Commission finds at least 439 civilians killed during Suncheon massacre.

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission has found that 439 civilians were killed in and around Suncheon during the 1948 Yosu-Suncheon Rebellion, but that the number could be higher since some families didn't want an investigation this time around. Or as the Hankyoreh puts it:

“If you include those people whose whereabouts have not been confirmed, the figure could increase further, to 2,000.”

The numbers would be much higher if they included non-"civilians" such as military and police, and I'm not sure the motivation for focusing only on a particular demographic, one so vaguely defined in the English-language press. Here are two excerpts from a book titled The Korean War 1945 to 1953:

In Sunchon some people were summarily executed, but others were tried by a People's Court. While some were found innocent or merely castigated, most were beaten and then executed. The police chief got the worst of it. His eyes were plucked out and he was dragged by car along the streets. Shot, his gas-drenched body was tied to a pole and set on fire. Some 900 people, among them 400 police, were killed in Sunchon by the rebels.

. . .

Yosu was defended house-to-house and the city suffered devastating damage. The entire city "is in ashes, still surrounded by horrors and terrors," according to a graphic account. "All kinds of notices cover the walls of the town in the form of orders, appeals, and threats issued by both sides. Dead bodies and broken furniture are scattered over the rice fields and house lots . . . Many groups of beggars are digging in the ashes for whatever they can find . . . The police station and martial law headquarters are crowded with suspects awaiting trial . . . We learned that more than 1,200 persons were killed as of November.

From a November 8, 1948 TIME magazine article:

The rebels approached Sunchon city peacefully; but as soon as they entered the city, police opened fire. Joined by a company of soldiers guarding the city bridge, the rebels fired back. After a short, sharp battle they were in full control. The hundred or so cops who surrendered were lined up against the wall of the police compound and riddled. Then the rebels, joined by part of the citizenry, paraded through the city under North Korea's Communist banner, singing "Ten thousand years to the North Korean People's Republic!"

Star-Spangled Shirt. When darkness came, Communist execution squads went from house to house, shooting "rightists" in their beds or marching them to collection points where they were mowed down. In 2-3-days, 500 civilians were slaughtered. U.S. Lieuts. Stewart M. Greenbaum and Gordon Mohr, Army observers in Sunchon, narrowly escaped death. The rebel sergeant assigned to kill them was an old friend, who had drunk beer with them in their billet many times. He took the two officers into a field, fired into the ground and then led them to the Presbyterian Mission of Dr. John Curtis Crane, who was barricaded in with his wife and four other missionaries.

According to a placard commemorating the scene of violence in front of Suncheon Station

The number of victims of the Yosun Incident is estimated to be about 10,000 including policemen, soldiers, and civilians, though the exact number is not known.

In August, a Truth and Reconciliation Commission found that 160 civilians were killed in Gurye county both during and shortly after the Yosu-Sunchon Incident, since many fled to Gurye and Jirisan. Hundreds more were killed throughout the country, according to that commission. With the tendency here to put history in quotation marks and to have substantially different regional and generational interpretations of events, take all the numbers and accounts you hear with healthy quantities of salt.

What is called the 1948 Yosu-Sunchon Incident, or Rebellion, or Insurrection, was in response to a government crackdown on a communist uprising on Jeju Island. President Roh Moo-hyun issued an apology (twice) for the government's role in it, and the commission in the news today is looking for an apology as well. Keep in mind the Truth and Reconciliation Commission is hardly ever about truth or reconciliation. I'm actually surprised no mention of the US military was made in the papers today, because usually the US is held responsible for violence before and during the Korean War.