudies for the U.S. imperial war machine, and proving their bona fides by operating a rolling atrocity machine, the SK 9th Infantry “White Horse” Division, where Chun’s 29th regiment would cut its teeth on brutal massacres against Vietnamese civilians. Psychopathic and amoral, they would form a two-headed hydra, ensuring Park’s rule against enemies within and without. A third member of Hanahwe, Jeong Ho Yong, would also cut his teeth in the 9th Division in Vietnam, as would the Capital Mechanized “Fierce Tiger” Division, and various Marine and special warfare brigades. All would gain recognition and favor with the U.S. military brass in Vietnam, where South Korean troops would eventually outnumber U.S. troops on the ground. They would also play key roles in future Korean history. Sex, Whiskey and Guns: High Deductibles
Park’s insurance policy kicked in when his KCIA chief pumped him full of bullets at a whiskey-sodden orgy gone bad in late autumn of 1979. Two young women—a nervous college student and a popular singer—had been procured to serve the sexual whims of the president at a luxurious KCIA “safehouse” that had been set up for such routine vernal assignations. During the pre-coital dinner banquet, with expensive whiskey serving as lubricant, a heated argument arose between the KCIA Chief, Kim Jae Kyu and Chief Presidential Bodyguard Cha Ji Chol, about how to put down massive civil protests against Park’s rule in Pusan and Masan. Cha Ji Chol proposed the “Pol Pot option” arguing that a massacre of 30,000 civilians would subdue civilians and put the genie back in the bottle. This was accompanied by insults at Kim for not having implemented such “effective” measures. Kim Jae Kyu, incensed either at the casual brutality or at the blatant criticism, put an abrupt end to the debate by drawing his pistol and shooting Cha and Park. “I shot the heart of the beast of the (Yushin) dictatorship,” he would later claim. Park’s insurance policy would rapidly kick in at that point, although the deductible would be his own life. Enter the Praetorian Guard: Tigers, Horses, and Dragons
After Park’s death, Oct 26th, Lt General Chun Doo Hwan, the head of the Armed Forces Defense Security Command (DSC)—Park’s institutional Praetorian Guard—rapidly took matters in hand. Chun would rapidly take over, first the investigation of the assassination, then key army positions, and then the government. Some historians marvel at the rapidity with which Chun consolidated power and how quickly he disciplined loose factions within Park’s old guard. This ignores the rhizomatic base of Hanahwe deep within the executive and in all branches of the military, and the institutional powers baked into the DSC to preserve loyalty and deter subversion and coups. Chun, using his statutory powers, and good dose of military firepower, arrested key military leaders for the assassination, and then on December 12, 1979, instigated a coup, supported by Hanahwe comrade Roh Tae Woo, now division commander of the 9th “White Horse” Division. Roh withdrew the elite unit from its critical position on the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) that separates northern and southern Korea to the Capital, where they were joined by another Vietnam/Hanahwe classmate, general Jeong Ho Yong. These troops, with another Vietnam-veteran division, the Capitol Mechanized “Tiger” Division, and various special warfare brigades, fought the old guard in the streets before rapidly subduing them. Not long after this class reunion, Chun would declare martial law and appoint himself president with a new constitution and fill all key military ranks with his Hanahwe classmates. A “Splendid Holiday” Turns Sour
Mass protests broke out again after Chun’s declaration of Martial Law on May 17, 1980. In the city of Gwangju, hundreds of students protested. Chun’s response was to send a crack division of special warfare troops to smash heads, assault bystanders and shoot protestors, in an operation named “Splendid Holiday.” Beatings, rapes and mass killings were the order of the day; “blood flowed like rivers in the streets.”
Mass protest in Gwangju, May 1980
However, in an extraordinary turn of events, stunned protesters, instead of capitulating at the terror, responded by storming police armories and requisitioning weapons, taxis, buses and improvised explosives, to fight the elite troops to a standstill. Despite the deployment of helicopter gunships and Armored Vehicles, 3,000 Special Warfare Paratroopers, along with 18,000 riot troops, found themselves driven out of the city. In this, the liberation of Gwangju stands out as one of the most astonishing feats of civil resistance of the 20th century.
Riot troops and paratroopers assault protestors and bystanders in Gwangju
This victory was not to last, however. After the rebels surrendered thousands of arms as a gesture of good faith to seek amnesty, Chun’s administration would assault the city with two armored divisions and five special forces brigades. An untold number of civilians—excess death statistics note 2,300 individuals—would be slaughtered, searing Gwangju into the historic annals of atrocity and infamy. Anti-government protests would go underground, and re-erupt seven years later, when Chun’s presidency, which had been awarded the Olympics found it inconvenient to perpetrate another massacre in front of the international press in the run up to the Olympics. Chun would accede to protesters’ demands for a direct election, the outcome of which conveniently passed the presidency to his Hanahwe second, General Roh Tae Woo. The Missing Factor: Who Let the Dogs Out?
The above are the basic historical outlines, acknowledged by most journalists and historians. But what they miss out, is the platform and permissions that circumscribed these historic events. In particular, two questions arise: Under what authority did Chun initiate his coups? And how did he subdue Gwangju? The answer leads back to the same place. South Korea has never had a policy independent of the United States—it has always been a vassal neo-colony. This was demonstrated when the United States placed Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) missiles on Korean soil, ignoring the explicit orders of President Moon Jae-In by coordinating secretly with the South Korean military. Even U.S. Ambassador Donald Gregg acknowledged openly before Congress that the U.S.-South Korea relationship had historically been a Patron-Client relationship. This is because the southern state of Korea, from its inception, was created deliberately by the United States after liberation to thwart a popular, indigenous socialist government (the Korean People’s Republic) from taking sovereign power over the entire peninsula. Since its occupation in 1945 by the U.S. military government, South Korea has always been constrained and controlled by the United States. Its politics and culture, even where it might be nominally independent, has been thoroughly colonized by the United States. For example, in the early 1990s, a fractious intra-party conflict broke out between two cabinet factions of the liberal Kim Young Sam presidency. The “irreconcilable” fight was between cliques that had studied political science at the University of California Berkeley and those who had studied at Yale University. Such were boundaries of South Korean discourse and the overarching nature of U.S. influence. This state of affairs is most true of the South Korean military, which was cloned from the U.S. military during the U.S. occupation of 1945-48, and which has been continuously under U.S. operational control (or OPCON) since July 14, 1950.
A young Chun Doo Hwan at U.S. Army Special Warfare School, Fort Bragg, 1950s
Key leaders, such as Park, Chun, Roh were trained and indoctrinated into U.S. military practices and culture and had close personal connections with the U.S. military. Chun, for example, had attended the U.S. Psychological Warfare school and Special Warfare school in Fort Bragg, Ranger school at Fort Benning, and Airborne training at the U.S. Army infantry school before receiving commissions to lead Special Warfare forces. He then went to Vietnam, fighting under U.S. Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV) command before ascending to key positions in the ROK military.
This dependency is starkest regarding military operational control, which the United States still maintains in “wartime” to this day. ROK divisions cannot move or act independently without explicit orders from the top of the military command chain, or unless explicit permission is granted to be released from this operational control. The head of the military command chain at the time of Gwangju was General John A. Wickham, Jr., the head of the ROK-U.S. Combined Forces Command, and United States Forces Korea (UNC/CFC) command. Wickham would have been subordinate to the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff.
In other words, South Korean troops do not get to commit massacres on their own. They need a hall pass from the United States to engage in any military maneuvers or actions. The U.S. military granted them such a hall pass to travel down to Gwangju, knowing that this plan that would likely result in the slaughter of students and citizens. The released units under the Special Warfare Command, a lethal killing machine, are all divisions with a deep integration with and long history of serving the United States.
The United States claims that it was utterly in the dark and in no position to refuse the release of OPCON demanded by South Korea: That the Koreans snatched up OPCON, like a bully stealing lunch money, and then went on to commit mass atrocities that the United States could only sit by and watch in slack-jawed innocence. These are after-the-fact re-workings of history by creative lawyers ignorant of military realities. Militaries are instituted to have unity of command, and Chun was a U.S.-trained, known actor in a specific chain of command, with close ties to the U.S. brass. The notion that a partially established coup junta of a client state could simply Swiss-cheese U.S. military command structure and snatch OPCON to commit massacres at will strains credibility. The absurd official portrayals of the U.S.military brass as hapless damsels before roguish generals is refuted by official records and smacks of satire or desperation.
Protesters running from troops, Gwangju, 1980
In fact, journalist Tim Shorrock using the declassified “Cherokee files,” has detailed well the discussions that happened at the time of Gwangju: Top U.S. officials in the Carter administration 1) knew of the brewing crackdown and 2) greenlighted military action, knowing full well the costs. According to Shorrock’s meticulous reporting:
[Troops] were sent with the approval of the U.S. commander of the U.S.-Korea Joint Command, Gen. John Wickham… That decision, made at the highest levels of the U.S. government… exposed how deeply the Carter administration was involved in the planning for the military coup of 1980… the Carter administration had essentially given the green light to South Korea’s generals to use military force…
This action was authorized to avoid a second “Iran” debacle, where another U.S.-placed despot had been overthrown by popular revolt to U.S. consternation, humiliation and loss. Not only did the United States greenlight the massacre by U.S.-familiar Vietnam-veteran divisions, the United States deployed the USS Coral Sea to support the flank of Chun’s military during the retaking of the city and heightened surveillance support with Airborne Warning And Control System (AWACS). In other words, the Gwangju massacre was a U.S.-enabled-and-supported operation, done with explicit U.S. knowledge and coordination.
Pentagon lawyers have argued that they had previously “released OPCON” to the Korean military, so that these massacres were not done under direct U.S. control. That is a distinction without a difference, akin to a pit bull owner saying that they took their beast off the leash, and therefore are not responsible for the deadly consequences. The ROK military was a US-trained-and-coordinated combatant force; some units involved had served directly under the US I Corps in Vietnam only years prior to Gwangju. The very fact that the United States released OPCON, knowing full well their capacities, military histories, and what was on the cards, makes the whole argument a poor exercise in plausible deniability. No one who has the smallest understanding of how armies work would fall for “the pit bull ate my homework” excuse.
The United States has also argued that the Special Warfare division was exempt from OPCON at the time. This, too, is a legal fiction—Special Warfare Troops (SWF), of all ROK troops, are the most tightly integrated and bound to U.S. command, where they have a long history of training, coordinating, and working with and as proxies for the U.S. military. (The United States maintains this pretense because SWF are designed to infiltrate into North Korea, where the necessity to avoid U.S. command responsibility requires a legal fiction of “independence”).
The same could also apply for Chun’s coups as well. The Dec 12 coup involved the movement of the Vietnam-veteran 9th division, far away from its position guarding the DMZ to attack the incumbent government, along with maneuvers of the Capital Mechanized Division and Special Warfare Troops. The May 20 coup also involved large troop maneuvers to threaten and dissolve the Korean parliament. South Korea is a small, crowded peninsula, bristling with arms and military bases on hair trigger alert, surveilling and monitoring every inch of its territory for military movement. To assert that the U.S. command was aware of the coups is not conspiracy that presumes U.S. omniscience. It’s simply assuming clear signaling on a crowded dance floor to avoid inadvertent collisions. It’s inconceivable that such a massive troop maneuver would not have been signaled up the chain at minimum to avoid a friendly fire incident.
Return OPCON, Restore Peace
So where do these facts leave us?
As the media stir up the flies around Chun’s sordid past, they also seek to bury with his body the fact that South Korea’s military is an appendage of the U.S. military, and that its warts, chancres, and tumors are grown from within the U.S. body politic. Exorbitant atrocities such as the Bodo League Massacres, or the Gwangju Massacre, accrue to the secret debit account of the U.S. imperial ledger, where human rights violations vanish off the books, and where moral debt and karmic interest are never calculated or reconciled.
Despite a confusing, bifurcated organizational structure (independent command control vs. subordinated operational control; Peacetime OPCON vs. Wartime OPCON), the bare political fact is that South Korea’s military falls effectively under U.S. control, not simply in “wartime,” but whenever it is politically expedient or strategically necessary. This card was obvious when the ROK military simply defied Moon’s moratorium on THAAD missile installation and took its orders from the United States, not even bothering to notify the Korean president that the missiles had been delivered in-country. Subsequent investigation revealed that the South Korean military claimed a confidentiality agreement with the U.S. military as the reason to hide the information from South Korea’s own commander-in-chief.
Not only does the ROK military translate the will of the United States in domestic actions—including coups and massacres, but it also has functioned as a brutal sidekick for U.S. aggressions abroad, and serves as a strategic force projection platform and force multiplier for U.S. containment against China. Unlike any other “sovereign” state in the world, South Korea’s 3.7 million troops and material all fall under U.S. operational control the instant that the United States decides that they want to use them.
This is despite the fact that since the inception of its civilian government in 1993, South Korea has sued the United States for the return of OPCON. This request is now going into its third decade; the United States has simply stalled, moved goal posts, changed definitions and conditions, and stonewalled to this date.
This debate around OPCON is important in the current historical moment as the United States is escalating to war with China. Any de-escalation with North Korea will require the declaration of peace, predicated on the return of sovereign OPCON to South Korea. However, the United States will not seek to de-escalate tensions with North Korea, because if that happens, South Korea is likely to confederate in some manner with North Korea, join China’s Belt and Road Initiative and then become integrated as an ally of China. This would cripple the hegemonic control (or the architecture of U.S. hegemony) in Northeast Asia. Hegemony refers to the dominance of one group over another via various means. This renders any peace with North Korea antithetical to U.S. strategic interests.
Secondly, the U.S. escalation for war with China requires the capacity to access and threaten the Chinese landmass across a series of leverage points. Inescapably, South Korea will be a key theater of battle, because of its geostrategic position as a bridgehead onto China. Also, the temptation to leverage a force of 6.7 million South Koreans (3.7 million troops +3 million paramilitary) as cannon fodder for war against China is simply too irresistible to pass on. In light of this, Korea expert Tim Beal argues that in this moment of heightened tension with China, the most dangerous place in the Pacific is not the South China Sea or the East China Sea, but on the Korean peninsula.
We will see this conflict heighten as South Korea enters into a new presidential election cycle between a U.S.-favored conservative candidate, and a China-sympathetic progressive candidate.
Nevertheless, South Korea’s history offers a stark and ominous lesson, one that the mainstream media would prefer you ignore: A battle is brewing, with very high stakes. Under pressure, the United States has taken brutal actions to maintain control and hegemony. It may do so again.
Chun’s passing is being taken as an opportunity to distribute soporific drafts of historical amnesia—the better to sleepwalk into war or tragedy, again.
People with a conscience should not let this misdirection pass. To close one’s eyes to history is to enable future atrocities and war. Only with eyes wide open does the public have a chance of staving off this coming war.
K.J. Noh is a scholar, educator and journalist focusing on the political economy and geopolitics of the Asia-Pacific. He writes for Dissident Voice, Black Agenda Report, Counterpunch, Popular Resistance, Asia Times, MR Online. He also does frequent commentary and analysis on the news programs The Critical Hour, By Any Means Necessary, Fault Lines, Political Misfits, Loud & Clear, Breakthrough News and Flashpoints. He believes a functioning society requires good information; to that end, he strives to combat the weaponization of disinformation in the current cold war climate.
The Water Defenders: How Ordinary People Saved a Country from Corporate Greed by Robin Broad and John Cavanagh. Boston: Beacon Press; 2nd edition. March 23, 2021.
