Kwangju Declassified : Holbrooke’s Legacy – THE SHORROCK FILES
▻https://timshorrock.com/2010/05/31/kwangju-declassified-holbrookes-legacy
▻https://preview.redd.it/5svy60b1wtu81.jpg?width=960&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=027002d74d9539c440ee
▻https://twitter.com/thelongwallz/status/1590582284566298624?s=20&t=NhFAlj5Z02Ir-DeTQKq5_w
One of the most important documents I obtained in my 15-year quest to unearth the US role in South Korea in 1979 and 1980 were the minutes to a White House meeting that took place on May 22, 1980. At this meeting, the Carter administration made its critical decision to support the South Korean military as it moved to crush the Kwangju Uprising, the largest citizens’ rebellion in the south since the Korean War ended in 1953.
The document, which I first obtained in 1996, is significant for historical reasons. But it’s also important because two of the key players at that meeting were the late Richard Holbrooke and Zbigniew Brzezinski. Holbrooke, who was until his untimely death a perennial favorite in Democratic circles for the coveted job of secretary of state, recently served as a high-ranking official in Hillary Clinton’s State Department. Brzezinski, who was Carter’s national security adviser, has won a certain claim to fame in fashionable Washington think-tanks (such as the New America Foundation) for his opposition to the war in Iraq and his biting critique of the Bush/neoconservative school of foreign policy.
In South Korea, however, both men showed an appalling disregard for democracy and human rights. Their actions should not be forgotten – particularly by progressives who like to champion Holbrooke and Brzezinski as men of honor who exemplify the conduct of US foreign policy. Here’s the story of that fateful May 1980 meeting, with the minutes attached at the end.