April Revolution - Background

Background

Since 1948 President Rhee had his occupation of the presidency. Rhee was facing the regime change since he showed no clear improvement in both economic policies and social development but he wanted to prolong his occupation term. Furthermore Rhee’s strong sponsor U.S. economic aid slashed from a high of $382,893,000 in 1957 to $222,204,000 in 1959. Rhee was shocked and threatened by the turn away of American support and he decided to begin taking increasingly desperate measures to keep his political survival in the following year. In December 1958 he forced through the National Assembly an amendment to the National Security Law giving the government broad new powers to curtail freedom of the press which was to prevent members of the opposition from voting. In March 1960 Rhee was determined to prolong his time in office. In July 1959 he eliminated Cho Pongam, a member of the left leaning Progressive Party who had received one million votes in the 1956 presidential election, by slandering him as Communist who were against the government. During the elections of 1960, Syngman Rhee was determined to see Gibung Lee elected as the independent Vice President. He ran against Chang Myon, former ambassador to the United States during the Korean War. On March 15 Gibung Lee, who was mostly bedridden, won the elections with an abnormally wide margin. Lee had won 8,225,000 votes, while Myon received just 1,850,000 votes. It became clear to the people that the vote was fraudulent.

On March 15, 1960, a protest against electoral corruption took place in Masan, a small city near the southeastern coast. The protest, sparked by Democratic Party members' exposure of electoral corruption, led to about a thousand residents of Masan gathering in front of the Democratic Party Headquarters in Masan around 7:30 in the evening. As the citizens faced off against the police, the city was blacked out. The police started shooting at the people and the people responded by throwing rocks at the police. On April 11, Kim Ju-yul's body was found in the harbor at Masan by a fisherman. Kim had been a student at Masan Commercial High School who had disappeared during the Masan rioting of March 15. Authorities announced that an autopsy confirmed that the cause of his death was drowning, but many rejected this explanation. Some protesters forced their way into the hospital. They found that Kim's skull had been split by a 20 centimeter-long tear gas grenade which had penetrated from Kim's eyes to the back of his head, which indicated that the police had shot the tear gas to an angle less than 45 degrees, which could be fatal if shot directly at a person's face. Rhee’s regime tried to censor news of this incident, however, it could not halt the spread of word in the end. This fact reported by Korean major press along with a picture of Kim when his body was first found, and delivered to the world through AP. This incident eventually shocked the nation and became the basis of a national movement against electoral corruption on April 19. Outraged Masan erupted into three days of spontaneous mass protests which led to further violent clashes.

President Rhee claimed that the Communist Party of North Korea had been behind the Masan protests trying to shift the focus. Later a National Assembly investigating committee found that the firing into the crowd by the police had not been intended to disperse the crowds, but rather to kill protesters. And it was revealed at a criminal trial that Park Jong-pyo, the Chief of Public Security who ordered firing against protesters, tied rocks up on Kim Ju-yul's dead body and threw him away into the Masan shore to prevent him floating up on the shore. Also, on April 18, students from Korea University launched non violent protest against police violence and demanded for new elections. However, they were attacked by gangs called upon by the police chief on the way home. The next day, tens of thousands of student protesters gathered before the presidential mansion and were dispersed only when police fired point-blank into their ranks. By April 25 even larger protests threatened to throw the country into complete anarchy.

On April 26, President Rhee stepped down from power. The following day Vice Present-elect Lee Kibung and his family committed suicide, which led to the collapse of the Liberal Party. Then on April 28, Minister of Interior Choi In-Kyu and the Chief of Security resigned taking responsibility for the Masan incident.