12 December 1979 coup (1980): Gwangju

Shooting in the capital that night was limited compared with a civil war; the political violence of the sequel was not. On 17 May 1980 Chun's circle expanded martial control; the Gwangju Uprising (18-27 May) was crushed with a death toll in the hundreds in official figures and higher in civic memory. The 12 December night is the necessary preface to May.

English-language memory of 1979-80 Korea is thin beside Kwangju's later human-rights file. For Korean readers this is a core civic wound: Hanahoe, the "new military," and the long road to the June 1987 democratic struggle. This page is political-military history -- named units and dates -- not a guide to moving battalions through Seoul.

12.12 was a factional seizure of the ROK Army that became a regime -- and then a democracy movement's origin story. Kim Jae-gyu killed Park at a dinner on 26 October 1979. Jeong Seung-hwa, as Army Chief, took charge of the investigation. Chun, as DSC commander, was both investigator and ambitious faction leader -- a conflict of roles.