Ever since the US imperialists occupied south Korea, they have attempted to perpetuate the division of the Korean nation and pursued a colonial enslavement policy. In October 1947 they brought to the UN the question of Korea, and rigged up the UN Temporary Commission on Korea and made desperate efforts to hold May 10 separate elections and set up a separate government in south Korea under its supervision. This created a grave situation in which national and territorial division of Korea would be perpetuated.
President Kim Il Sung called on the Korean people in the north and south to elect a supreme legislative body and establishing an all-Korea unified central government, representing the will of all the Korean people, with a view to tiding over the crisis.
In response to his appeal, the south Korean workers and the people of Jeju Island launched the national salvation struggle against the entry of the commission into south Korea on February 7, 1948.
The US imperialists arrested, imprisoned and killed more than 10 000 patriots before and after the struggle. Nevertheless, the south Koreans pitched into the struggle against the ruinous separate elections.
In late March the Jeju islanders formed a people’s armed organization and established a base in mountainous area with Mt Halla. In the early morning of April 3 they switched over to an armed revolt. They killed police officers and their stooges by making an assault on the police substations across the island and restored the people’s committees which had been forcibly disbanded by the US imperialists.
This completely frustrated the election on the island and paralyzed the enemy’s ruling mechanism.
In order to quell their struggle, the US imperialists set up the “Jeju Island Emergence Garrison Headquarters” and hurled huge troops into a mopping up operation. They set fire to 295 villages which accounted for more than half of all the villages on the island and killed over 70 000 villagers ruthlessly.
The uprising clearly showed the unanimous desire and indomitable will of the islanders to categorically reject foreign interference and achieve national reunification and sovereignty by the independent efforts of the Korean nation. It also dealt a heavy blow at the US imperialists.
