Korea A History by Bong-Youn Choy

Author:Bong-Youn Choy
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Charles E. Tuttle Company, Inc

Any Korean who talks about a South Korean . . . government will be condemned by history because once that term is used, the Communists in the North under the direction of the Soviet Union will establish a so-called people's republic. . . . Then you will have two . . . governments in this small space of 85,000 square miles. . . . Once such a thing occurs . . . it will be permanent; and then you are responsible for perpetuating the division of Korea.32

As an alternative to the U.N. election, the three leaders proposed a meeting of the leaders of the North and South to find ways of bringing about unification of the country by the Koreans themselves. This suggestion was rejected by the American military commander, who later denounced the meeting as a Communist political plot. Kim Kiusic resigned the chairmanship of the South Korean interim assembly and announced that he was preparing to attend the forthcoming North-South political leaders' conference, which is described later.

When Ahn Chai-hong failed to persuade General Hodge to agree to the coalition conference, he submitted his resignation as civil administrator. Kim Koo announced that he was planning to participate in the conference. Subsequently, more than fifty political leaders and forty different political and social organizations in South Korea announced their desire to participate. This all brightened Rhee's political future, for no powerful challenger to Rhee remained in South Korea, and the United States and the U.N. favored his plan for a separate government in the South.

In spite of the propaganda of the United States military government and Rhee's appeal to South Koreans for support of the U.N. election on May 10, only two extreme rightist parties and their affiliated groups offered active support; the overwhelming majority of the South Korean political and social organizations—rightists, moderates, and leftists alike—boycotted the election, because "it would perpetuate the division and cause a bloody civil war."

Officially, the election was held under the supervision of thirty staff members of the U.N. commission in an area of more than forty thousand square miles, where more than seven million registered voters resided. But actually, "in order to uphold law and order during the election," General Hodge authorized the police (about ten thousand men) to mobilize about one million members of the Community Protective Corps, which was formed in April 1948. A uniformed policeman and stick-carrying youth bands (members of the Community Protective Corps) guarded each polling place and the residences of the candidates.

On May 9 the American military authority also sent its own election observation team, composed of one civilian and one army officer each, into each of the two hundred election districts. On election day many districts reported that unidentified youths and policemen checked each qualified voter's home and asked whether he had voted.

Approximately 75 percent of all eligible voters cast their ballots. One hundred ninety out of 198 elected assemblymen belonged to the Rhee and Kim Sung-soo parties and their affiliated groups. According to the figures

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