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The small, isolated island of Cheju has been a strategic area in East Asia, especially during the division between north-south Koreas and the beginning of the Cold War. Cheju island is geopolitically ideal for reaching mainland China, Japan and Korean peninsula. The U.S. Military Government in Korea(USMGIK) clamped down on the islanders after the '3·1 incident'(Sam-il Sagon), which occured on March 1st, 1947. As a number of islanders led an uprising against the elections of May 10th, 1948, which was held only in the southern half of Korea, USMGIK began an all-out mop-up operation. Shortly thereafter, the newly-born South Korean Government brutally massacred an estimated number of 30,000 civilians on the island. The total population of the island at that time was 270,000; thus one nineth of the population was killed. The incident has been referred to as '4·3 incident'. The historical symbolism of '4·3' connotes two meanings: the first is the 'mass uprising' to establish self-rule and independence, national unification and democracy for the nation; the second meaning refers to the anti-humanitarian 'genocide'. For a long time, under South Korea dictatorships, the truth about '4·3' has been suppressed. But with the democratization process that followed the Kwangju Uprising, the movement to seek truth of '4·3' began publicly. In January 2000, the South Korean Government finally established a special law to seek the truth and to restore the honor of the victims of Cheju 4·3. It was a great achievement for the movement for democracy in Korea. This struggle begun as a movement for democratization and developed into a movement for peace and human rights, calling for unification and end to the cold war and national division. Thus, this movement furthered the democratization process, by one step, and has launched a new epoch.
