Jeju Island (also known as Jejudo) is a sub-tropical volcanic island situated off the southern coast of the Korean Peninsula. Its geographic separation from the mainland led to the development of a distinct culture and dialect, though its land and people have suffered violence as a result of colonialism, war, and domination. One such instance of suffering was the Jeju Massacre, which began in the late 1940s. Nothing occurs in a vacuum; a variety of factors set the stage for this atrocity to occur. Following independence from Japanese rule in 1945, Korea faced questions of political organization and governance. South Korea's first president Syngman Rhee, with the support of the US, sought to establish a separate government from the Soviet-occupied northern half. However, many Koreans opposed this division and fought for a unified country.
On Jeju Island, residents largely desired a unified Korea and protested against the May 1948 election that formed the Republic of Korea south of the 38th parallel. The acting government body on the island was the Jeju People's Committee, which fell under the jurisdiction of the Workers' Party of South Korea (WPSK) in 1946. The presence of the United States Army Military Government in Korea (USAMGK) on Jeju led to mounting political tensions. The extreme ideological conflicts eventually reached a breaking point. On April 3rd, 1948, members of the WPSK and partisans carried out attacks on 12 police facilities and the homes of conservative leaders, killing 12 people before they fled to hide in the Halla Mountains. In response, the US-backed South Korean government killed approximately 10% of Jeju's population (30,000 people) in the name of exterminating communism on the island. Han Kang's We Do Not Part focuses on the traumatic aftermath of this historical atrocity, showing how human acts of brutality resound years later.
