Educators said on Monday that the apology of former authoritarian leader Chun Doo-hwan’s grandson Woo-won has triggered a sudden increase in interest in the 1980 pro-democracy movement among young visitors to Korea’s southwestern city of Gwangju.
The May 18 Democratic Uprising Archives, located in Gwangju, South Korea, has seen a surge in visitors since the apology of former authoritarian leader Chun Doo-hwan’s grandson Woo-won. According to the archives, the number of visitors per day has increased to up to 400 since Woo-won’s visit on March 31, which is significantly higher than the daily average of 176 in March. The archives, which document the 1980 pro-democracy movement in Gwangju, were added to UNESCO’s Memory of the World Program in 2011 to recognize their universal value as a documentary heritage.
After Woo-won’s visit on March 31, the number of visitors to Gwangju’s May 18 National Cemetery, where the graves of 764 victims of the pro-democracy movement are located, doubled.
