The No Gun Ri Massacre. Forgotten War, Forgotten Nightmares

Pre-University Paper from the year 2019 in the subject World History - Modern History, grade: 1+, , language: English, abstract: This paper is examining the so called No Gun Ri Massacre of 1950 at the beginning of the Korean War. It takes a more profound look at the No Gun Ri Massacre by firstly analysing its background information, secondly the details of the incident, and thirdly the aftermath of the No Gun Ri Massacre: The reaction from the U.S. government and what impact it has left on two countries and their people. According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, a massacre is defined as the act or an instance of killing a number of usually helpless or unresisting human beings under circumstances of atrocity or cruelty. Cambridge Dictionary also seems to endorse this idea, describing it as the killing of a large number of people, especially people who are not involved in any fighting or have no way of defending themselves. Although the precise definition of a massacre does not exist, we understand that two essential criteria must be fulfilled so that an incident can be universally accepted as a massacre. For instance, the killings that took place in No Gun Ri, 1950, has undoubtedly been recognized as a massacre by the public, whose details will be thoroughly analyzed in the course of this report. After the joint investigation of the U.S. Army and the ROK investigation team, the U.S. Department of the Army No Gun Ri Review Report (2001) was issued. Interestingly enough, the term “massacre” only appears twice during the entire 191-pages-long report, even these in forms of direct and indirect quotes. Usage of milder, neutral expressions, such as “killings” (18 times), “incident” (97 times), or “events” (112 times), replaces and often contradicts the incident’s conventional description as a massacre. If so, why would the U.S. government be unwilling to use the word “massacre”, purposely avoiding the word’s usage instead? We will take a more profound look at the No Gun Ri Massacre by firstly analyzing its background information, secondly the details of the incident, and thirdly the aftermath of the No Gun Ri Massacre: The reaction from the U.S. government and what impact it has left on two countries and their people.