Seoul: South Korea’s defence ministry on Wednesday broke decades of silence to apologise for martial law troops raping women, including teenagers, when they crushed a pro-democracy uprising in 1980. Defence minister Jeong Kyeong-doo issued a public apology for the inflicting of “unspeakable, deep scars and pain” on “innocent women” who were raped and subjected to “sex torture” by soldiers cracking down on protests against a military coup by general Chun Doo-hwan.
Demonstrators in Gwangju and passersby were beaten to death, tortured, bayonetted and disembowelled or riddled with bullets. Conservatives in the South continue to condemn the uprising as a Communist-inspired rebellion. As per official figures, over 200 people were killed or missing, while activists say the toll may have been three times as much.