Talk:Bodo League massacre

English links
None of the English links seem to be accessible -- 15:13, 16 August 2008 71.188.51.226
 * Found new links -- Esemono (talk) 02:50, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

Sanctioned?
The sentence saying that United States army officers "sanctioned" the massacres seems a little too strong; the source mentions only one case in which an officer did so. I will try rewording this. The source also says that US diplomats were reported urging restraint confidentally, and that isn't mentioned here at all; might be worth mentioning. Brianyoumans (talk) 19:30, 15 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks. I added US Ambassador's good deed.--Syngmung (talk) 16:17, 23 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Hello in fact the US ordered the massacre I hope soon an E-Book will post from DPRK historians translated into English who have researched this in depth and discovered the truth of what war crimes the US committed there.ProgressiveThinker (talk) 01:39, 17 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Will this come with a free account of the DPRK's sinking of the USS Baltimore and the successful launch of the satellite broadcasting patriotic hymns? North Korean sources, due to their lack of scientific rigor, review, and demonstration of primary sources are almost universally untrustable. --70.145.76.243 (talk) 19:29, 10 December 2011 (UTC)

Remove the adjectives.
The sentence in the first paragraph reads, 'Historians believe up to 200,000 were killed by the United States-allied South Korean military and South Korean Police.' I'm sure that the South Korean military were allied to more countries than the United States. A more accurate sentence would read, Historians believe South Korean military and Police forces killed approximately 200,000 civilian prisoners. 76.98.225.207 (talk) 00:22, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

Ignores DPRK sources!!
This article ignores DPRK sources which clearly demonstrate the US was directly behind this massacre of innocent civilians. — Preceding unsigned comment added by ProgressiveThinker (talk • contribs) 03:25, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I don't think many researchers outside of North Korea would accept ANY source from that country as unbiased or truthful, at least on matters having anything to do with politics. If the time comes when the Koreas unify, or when North Koreans have a better government, then there may well be documents and archives available there of interest in this matter, but until then... Brianyoumans (talk) 05:00, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I've read some DPRK 'scientific' papers before, and they are pretty hilarious. Things have gotten better in recent years, but there are actually some ridiculous papers doing things like presenting North Korean citizens as inherently more intelligent and healthier than others based on observations. And they made it through review.  --70.145.76.243 (talk) 19:37, 10 December 2011 (UTC)

Entire article needs to be redone
This is an exact quote from one of the main English-language sources used in this article, South Korea owns up to brutal past:

"By early 1950 Rhee had about 30,000 alleged communists in his jails, and had about 300,000 suspected sympathisers enrolled in an official "re-education" movement known as the Bodo League. When Kim Il-sung's communist army attacked from the North in June that year, retreating South Korean forces executed the prisoners, along with many Bodo League members. At Taejon, about 140 kilometres south of Seoul, prisoners were shuttled out of the city's jail by the army and police, marched with hands bound to the edge of long trenches, made to lie down, and then shot with rifles. Their bodies were rolled in and covered.

The death shuttle went on for days, as the North Koreans advanced, with up to 7000 prisoners executed, according to the commission.

The litany of grim findings by the commission goes on: police and soldiers killed 160 civilians in Yeosu and Suncheon; another 600 killed in Cheondo; 140 in Ganghwa; 870 members of the Bodo League executed at Ulsan; 28 at Naju."

There were only 300,000 people enrolled in the Bodo League altogether--there is simply no way that every single one of them was killed four times. My criticisms are as follows:
 * How did we get from "tens of thousands" to "over one million"? According to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (South Korea) article:  "The commission estimates that at least 100,000 people....were executed in the summer of 1950. The victims include political prisoners, civilians who were killed by US Forces, and civilians who allegedly collaborated with communist North Korea or local communist groups".  According to historian John Merrill, "the war was preceded by a major insurgency in the South and serious clashes along the thirty-eighth parallel," and 100,000 people died in "political disturbances, guerrilla warfare, and border clashes" (Merrill, John, Korea: The Peninsular Origins of the War (University of Delaware Press, 1989), p181).
 * Apparently, the editors of this article have not limited themselves to this one massacre, in which tens of thousands of people were killed. Instead, this page has been used to chronicle Syngman Rhee's every real or imagined misdeed.
 * There are numerous other problems: There is apparently no source for the percent of the population of South Korea that was supposedly killed; the number of political prisoners in South Korea is from 1950, not 1949; the citation to Charles J. Hanley and Jae-soon Chang is actually just a link to Breitbart.com; citations 13 and 2 are dead links.
 * Does the source for 1.2 million "victims" state that they were killed? Are there any more reliable sources for this claim?  Should it be removed, given that the figure cannot possibly be referring solely to those members of the Bodo League that were massacred?TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 02:09, 31 August 2012 (UTC)
 * The source for 1.2 million is in Korean, so we need someone, preferably without an axe to grind, to read the article and tell us. It certainly sounds very high. Brianyoumans (talk) 02:52, 31 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Looking through all the sources, I found this Korea Times quote:


 * "It is said the number of [Bodo League] members reached over 300,000 in early 1950 and 200,000 of them were allegedly killed during the war."


 * Here we have a Korean source, describing what "is said" about the atrocities, that explicitly attributes higher estimates solely to the Bodo League killings. Nevertheless, as there were only 300,000 potential targets, one million people obviously could not have been killed.  It appears that 200,000 people killed in this one massacre is the absolute maximum.  The current estimate is simply too wild to allow in the absence of supporting documentation; the foreign language "source" is not even rendered in valid Korean characters.  I will remove it.  If anyone has a higher estimate, they need to provide an appropriate reference.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 02:07, 20 September 2012 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure that the article is restricting itself to the executions of Bodo League members. To begin with, it is clearly about a series of massacres, not a single incident. Also, it sounds like the executions were not limited to Bodo League members, they included anyone the authorities suspected of Communist sympathies or collaboration. But, I'm fine with removing the higher number of victims until we get some better sources.Brianyoumans (talk) 03:58, 20 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your input.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 08:10, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

Blamed on Communists?
I'm having trouble seeing how, a massacre of alleged Communist sympathizers was, as the article currently state, "wrongly blamed on communists for decades". Is this accurate? Surely blaming communists for slaughtering their own sympathizers wouldn't be remotely plausible? I don't know much about this incident(s), having only heard of it on reading this page, but it looks like the source for this is discussing multiple incidents, not all of which would necessarily considered part of the Bodo League massacre. The Sydney Morning Herald article does say "we are finally getting conclusive admissions that some of the worst atrocities, blamed at the time on the enemy, were in fact committed by our side - and we knew it", but I think this may be referring to other incidents, not the Bodo League massacre. The SMH article notes "215 incidents in which US and allied air forces strafed groups of refugees and other civilians." Perhaps those incidents (or others) were blamed on communists; that makes some sense. South Korea may have covered up the Bodo League massacre, but blaming the massacre of some alleged communists on other communists stretches my incredulity.Plantdrew (talk) 21:51, 3 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Bodo League massacre is the worst and biggest massacre in korean history. And Bodo League massacres were conducted by ROK gov in all over the South Korea, the massacres were not single incident but many atrocities. the article point out korean war massacres, it is difficult to regard the article as no relation to the bodo league atrocities.--Syngmung (talk) 17:34, 4 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Right, but were any of the many atrocities subsumed under the name "Bodo League massacre" blamed on communists? Or is it the case that there were other atrocities during that period that were blamed on communists? People killed in the "Bodo League massacre" were apparently mostly alleged communists themselves. I find it hard to believe that the ROK government could've successfully blamed the BLM atrocities on "communists killing each other". ROK gov could've covered up the BLM incidents, or blamed them on another party (Americans?), but blaming them on communists doesn't seem plausible. Or are there incidents where non-Communists were killed that are also considered part of the BLM? If so, blaming those incidents on communists is plausible, but the article doesn't cover them.Plantdrew (talk) 20:24, 11 October 2012 (UTC)
 * The massacre had no name at the time, they just did according to the Syngman Rhee order. In Mungyeong massacre and Phong Nhi and Phong Nhat massacre, they also put the blame on communists. It's not exceptional case.--Syngmung (talk) 17:22, 12 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Basic M/L theology posits that reactionaries will reverse communists gains if given the opportunity. This provides the rational basis for the actions of the Chinese communist party during the Long March, and of the Pol Pot government in Cambodia, and of the Russian communists in Poland. And the communists were massacring civilians in Korea: as it happens, my Grandfather was identifying the bodies of his tortured students, so that their families would not have to do so. The charge that communists had massacred thousands of civilians was all too credible, and may even have been true: the Nazi's and the Communists both blamed the other for genocidal massacres, and both were equally guilty.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.187.219.128 (talk) 06:10, 23 December 2023 (UTC)

Confusing introduction on "Bodo League"
Could someone explain the discrepancy between the start of the paragrapgh, which suggests the Bodo League is a government sanctioned re-education programme, with the last sentence, which makes it sound like something the government was trying to crack down on (it seems odd that the government would make their opponents join something official, and then arrest them for being members of that//?) Gemmala (talk) 08:02, 28 June 2013 (UTC)
 * This interview article link sheds some light on the question, starting at ĐK: Can you tell us what the Bodo League was?  --108.45.72.196 (talk) 17:34, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

All those names
"he also had about 300,000 suspected sympathizers or his political opponents enrolled in an official "re-education" movement known as the Bodo League (or National Rehabilitation and Guidance League, National Guard Alliance, National Guidance Alliance, National Bodo League, Bodo Yeonmaeng, Gukmin Bodo Ryeonmaeng, 국민보도연맹, 國民保導聯盟)"

Is it really necessary to spell out all those names? I think spelling out the official name "National Rehabilitation and Guidance League" would be enough. To me all those other names look like informational litter, they invoke a feeling that the page is difficult, confusing and full of strange, irrelevant details. It discourages people to care for what they read. I don't think most readers care for all those names. I'm personally very interested in this topic and I don't. I think it's best to remove it. But that's my opinion. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.92.218.1 (talk) 18:39, 6 February 2015 (UTC)


 * First off, thanks for your interest and criticism.
 * IMO, the names are important. The editors (including me) have a poor idea of what constitutes the Bodo League, the nature of the League, how enrollment was made, why so many atrocities are called "Bodo League" when they are not really associated with it. Right now, we're all kind of going with the flow and asking questions. But details are really important to "solve" the mystery of what constituted the League and the massacre that took place with that name. Anything that is highly reliable, is useful here. We have some sloppy reporting that needs to be uncovered and rewritten. Student7 (talk) 22:25, 13 February 2015 (UTC)

Date of the discovery
This page says that the massacre was exposed "in the 1990s", which is very vague in the first place. I found a book that says it was discovered in December 2008: "It was not until many of these grave sites were discovered that the story began to come out. A site was discovered in Daejon, South Korea, in 2008, which along with a story released by The Sydney Morning Herald (15 December 2008) finally brought the massacre to public attention." P. 33 https://books.google.com/books?id=scZN59DXeOwC

Shall we change it to December 2008? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.173.145.52 (talk) 10:59, 20 April 2015 (UTC)

Generally, the Koreans still deny that this occurred and will not show repent in any case. It was already known long ago,even right after 4.19, but anyone who raised this issue was thrown into jail for being pro-North. So I think the date of discovering some bodies is not important here. What should be mentioned in this article is that the Northwest Youth League that committed the crimes reorganized and some very old members were seen, which means that some of those that committed the murders are still alive. Once this is shown to be the case, investigations can be started on international court for crimes against humanity as there is no statute of limitations nor jurisdiction for such cases. Examples are Nazi criminals caught and put into jail at the end of their lives. Even if many more bodies and evidences are discovered elsewhere, Korea will, unlike Germany, deny any responsibility and bribe/threaten those who attempt to take actions. We should think about why a terrorist organization like the Northwest Youth League has reorganized in a strictly controlled state system like Korea. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Noob2013 (talk • contribs) 01:05, 4 July 2015 (UTC)


 * The Koreans have admitted that this happened, and have apologized. See here. GeneralizationsAreBad (talk) 01:11, 4 July 2015 (UTC)

External links modified
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Highest death figure estimate correction
Cited source for highest estimate is 1,2 million and there were two users that changed it to 200,000 in contradiction of the source.

Perpetrator 1:

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Bodo_League_massacre&diff=prev&oldid=818150566

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Bodo_League_massacre&diff=prev&oldid=818151429

1st and only correction:

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Bodo_League_massacre&diff=prev&oldid=818155259

Vandalism 2:

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Bodo_League_massacre&diff=prev&oldid=838549715

Sadly no one noticed or bothered to check the source nor history of edits that have vandalized the page. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.217.233.160 (talk) 17:46, 11 December 2018 (UTC)

Another case of vandalism.

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Bodo_League_massacre&oldid=873391693 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.217.233.160 (talk) 22:30, 12 December 2018 (UTC)
 * According to South Korea's Truth and Reconciliation Commission and all other RS, about 300,000 individuals enrolled in the Bodo League prior to the North Korean invasion of South Korea, after which many, if not most, of them were killed. Higher estimates appear to be conflating all massacres committed by all sides during the Korean War with the "Bodo League massacre," if they aren't simply the product of citogenesis originating on Wikipedia. South Korea's Truth and Reconciliation Commission, for example, states (pp. 39, 69–70):

Since the Commission's establishment, the Commission has received 9,600 petitions for massacres from the Korean War period of 1950-53. Out of those 9,600 petitions, South Korean forces conducted 7,922 individual massacres and North Korean forces conducted 1,687 individual massacres. Among academic circles and civil society, it is widely claimed that the number of victims are in the hundreds of thousands, with some estimates as high as one million. ... Immediately after the start of the Korean War, between the end of June and the beginning of July 1950, the Korean government arrested, detained, and executed members of the Bodo League. The year prior, in June 1949, the Korean government organized the Bodo League with the intention of encouraging those associated with the leftists to turn themselves in so that they could be loyal ROK citizens. Around 300,000 people across the nation applied for membership at this time. The Korean government set a target quota for recruitment in each region, which led to many people applying for membership without ever having had any relations with leftists or leftist activities. With the start of the Korean War however, the government began arresting and killing Bodo League members, fearing that they may collaborate with the North. The Bodo League massacres were the largest mass killings during the Korean War period. Most of the Bodo League massacres occurred simultaneously across the nation. According to the Commission's investigation result to date, each incident seemed similar in terms of the procedures and the chain of command. For this reason, the Commission investigated the massacres to determine whether the government was involved in the systematic and intentional massacre of civilians. The scale, planning, and organization of the massacres reveal the Korean government's systematic policy to remove Bodo League members, potential enemies', life."
 * As for how many of the 300,000 Bodo League members were executed, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission cites media reports of 100,000 killed (pp. 134–135) but indicates that the real figure is even higher: "The President of the Surviving Family Association and 30 other people conducted religious ceremonies to commemorate the massacre of more than 200,000 Bodo League members during the Korean War in 1950." In any case your suggestion that all 300,000 were killed four times each is a grotesque and arbitrary distortion bearing no resemblance to reality, and I will be pursuing page protection if your edit warring continues.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 23:37, 12 December 2018 (UTC)

Verification failure
Hi there, I'm not sure why citation 21 has a verification failure note, the link is from fox news reporting Associated Press, and it backs up the wiki statement. I'm just a noob who doesn't know wikipedia rules inside out, so wanted to raise it with people who are taking an interest in this story that it can be removed or amended if neccessary or explained better. thanks! Layne Stalin (talk) 13:01, 28 June 2020 (UTC)