Lee attends 47th anniversary ceremony of Buma Democratic Uprising

President Lee Jae Myung delivers a commemorative address at the 47th anniversary ceremony of the Buma Democratic Uprising at Busan City Hall on Friday. [Yonhap]
President Lee Jae Myung delivers a commemorative address at the 47th anniversary ceremony of the Buma Democratic Uprising at Busan City Hall on Friday. [Yonhap]

President Lee Jae Myung said Friday that enshrining the Buma Democratic Uprising and the Gwangju pro-democracy movement in the constitutional preamble is "the minimum measure needed to protect democracy and popular sovereignty in the Republic of Korea, and to ensure that the blood-soaked history of our people is never forgotten." Lee made the remarks at the 47th anniversary ceremony of the Buma Democratic Uprising at Busan City Hall, where he also urged the National Assembly to "move swiftly to gather public opinion and hold reasonable debate on constitutional reform."

The ceremony commemorates the Buma Democratic Uprising, a large-scale pro-democracy movement in which students and citizens in the Busan and Masan areas rose up against the Yushin dictatorship in 1979. Designated a national memorial day in 2019, this year marks the eighth such observance.

Lee recalled that "the cry that rang out from Busan and Masan on Oct. 16, 47 years ago, pierced the darkness of a vast dictatorship and became an undying flame that lit up the Republic of Korea as a democratic republic." He expressed "deep respect and gratitude to the citizens of Busan and Masan who cried out for justice with their whole bodies in those harsh times."

Lee said the democracy South Koreans enjoy today as a matter of course "was never won on its own," adding that "it has not been so long since citizens were able to fully exercise their rights as sovereigns — choosing their representatives through elections, and freely criticizing the government and those in power."

President Lee Jae Myung and first lady Kim Hye-kyung salute the national flag at the 47th anniversary ceremony of the Buma Democratic Uprising at Busan City Hall on Friday. [Yonhap]
President Lee Jae Myung and first lady Kim Hye-kyung salute the national flag at the 47th anniversary ceremony of the Buma Democratic Uprising at Busan City Hall on Friday. [Yonhap]

Lee recalled how "the cries of 'abolish the Yushin system, down with the dictatorship' that began on the campus of Pusan National University grew louder through the solidarity of citizens marching shoulder to shoulder. Ordinary citizens hid students fleeing from police and handed out bread and kimbap to protesters." He said the streets of Nampodong and Gwangbokdong, where office workers and laborers joined the movement, "were filled with cries yearning for democracy."

Lee said the government ultimately declared emergency martial law and "tried to silence citizens with tanks and bayonets, but the cries only spread beyond Busan to Masan like wildfire." He said the protests, which had seemed "like throwing eggs at a rock," ultimately "cracked the great wall of the Yushin dictatorship."

Lee said the Buma Democratic Uprising "did not merely end one dictatorship," but "became a firm cornerstone in the development of South Korean democracy by upholding the unwavering principle that power cannot reign over the people and that the state must exist for the people."

He said "the cries and spirit of Buma carried on to Gwangju in May 1980, then to the June Democracy Movement of 1987, and on through the candlelight revolution and the revolution of light."

Lee said that "though the times and the streets looked different, the burning desire for popular sovereignty was one and the same," and called the Buma Democratic Uprising "an indispensable name in the history of the Republic of Korea and a great milestone of our democracy."

Lee pledged that his government "will not turn away from the wounds and pain that state power inflicted on sovereign citizens in the past," and said it "will do its utmost to restore the honor of those who were wrongfully harmed," calling it "the minimum duty the state today must fulfill."

Lee vowed to "press forward without wavering toward a true democratic republic where popular sovereignty lives and breathes — the Republic of Korea that the citizens of Busan and Masan called for shoulder to shoulder 47 years ago." He said he would "do everything in his power to ensure that the democracy we build together today becomes a beacon that lights the way for South Korea's tomorrow, just as the cries of that day became a part of the history of Korean democracy."


sang@heraldcorp.com