The program begins with speeches and musical interludes. One speaker comments on the beautiful scenery, and Young-sook agrees. If she keeps her eyes open, that’s what she sees: beauty. But she’s afraid to close her eyes for all the dark images that are coming back to her. “Who can name a death that was not tragic?” the speaker asks. “Is there a way for us to find meaning in the losses we’ve suffered? Who can say that one soul has a heavier grievance than another? We were all victims. We need to forgive each other.”
Remember? Yes. Forgive? No. Young-sook can’t do that. Being allowed to speak the truth? Too, too long in coming. Thirty years ago, back in 1978, a writer named Hyun Ki-young published a story called Aunt Suni. Young-sook couldn’t read it. She never did learn to read, but she heard it was about what happened in Bukchon. The author was taken to the national spy agency, where he was tortured. He wasn’t released until he promised never to write about the 4.3 Incident again. Three years later, the guilt-by-association system finally came to a close. This program had devastated many families across the island. If someone had been accused of being an insurgent or someone had been killed, then the rest of his or her family might not be hired, receive a promotion, or travel abroad. When the program ended, it was said that police stations destroyed their files, but people kept their mouths shut, just in case. Eight years later, in 1989, a group of young people hosted a public commemoration of the events of the 4.3 Incident. Young-sook didn’t go, because what difference would it make when the government insisted no proof existed that anything had happened on Jeju? Yet again, silence fell across the island.
A new speaker addresses the assembly. “Every person I know—from old to young—suffers from mental scars,” he tells the crowd. “There are those who experienced the massacre directly, those who were witnesses, and those who’ve heard the stories. We are an island of people suffering from post-traumatic stress syndrome. We have the highest rates of alcoholism, domestic violence, suicide, and divorce in Korea. Women, including haenyeo, are the greatest victims of these problems.”
Young-sook pushes the speaker and his statistics out of her head, returning to her own memories. Sixteen years ago, eleven bodies were discovered in the Darangshi Cave, including those of three women and a child. Strewn around them were not rifles or spears but the items people had carried from their homes: clothes, shoes, spoons, chopsticks, a pan, a pair of scissors, a chamber pot, and some farming tools. They’d sought refuge in the cave but were discovered by the Ninth Regiment. Soldiers heaped grass at the entrance, lit it on fire, and sealed the cave. Those inside suffocated. Here, at last, was the tangible proof the government could no longer deny, except President Roh Tae-woo ordered the cave to be once again closed. The evidence was literally covered up.
Then, in 1995, the island’s provincial council published a list—the first of its kind—with the names of 14,125 victims. The list was far from complete, however. Jun-bu, Yu-ri, and Sung-soo were not among the thousands, but Young-sook had considered it too dangerous to step forward. Then came the fiftieth anniversary, in 1998. More memorial services were held, as well as an art festival and religious activities, all tied to 4.3. The following year, the Republic of Korea’s new president, Kim Dae-jung, promised that the government would give 3 billion won to build a memorial park. “We cannot carry forward the twentieth-century incident into the twenty-first century” became the slogan. At the end of that year, the National Assembly passed a Special Law for the Investigation of the Jeju 4.3 Incident and Honoring Victims. The investigation committee planned to interview survivors on Jeju, as well as those who’d moved to the mainland, Japan, and the United States. Materials—such as police and military reports and photographs long hidden in institutions and archives in Korea and the United States—were found and examined. But only in 2000 was speaking about the massacre finally decriminalized. Investigators came to Young-sook several times, but she refused to see them. They sought out her children and grandchildren, who approached her with the same message. “It is the duty of the next generation to bring comfort to victimized souls,” her grandson said. “We’ll do that, Granny, but only you can tell your story. It’s time.” But it wasn’t time for her. Even now, she’s too accustomed to her anger and sorrow to change.
A new speaker steps to the podium. “Three years ago, the central government announced its intention to declare Jeju an Island of World Peace. And here we are.” He pauses to let the applause die down. “In that same year, Hagui, which after the incident was divided into two separate villages, declared forgiveness. There would no longer be a village for victims and one for perpetrators. There would be no more labels of reds and anti-communists. Together, the people petitioned to reunite the two villages. It would once again be called Hagui. They built a shrine of reconciliation, with three stone memorials: one to remember those who suffered during Japanese colonialism, one for the brave sons who died in the Korean War, and one for the hundreds of people on both sides who died during the Four-Three Incident.”
Nausea tumbles Young-sook’s stomach. A monument will never change how she feels. It’s unfair that victims should have to forgive those who raped, tortured, and killed, or burned villages to the ground. On an Island of World Peace, shouldn’t those who inflicted terrible harm on others be forced to confess and atone, and not make widows and mothers pay for stone monuments?
“We still have many questions we must ask ourselves,” the speaker continues. “Was this tragedy a riot that got out of hand? Was it a rebellion, a revolt, or an anti-American struggle? Or do we say it was a democratic movement, a struggle for freedom, or a mass heroic uprising that showed the independent spirit that has flowed in the blood of the people of this island since the Tamna Kingdom?”
He receives a long round of applause, for all native-born Jeju people cherish that self-reliant part of themselves that came from the Tamna.
“Should we blame the Americans?” he asks. “Their colonels, captains, and generals were here. Their soldiers saw what was happening. Even if they didn’t directly kill anyone, thousands of deaths occurred under their watch, but they do not take responsibility. And not once did they intervene to stop the bloodshed. Or do we accept that they were trying to suppress the very real threat of communism at the early stages of what would become the Cold War? Was the Four-Three Incident America’s first Vietnam? Or was it a fight for people who craved reunification of north and south and wanted to have a say in what happened in our country, without interference or influence from a foreign power?”
At last, the speeches end. Village by village, people are led past headstones that commemorate the victims whose bodies were never recovered. Young-sook pauses for a moment. She remembers when the mass grave in Bukchon was dug up and people came to tell her that her husband, sister-in-law, and son had been identified. She and her other children were finally able to bury them in a propitious site chosen by the geomancer. Jun-bu, Yu-ri, and Sung-soo now forever lie side by side, and Young-sook visits their grave site daily. Others are not so fortunate.