Student Incident in Kwangju

Much water has flown under the bridge since the Student Incident in Kwangju, but the Korean people never forget it.

On October 30, Juche 18 (1929), a Japanese middle school student insulted a Korean girl student in a Kwangju-Raju train. After getting off at Kwangju Station, the Korean students delivered a due retaliatory blow to the Japanese students. This led to a conflict at the station.

At that time, the Japanese police patronized their students, whereas it employed violence against the Korean students, arresting and imprisoning them. On November 1, about 300 teaching staff and students of a Japanese middle school under the command of a military instructor took the Korean commuter-students at the station by surprise.

Over 200 Korean students defeated their Japanese rivals after a fierce fighting. Enraged by the news, all the Korean students in Kwangju City stayed away from classes all at once on November 3 and launched an unyielding struggle against the Japanese police. They knocked out Japanese students in different parts of the city and laid siege to the Kwangju Ilbo, a mouthpiece organ for the Japanese imperialists which distorted the incident, and destroyed its printing machines.

The flames of struggle kindled by the students in Kwangju spread rapidly to different parts of Korea, including Seoul, Pyongyang, Sinuiju, Hamhung, Kaesong, Taegu and Pusan.

Youth and students kept fighting for about half a year, despite the ruthless suppression and sweeping roundup by the Japanese imperialists. According to data watered down by the Japanese imperialists, the struggle went on from November 1929 to April 1930, involving more than 60 000 students from 194 schools and patriotic people from all walks of life across Korea.

The Student Incident in Kwangju was an explosion of pent-up grudge and hatred of the Korean students against the Japanese aggressors. It played a big role in inspiring the Korean youth and students to the anti-Japanese struggle.

Far from drawing a due lesson from the incident, the Japanese imperialists further intensified their fascist colonial and oppressive rules, committing innumerable crimes against the Korean nation.

The misfortunes and pains Japan inflicted upon the Korean nation still remain etched in the latter’s minds.

All the Korean people are afire with a firm will to surely settle accounts with Japan for its crime-woven past.