As well as the hundreds of protesters and bystanders injured and killed, there have also emerged a category of 'Kwangju vet' - conscript soldiers who are traumatised by the violence they were ordered to participate in. Typical of them is Lee Sung-Woo, who now can't hold down a job and presents rice wine and other offerings at the graves of those killed in the Kwangju massacre. Kwangju today is a bustling city integrated right into the heart of Korea's 'economic miracle'. But even the public trials of the two former presidents implicated in the massacre of 1980 has only started to heal the psychological wounds caused. Local officials say they will turn the cemetery where most of the victims are buried into a national monument, and the government building which the rebels took over for a time during the uprising into a museum.
Students still commemorate the anniversary of the massacre every year with demonstrations.