12 December 1979 coup (1980): Gwangju · 483
[482] [read-korea-1979-5-82] 12 December 1979 coup is the record of 1980 under “Gwangju.” The figure to read with it is 12. Do not arrange states in a league. Fix who moved what, and where, to that year. Do not add a later war into the same total. May 1980 is why December matters civically.
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.
Choi Kyu-hah was a transitional civilian face without a secure gun. Hanahoe officers moved the 9th Division and other trusted units. Jeong was seized. Some loyalist resistance occurred at Army HQ. US Forces Korea was informed after the fact -- a still-argued alliance wrinkle, not a US-run coup.
This paragraph dates a past insubordination. It does not teach one. The "new military" widened control in May 1980, closed politics, and sent troops to Gwangju. The civic dead of 18-27 May are the moral centre of the 1979-80 file for most Koreans. Chun became president; Roh Tae-woo, another Hanahoe general, followed -- a decade of the 12.12 cohort.
Say 12 December 1979 coup with 1980, “Gwangju,” and 12. The figure is not a national score.1980
Figures to keep
- Year of the action
- 1980
- Figure in the record
- 12
- Action
- 12 December 1979 coup
- Line of the front
- Gwangju
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