June 3 Uprising (六三抗爭), also known as the June 3 Demonstrations (六三示威) or the Movement against Korea–Japan Negotiations (韓日協商反對運動), was a movement launched on June 3, 1964, in opposition to the negotiations between the Park Chung Hee regime and Japan. On June 3, 1964, the Park Chung Hee government declared martial law and forcibly suppressed the protests against the Korea–Japan normalization talks, which had by then reached their peak. The martial law declared at 10:00 p.m.1 on June 3 was lifted on July 29.
Background
From the beginning of 1964, moves by the government to pursue the Korea–Japan negotiations secretly and to bring them to a swift conclusion came to the surface. The government soon hurried to hold political negotiations in Tokyo, and in February the government and the ruling party announced a decision to push forward with the basic policy for negotiations with Japan during March.2 On February 22, 1964, the Democratic Republican Party announced an alternative proposal concerning the Korea–Japan negotiations, which had been confirmed as the party line. The Park Chung Hee regime, ignoring the general trend of public opinion, had resolved to be satisfied with the 300 million dollars in claim compensation and to hand over the "Peace Line" (平和線), the lifeline of Korean fishermen, to Japan.2 As the Park Chung Hee government hurried its negotiations with Japan, opposition forces from outside the government gathered their opinions that they should rise up together and raise the beacon of national salvation, and they began preparatory work.
In March 1964, the government held a joint meeting of the government and the ruling party on March 5 and announced a Korea–Japan negotiation schedule: agricultural and commercial talks from March 10, full-scale talks from March 12, and a foreign ministers' meeting in April.2 On March 6, about 200 prominent figures, centered on representatives of all the opposition parties outside the government, including the Democratic Republican Party, the Democratic Party, the Liberal Party, and the National People's Party, as well as social,2 religious, and cultural organizations, formed the "National Committee for the Struggle against Humiliating Diplomacy with Japan."2 On March 9, at the Jongno Wedding Hall in Seoul, politicians from various sectors and figures outside the government gathered, adopted a declaration of national salvation, and vowed to rise up in full force to fight against the negotiations. Yun Po-sun, who held the responsibility of chairman of the struggle committee, read the declaration of national salvation.2 Chang Taek-sang compared the Korea–Japan talks to the Japan–Korea annexation. Chang Taek-sang criticized it, saying that the Japan–Korea annexation could not go the way they wished.3
Seoul National University Hunger Strike and the Spark of the Protests
On May 30, students of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Seoul National University held a rally for the struggle for freedom on campus, denounced the Korea–Japan talks and the Park Chung Hee regime, and then began a hunger strike. This became the direct trigger for the June 3 Uprising.4 Kim Deok-ryong (金德龍, later a National Assembly member), the student council president, read a declaration stating, "Today's hunger strike may become tomorrow's bloody struggle," and then began the hunger strike.4
Yun Po-sun praised the declaration of the student council president of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Seoul National University, Kim Deok-ryong, as a solemn declaration.2 As time went on, the number of students participating in the hunger strike gradually increased. Professors and citizens came in a continuous line to the site of the non-resistant students' strike to encourage them and left food for them.2 Yun Po-sun and Ham Seok-heon visited the strike site together. Yun said of this that the feeling of wanting to comfort the pitiful students, who were like his own children, was greater than any political purpose.4 Students who collapsed from exhaustion during the hunger strike were carried on stretchers to the Seoul National University College of Medicine, located in front of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. Medical students and nursing students took turns staying up all night, waiting on standby to look after the hunger-striking students. Yun, who witnessed the scene, judged that the medical and nursing students were as good as participating in the hunger strike themselves.4 At universities across the country, students also prepared coffins and held declarations condemning Park Chung Hee and Kim Jong-pil for forcing the Korea–Japan negotiations, as well as a "national democratic funeral" and a "democratic nationalist funeral."
Besides these, civil society groups and the "National Committee for the Struggle against Humiliating Diplomacy with Japan," formed centered on Yun Po-sun, Chang Taek-sang, Park Soon-cheon, and others, also issued political declarations demanding opposition to the Korea–Japan negotiations or the re-revision of the conditions of the negotiations.
Outcome
The hunger strike at the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Seoul National University stimulated other students. University students from across Seoul poured into the streets and began demonstrations calling for the overthrow of the Park Chung Hee regime. On June 2, students from Korea University, the Seoul National University College of Law, and the Seoul National University College of Commerce advanced onto the streets and led demonstrations, and university students across Seoul responded, with protests breaking out in many places.4 In early June, when Democratic Republican Party chairman Kim Jong-pil went to Japan for the Korea–Japan normalization talks, students staged street demonstrations at noon on June 3. At noon on June 3, some 12,000 students from Seoul who had poured into the streets all at once clashed with police in many places, advancing into the city center in bloody confrontations. Yun Po-sun described this as bringing to mind the time of the April 19 Student Revolution.4 As 7,000 to 8,000 university students converged in front of the Central Government Complex, the area around Sejong-ro fell into disorder4 and chaos. The barricades in front of the Central Government Complex had already collapsed, and police set up a blockade in front of Tongui-dong, leading up to the Blue House.5
Some university students held effigy burnings of Park Chung Hee, Kim Jong-pil, and "livelihood hardship" (民生苦) at their universities, as well as an effigy burning of Japanese Prime Minister Ikeda Hayato (池田勇人), and held a mock trial of the defendant Oh Il-yuk (吳一陸), denouncing the Park regime.5 Students of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Seoul National University left the school gate around 4:00 p.m. on June 3. Some students became exhausted while marching on foot, and the exhausted students were placed on stretchers and joined the demonstration; the first stretcher carried Song Chul-won, who was lying on it. Received with applause from demonstrating students and citizens along the route, they reached the front of the Central Government Complex and took the lead of the demonstration column, but were forced by police tear gas barrages to withdraw to the school.5 This demonstration was the starting point of the demonstrations that triggered the June 3 Uprising.5
Under the leadership of Kim Jae-ha, president of the College of Law student council who was acting president of the Korea University student council, with Lee Kyeong-woo (College of Law), Park Hun-jung (College of Political Science and Economics), and Lee Myung-bak (College of Commerce) serving as vice chairmen, together with students from Yonsei University and Seoul National University, some 15,000 students from 18 universities in Seoul, for a total of about 30,000 people, poured into the streets, staged violent demonstrations, and even occupied the National Assembly building. As the student demonstrations grew more intense, the Park Chung Hee regime retroactively moved the martial law it had planned to declare at 9:40 p.m. on June 3 to 8:00 p.m., and declared martial law across the entire city of Seoul.
University Closures and Press Repression after the Declaration of Martial Law
The Movement against Humiliating Diplomacy with Japan, led by Yun Po-sun, Chang Taek-sang, Yu Jin-o, Jang Jun-ha, and others, supported, encouraged, and spurred on the students' struggle against the Korea–Japan talks. The Park Chung Hee government defined the case as a rebellion in which the People's Revolutionary Party plotted to overthrow the Government of the Republic of Korea by inciting and secretly manipulating the issue of opposition to the Korea–Japan Treaty. At 6:30 p.m. on June 3, it declared martial law and began banning demonstrations, suppressing them, censoring the press, closing universities, and arresting the leaders. Through these measures, 1,120 people, including students, politicians, and journalists identified as the leading figures and backers of the demonstrations, were arrested, and 348 people, including Lee Myung-bak, Lee Jae-oh, Sohn Hak-kyu, Kim Deok-ryong, Hyun Seung-il, and Lee Kyeong-woo, were sentenced to six months in Seodaemun Prison on charges of insurrection and riot.6 Lee Myung-bak, who was then president of the College of Commerce student council at Korea University, escaped danger because his name was mistakenly reported as "Lee Myung-baek." However, when the police infiltrated his home and the investigation closed in on him, he turned himself in.
Park Chung Hee, in a broadcast address, described the June 3 demonstrations as "the agitation of opposition politicians, and students should return to school and devote themselves to their studies." In response, Yun Po-sun rebutted, "To overcome this national crisis, political philosophy above all is required. Is Mr. Park Chung Hee's judgment so clouded and does he lack political philosophy that he would say the chaos in national affairs is the responsibility of some politicians, the press, and students? His remarks gave a very serious shock to the majority of educated people and patriotic citizens."5
On June 6, three days after martial law was declared, armed soldiers invaded the Dong-a Ilbo offices late at night, which had been sympathetic to the students, and threatened and intimidated staff.7 This happened because the Dong-a Ilbo was a press outlet sympathetic to the Democratic Party and the New Democratic Party. Yun Po-sun condemned this as "a serious challenge to the press and an act of oppression, and moreover the extreme of dictatorship aimed at destroying the press itself."7 Police and martial law troops were deployed in the city of Seoul, and the demonstrations were suppressed on July 28; the next day, July 29, martial law was lifted.
Evaluation
Meanwhile, Rev. Kang Won-yong raised suspicions that the United States further fanned and spread the June 3 Uprising in order to bring down the Park Chung Hee regime.8
References
Footnotes