Anniversary of the Kwangju Uprising

Pyongyang, May 18 (KCNA) -- 31 years have passed since all-people resistance was waged in Kwangju of south Korea against the U.S. imperialists' colonial domination and the military dictatorial forces' fascist rule.

The desire for independence, democracy and reunification mounted high among the south Koreans entering the 1980s. Much upset by it, the south Korean military fascist forces proclaimed the "emergency martial law" across south Korea, mercilessly arrested and executed core members of student movement organizations, progressive professors and democratic figures of various strata. They also banned all the political activities and enforced pre-check of publications.

Enraged by this, youth and students and citizens of Kwangju took to the street on May 18, 1980, chanting the slogans "Repeal emergency martial law!" and "Abolish the Yusin system!"

The uprising turned into the massive resistance in a moment with workers, farmers, officers, religionists and other people in Kwangju and its surrounding areas involved. It developed into the armed resistance from May 21.

The resistance forces pushed the "martial forces" into the suburbs, turned Kwangju City into "liberated area" and organized the self-defensive armed ranks to carry on brave and organized struggle.

With this as a momentum the stronger spirit of anti-"government" struggle flared up in the different parts of south Korea and 17 cities and counties joined the uprising in South Jolla Province alone.

The resistance forces failed to attain their goal owing to the puppet forces who committed brutal suppression armed with lethal means at the instigation of the U.S. imperialists. The Kwangju Popular Uprising, however, set off the fierce storm of anti-U.S. independence and the anti-fascist democratic movement in south Korea.

The uprising which was brilliantly recorded in the anti-U.S., the anti-fascist and democratic movement calls upon all the south Koreans of various strata to the struggle to judge the present regime which turned the south Korean society into the theater of the fascist suppression and an area with poor human rights record under the active patronage of the U.S. -0-