한국전쟁기 거제도수용소 내 ‘친공포로’의 딜레마와 폭동 = The Korean War Prisoners’ Dilemma and their Riots in Koje-do POW Camps

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

This paper explores the ‘communist war’ in Koje-do prisoners of war camps in order to illustrate how prisoners of Korean War came into conflict in the prisoners camps and why the communist prisoners fought desperately in Koje-do, 1952. First, this paper examines how the ‘pro-communist’ pow society worked and organized in and outside of the camps, especially by the leader called ‘Park Sang Hyon’ or ‘Ro-sunseng’ who was appointed by the US as a ‘high ranking’ communist agent. Second, what ‘pro-communist’ POWs had constantly argued during the conflict ―mostly in 1952 ―was mainly related to secure their risky identity. I argue that the Koje-do POW camps in 1952, which was followed by the bloody civil war, epitomize the way how both combat sides competitively propagated each other with justifying the war at the risk of people’s death. And also revealing its story helps narrowing the gap between the truth and rumor of prisoners camp during the Korean war. To elaborate this argument, I mainly examine the Captured Korean Documents that reveals vivid voices of POWs, though most researchers have been ignored. Through the analysis of these documents, I intend to contextualize the sources with the US Military reports and the North Korean Government Document which had been submitted to UN. I demonstrate that the ‘pro-communist’ POW society in the Koje-do camps had to make their fight as “Honorable Fight for DPRK” for their own rights since they had a vulnerable identity for being a POW. Having no understanding of communist POWs’ mentality, the US military thought the communist would start another war in POW camps, so they artificially categorized the POWs into two easily-divided groups, “Pro-Communist” and “Anti-Communist” in Koje-do, which changed the rest of 170,000 pows’ lives and home ground.