Mourning Korean modernity in the memory of the Cheju April Third Incident

This paper concerns the politics of representation involving political violence and the memory of a violent event in modern Korean history. In particular, I focus on the legacy of the 1948 Cheju April Third Incident, which took place on Cheju Island located off the southwestern coast of the Korean peninsula. This incident is known in Korea as sasam sakon or the 4.3 Incident (often called simply ‘4.3,’ after the date of its occurrence). The 4.3 Incident started when a few hundred communist guerrillas attacked police and ‘rightists’ all around the Cheju Island on 3 April 1948. ² When counter-insurgency operations were launched to suppress the insurgency, the situation turned into a bloody mass massacre of civilians, who formed the majority of victims. The 4.3 Incident and its violent conclusion in mass massacre prefigured the Korean War in 1950, the better known ideological battle that ended in stalemate and the loss of millions of lives. Although the suppression resulted in a massive death toll of 80,000, or nearly one third of the entire island population, the event has been largely overlooked in historical texts and virtually forgotten in everyday life. ³ As far as anti-communist ideology continues to dominate state politics in South Korea, and the legacy of the 4.3 Incident remains officially as a communist insurgency, much of the memory of the civilian massacres has been effectively silenced.