The Full Story
Jeju 4.3
Between 1948 and 1949, an estimated 30,000 people, nearly 10% of Jeju Island’s population, were killed during a period of government-led suppression now known as the Jeju 4.3 Massacre. This chapter of Korean history remained silenced for decades, buried beneath layers of fear, shame, and political oppression.
Following Korea’s liberation from Japanese colonial rule in 1945, Jeju was caught in a power vacuum. The southern part of Korea came under the control of the United States Army Military Government in Korea (USAMGIK). Tensions rose rapidly as political factions split over how Korea should be unified and governed. Jeju Island became a center of resistance, particularly against the impending division of the peninsula.
On March 1, 1947, a peaceful protest commemorating the independence movement turned deadly when police fired into a crowd, killing six people. This ignited a series of escalations between leftist activists and state forces. On April 3, 1948, members of a leftist guerrilla group attacked police stations across Jeju. In retaliation, the South Korean government launched a brutal anti-communist campaign, indiscriminately targeting civilians, including children, women, and the elderly.
Entire villages were burned. People were executed in public. Families were forced to inform on neighbors or risk being labeled traitors themselves. The violence was not only immediate but also generational. Survivors lived in silence, under military surveillance, often prohibited from speaking of what had happened. To do so risked imprisonment or death.
It wasn’t until the late 1990s that the truth slowly began to emerge. In 2003, the South Korean government issued a formal apology. In 2018, the first state-led memorial ceremony was held. But even today, the Jeju 4.3 Massacre remains underrepresented in textbooks, under-taught in schools, and under-recognized globally.