I went to Gwangju in the Fall and we didn’t get to see the Peace Park or Cemetery because one of the people I went with had already been there. We ended up wandering around more than anything else and getting a bit lost.
Gwangju is famous for student uprisings against the dictator during 1980-81.
After arriving we went to Shinsagae to grab lunch again and started walking towards the Memorial Park, also called Peace Park. which is starred below on GoogleMaps. I hope you can tell which one is the park. It’s the opposite direction of Shinsagae. The A is just what shows up when you type in Gwangju.
The park was pretty small, although it looks pretty big on the map. We unknowingly walked though all of it looking for a spot to have lunch. When you walk in from the North entrance, you see the statue below.
Behind the statue, there is an entrance to more of the memorial, the area where they have the names of the dead written on the walls.
After that we took a taxi back to the bus station where we got an hour long bus to the cemetery. It is bus 518 to make things easier. I found out later that you can take it from the Peace Park as well. They come about every half an hour.
From the bus stop you walk though the parking gate, past the parking lot to the entrance.
To the right there is the Yuyeongbonganso which is the place to put the portraits of the deceased May 18 democratic persons of merits. This is not just people who died during the massacre, but also people who were there and recently died.
To the right is a museum. This included a detailed history, watched that had stopped when a person got shot or blown up, flags covered in blood, paintings people had done, a building the way things used to be, a machine gun, knife, a billy club, rocks covered in blood, dioramas, and a never ending stream.
Note the Star Wars poster.
One of the more interesting things I saw: The Joint Investigation Headquarters fabricated the truth about the May 18 Democratic Uprising by forcing false confessions through torture of the detainees. The people who fought for democracy and justice against the Gwangju massacre by the new military government were now arrested and sentenced to death or lifetime imprisonment by the military court for the crime of high treason and sedition. The injured who were being treated in hospital were forced to leave.
Another interesting thing:
The Gwangju Massacre, the outcome of weapons of betrayal following the order for treason!
A 30-year-old deaf and dumb man was clubbed to death,
a 19-year-old girl was stabbed int he chest and short in the stomach,
a 60-year-old man trying to stop the killing of the innocent was beaten to death,
13-shots were fixed at a woman on her way to her grandfather’s ancestral rite,
an 8-month pregnant woman was shot to death as she waited for her husband in an alleyway,
a 4th grader was shot to death as he looked for a shoe he had lost when running away from the madness,
a middle school student was shot to death while swimming in a reservoir,
an old lady hiding under a manhole and a 70-year old man holding his breath in his house were shot to death,
and a 5-year old child was killed and buried in Gwangju, in May 1980!
People just called this the “Gwangju incident” for more than then years,
And those in power called it the suppression of a riot for social stability.
They called Gwangju a city of Communists,
though all people asked for was the truth about the brutally murdered bodies.
However, Gwangju could not be silenced though death as they wanted.
The next information plaque said the following and more:
The person who was the 11th and 12th President was given a life sentence and the Minister of Home Affairs and the 13th President was given a 17 year prison sentence.
Further left, is the door of history, historical square, outdoor performing place, sungmoru (the castle-type building that old casatles monito red the surroundings), and the second cemetery. Below is the sungmoru.
The way to the cemetery and back you will go past some graffiti.
World Traveler: Asian Edition 