Representatives of the industrial trade unions and regional headquarters under the south Korean Confederation of Trade Unions and workers affiliated to those organizations staged a sit-in strike in front of the Mangwoldong Cemetery in protest against the puppet regime defaming the Kwangju Popular Uprising.

They accused the present regime of distorting the essence of the uprising and quelling the desire of the uprisers as the Lee Myung Bak regime did.

They assailed the regime for instructing the decoration agency, in particular, to pressurize people not to sing a song reflecting the spirit of the uprisers at an event commemorating the anniversary and unhesitatingly taking an action to write off the uprising in Kwangju in history.

Then they held a rally at the plaza of Kwangju Railway Station.

They chanted slogans "Let's drive out Yankees, backstage wirepuller of the massacre in May!", "No war, No GIs, Let's Achieve Peace on the Korean Peninsula!"

Ryang Song Yun, chairman of the Interim Emergency Measure Committee of the Confederation of Trade Unions, in his address referred to the significance of the May popular resistance staged to achieve democracy of society in defiance of the military fascist forces.

He called upon the workers and all other people to turn out in the struggle to defend independence and democracy of society and peace against the regime yielding to the U.S. and encroaching upon the people's interests, the era of bringing dictatorship and the threat of war to exterminate the nation.

Pak Pong Ju, chief of the Kwangju Regional Headquarters of the confederation, Kim Jae Ha, chief of the Pusan Regional Headquarters of the confederation, and Ri Kwang Sok, chairman of the Federation of Peasants Associations, laid bare the real intention of the U.S. which was brought to light through its brutal killing of uprisers.

A resolution was read out at the rally.

It called for staging actions to have part-time jobs abolished, win the vital rights, terminate dictatorship and achieve peace against the U.S. and war through the concerted efforts of the workers by inheriting the spirit of the martyrs who laid down their lives in the bloody resistance.

A memorial service took place at the Mangwoldong Cemetery on that evening.