page_title: Daejeon massacre
hierarchical_section_title: Daejeon massacre
caption_attribution_description: English: In this July 1950 U.S. Army file photograph once classified "top secret," prisoners lie on the ground before their execution by South Korean troops in Taejon (now known as Daejeon), South Korea. Shutting down its inquiry into South Korea's hidden history, a government commission investigating a century of human rights abuses will leave unexplored scores of suspected mass graves believed to hold remains of tens of thousands of South Korean political detainees summarily executed by their government early in the Korean War, sometimes as U.S. officers watched. In a political about-face, the commission, which also investigated the U.S. military's large-scale killing of Korean War refugees, has ruled the Americans in case after case acted out of military necessity. 1,800 South Korean political prisoners were executed by the South Korean military at Taejon, South Korea, over three days in July 1950.[1] National Archives, Major Abbott/U.S. Army - copy via AP Photo
context_page_description: The Daejeon, or Taejon, massacre was an extrajudicial killings of political prisoners under anti-communist South Korean forces. US officers were present at the time of the slaughter, however it was blamed on the communist North Korean forces in the film "Crime of Korea". Half a century later, the South Korean Truth and Reconciliation Commission investigated what happened in the political violence largely kept hidden from history, unlike the publicized North Korean executions of South Korean rightists.
context_section_description: The Daejeon, or Taejon, massacre was an extrajudicial killings of political prisoners under anti-communist South Korean forces. US officers were present at the time of the slaughter, however it was blamed on the communist North Korean forces in the film "Crime of Korea". Half a century later, the South Korean Truth and Reconciliation Commission investigated what happened in the political violence largely kept hidden from history, unlike the publicized North Korean executions of South Korean rightists.
caption: Political prisoner lies on the ground before being executed
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