South Korean Massacres 1951
While UN troops were pushing back against the Chinese and North Korean incursion into the south, the South Korean Army took action to destroy guerrilla activity in the areas under its control. This operation was placed in the hands of the South Korean 11th Army Division, under the command of General Choe Deok-sin. On February 7, 705 South Korean men, women, and children were rounded up in the area of Sancheong and massacred by troops of the division. More than eighty percent of the victims were women and children, or elderly men. None of them were armed and all of them were civilians.
Between February 9 and 11 another 719 civilians were rounded up in the region of Geochang, including 385 children, and executed by troops of the division. Once again all of the victims were civilians and none of them were armed. This massacre was reported to the South Korean National Assembly which responded by having an investigative group look into the accusation. The investigators were stonewalled by the South Korean Army. The assemblyman who had reported the massacre was arrested, tried, and sentenced to death. When a later investigation reported the Army involvement in the massacre two officers were arrested and sentenced to life imprisonment. Syngman Rhee commuted their sentences.
Syngman perpetrated several massacres of civilians and suspected communist supervisors during the first year of the Korean War. One of the worst was the massacre of the Bodo League. The Bodo League was a re-education organization formed prior to the Korean War for communist sympathizers to be purged of their ideas and educated in the political system and philosophy espoused by Syngman. At the time the North Koreans launched their attack on the South in 1950 there were about 300,000 people enrolled in the Bodo League. Two days after the invasion of the south Syngman ordered the execution of anyone involved in the league.
As the South Korean army retreated before the North Koreans that summer, they participated in the executions of the Bodo League members, as well as those suspected of being communist sympathizers who had not yet been enrolled in the league. There were no trials. Anyone accused of being a communist or a sympathizer was summarily executed by South Korean forces. When Seoul was recovered the first time at least 30,000 civilians were executed for the crime of being a collaborator. Most of the executions were performed by the South Korean Army.
American, British, and French officers and civilian officials witnessed some of the executions and reported them. When the reports of the executions reached MacArthur he dismissed it as something which was a matter for the South Koreans to deal with. British troops witnessed executions about to take place and intervened to protect the prisoners. The British also had their Ambassador to the United States raise the matter with the American Secretary of State, Dean Rusk. Rusk assured the British that the United States was doing what it could to end the executions. Hundreds of thousands of Koreans were executed by the South Korean Army during the war.