Jeju-North Korean Connections

The February 5th issue of The Jeju Weekly reported that Kim Jong-un's maternal grandfather was born on the island of Jeju in 1913.  Apparently he left Jeju during the Japanese occupation of Korea to work in Japan.  In Japan he met and married another Jejuian.  They had a daughter, born in 1952 in Japan.  In 1962 the family moved to North Korea where the young woman later joined a dance troop and caught the eye of the leader of that country, a relationship that eventually produced Kim Jong-un.

The early years after the Korean War were hard in both Koreas.  Back then the North was economically better off than the South and attracted many Japanese Koreans who thought life would be better there.  Most did not fare as well as this family from Jeju-do.

Whole villages were burned during the Jeju massacre that started in 1948

The irony of this story is that Jeju-do underwent a huge massacre that lasted from 1948 for the next 7 years, a massacre that was justified by accusations that Jeju protesters were communist.  In reality the protests that sparked the Jeju Rebellion, as it has been called, was more about economics and politics.  After World War II many young men returned to Jeju (many had been conscripted to either fight for the Japanese or to work in Japanese war factories) only to find that there was no work to be found.  In addition, the United States was pushing an election in South Korea that would divide the country.  Parts of Jeju-do

The Jeju massacre slaughtered citizens without regard for age or gender

Protesting the building of the Naval Base as a funeral to the ecology and to peace

The village of Kongjeong prefers to be a village of Peace

boycotted the election to protest the division of the country, an action that resulted in severe retribution by the Korean military under orders from the United States Command in Korea.  The purge resulted in the massacre of an untold number of Jeju men, women, and children.

Kim Jong-un's grandfather had probably already left for Japan before 1948, but the discovery of his birthplace is fodder for spin from several groups.  Those who want to justify the actions of the military use it to support the theory that the 1948 protesters were communist.  For others, particularly some residents of Jeju who are still protesting military build-up in the area, this news can be seen as a reminder that all Koreans are family and that the division is the result of foreign intervention and militarism (or imperialism) and that Jeju-do is now, as it has always been, an island that values peace and unity.

Residents of Kongjeong village continue to protest the building of a large naval base there.  They see the base as not only an assault on local ecology, but also as a symbol of the militarism that has disrupted the peace of the island for many years and of international imperialism, especially by the United States that still maintains a major military presence in South Korea.