The uprising, in protest against the pro-American military fascist rule, swept 17 cities and counties in South Jolla Province and Jonju City in North Jolla Province, involving more than one million people.

The uprisers drove out the martial forces from the city of Kwangju and defended the city from the attacks of crack contingent for ten days.

However, the uprising suffered a failure by brutal crackdown of the military fascist clique, which was engineered by the United States, and the city turned into a "bath of blood".

At that time, the U.S. handed over to the military fascist clique puppet army divisions and military hardware under the U.S. forces commander in south Korea to quell the uprising.

According to south Korea's Yonhap Press in late February 1996, a predecessor of Yonhap News, the then commander of the U.S. forces in south Korea told in a meeting that he approved the move of the south Korean army's 20th Division into Kwangju.

The U.S. newspaper Journal of Commerce dated February 27, 1996 said the U.S. ambassador to south Korea, in a confidential message sent to the State Department on May 7, 1980, unveiled his intention to reinforce or replace the riot police with military troops by instigating the south Korean military. On May 9, he informed the south Korean authorities of the approval he won from the U.S. administration.

Backed by the United States, the south Korean military fascist clique mercilessly massacred the uprisers, regardless of sex and ages, saying "it is no bad to kill even 70 percent of the Kwangju citizens."

On no account, the U.S. can evade the blame for the Kwangju massacre.

The Kwangju Popular Uprising left a bitter lesson that it is impossible to achieve social progress and national unity and reunification as long as there remain in south Korea the U.S. forces and their followers, the traitors to the nation.

The Koreans will get closely united under the banner of independent reunification to drive the U.S. imperialist aggression forces out of south Korea and realize the cherished desire for national reunification without fail.