When South Koreans saw footage of troops clashing with civilians while breaking into the country’s National Assembly this weekp333 casino, many recalled the military’s actions during a political crisis in 1980.
This week, nearly 300 South Korean troops stormed the assembly during the six hours that President Yoon Suk Yeol imposed martial law. The public saw their actions as an attempt to arrest the lawmakers inside, who eventually voted to nullify the declaration and force Mr. Yoon to rescind it.
In May 1980, the turmoil lasted longer and turned deadly. Old photos evoke the chaos, violence and defiance of the time.
The unrest that year was set off by a martial law declaration by Chun Doo-hwan, a military dictator who had seized power in a 1979 coup. Political activities were banned, schools were closed, and dissidents were arrested.
Lots of ordinary people resisted. One photo (bottom right) shows thousands of students rallying on the campus of Seoul National University on May 2, 1980. They were demanding the lifting of martial law, and the resignation of the country’s prime minister and its intelligence chief.
Another photo from Seoul (top left) shows police vehicles spraying tear gas at a crowd of student demonstrators on May 15, 1980. Police officers in riot gear walk behind the vehicles in formation.
That month, troops wielding batons and bayonets opened fire on pro-democracy protesters in the southwestern city of Gwangju. That massacre would become a pivotal moment in the country’s transition to democracy and a lingering trauma for generations of South Koreans, including the Nobel Prize-winning novelist Han Kang.
During the 10-day Gwangju uprising, the military seized control of the news media and bludgeoned students on streets thick with tear gas. The crackdown left hundreds killed or missing.
In the photo at the top right, from May 27, 1980, armed soldiers lead captured people through the streets after a firefight. The photo below that shows soldiers laying a roadblock the day before on a street leading to Gwangju’s downtown.
The photo at the bottom left shows a blood-splattered student being clubbed by a paratrooper medic in Gwangju on May 20, 1980. The photo was the first to slip through the military cordon around the city, and it helped expose the military’s brutal suppression of the uprising.
For years, the photojournalist who captured the image, Na Kyung Taek, did not take credit for it. He feared reprisals from the military junta and its leader, Mr. Chun, whose rule ended in 1988.
Earlier this year, Mr. Na told The New York Times that he had one regret about his work during the Gwangju uprising.
At one point, he heard a captain repeating an order that came through the radio to shoot into crowds, he recalled. He fled for his life, with his cameras hidden under his shirt.
“I should have taken out my camerap333 casino,” he said. “Although if I had, I probably wouldn’t be here.”