 During the U.S.-supported postwar autocracy of President Syngman Rhee, survivors of No Gun Ri were too fearful of official retaliation to file public complaints. Survivor Yang Hae-chan said that he was warned by South Korean police to stop telling others about the massacre. Following the April Revolution in 1960, which briefly established democracy in South Korea, former policeman Chung Eun-yong filed the first petition to the South Korean and U.S. governments. His two small children had been killed and his wife, Park Sun-yong, badly wounded at No Gun Ri. Over 30 petitions, calling for an investigation, apology, and compensation, were filed over the next decades, by Chung and later by a survivors' committee. Almost all were ignored, as was a petition to the U.S. and South Korean governments by the local Yongdong County Assembly.
