The UN Role in Korea in the Division of the Korean Nation: Nov 14, 1947- May 10, 1948

Hello. This presentation is based on a paper Jay Hauben wrote with the title, "Is the UN Role in Korea 1947-1953 the 
Model Being Repeated Today?"* I will read about the UN role in the election in 1948 that created a separate South 
Korea. That role began 66 years ago today on Nov 14, 1947 when the UN General Assembly met in this very building and 
passed Resolution 112 (II) with the title "The Problem of the Independence of Korea." 

After WWII, the question of the future of Korea was addressed internationally at the Moscow Conference of Foreign 
Ministers in Dec 1945. It was agreed that a US-Soviet Joint Commission would meet to assist in forming a provisional 
Korean government. There were no Koreans at the Moscow Conference or at any previous discussion by the allies about 
Korea. Also ignored in Moscow was the fact that Korean nationalists and socialists had by fall 1945 already formed a 
Korean People.s Republic based on Peoples Committees throughout the Peninsula. 

By the summer of 1947, it was clear that the bilateral Joint Commission set up by the Moscow Conference was failing. 
According to a plan it had been working on for a year, the US brought the "problem of Korean independence" to the UN. 
Not to the Security Council where a Soviet veto was possible but to the General Assembly, which has according to the 
Charter only the powers to "discuss" and "recommend". 

The Soviet Union offered a counter proposal: Both sides remove their troops to allow "the Korean people itself the 
establishment of a national government". A survey found that 57% of Koreans living in the US zone supported that 
proposal. 

But the US had made the strategic decision to involve the UN before it would remove its troops. The Soviet Union made 
known that it rejected the legitimacy of the General Assembly debating this question. The Soviet Union made a 
proposal that defended the right of self determination of the Korean people and required that Koreans participate in 
the UN debate over their independence. On Nov 14, 1947, the majority of the General Assembly members passed 
Resolution 112 (II) recognizing the "rightful claims of the people of Korea to independence". But instead of allowing 
Koreans to participate in the UN debate, the resolution established a United Nations Temporary Commission on Korea 
(called UNTCOK) to travel, observe and hold consultations throughout Korea to oversee which Koreans would be allowed 
to participate. The language of the resolution seemed to treat the Korean people as one nation and set as its purpose 
the independence of that nation. But the action of sending the commission could also be seen as an intervention in 
the internal affairs of the Korean people and a road block to their independence.

When the UNTCOK commission arrived in Seoul it adopted a resolution "that the sphere of this Commission is the whole 
of Korea and not merely a section". It immediately found two obstacles. First, the Soviet Union stood firm therefore 
UNTCOK could not consult or observe in the Soviet zone. Second, the social and political situation in the US zone 
meant UNTCOK could not consult with most leftist parties due to the suppression of left wing activity by the US 
military government. The US military government in the southern zone had outlawed the Korean Communist Party in May 
1946. Despite the suppression, many groups and some leftists did convey to the Commission their opposition to 
creating a separate South Korean state.

After less than one month in Korea, UNTCOK decided it could not observe a national election and should report this 
back to the General Assembly. For the US, the UN was crucial to its plans to be able to have a presence on the Asian 
mainland while also able to withdraw it troops from Korea. Many nations friendly to the US feared that what the US 
wanted .would actually result in permanent division and two hostile governments.. Even after high level 
consultations, the US failed to convince Australia and Canada to drop their opposition. But UNTCOK was sent back to 
implement the program that had been meant for the whole peninsula but now only in the southern zone. 

The Soviet Union and its allies were too weak and too few in number to prevent such use of the UN. Some other 
governments which might have wanted to keep the UN out of taking sides in disputes between the major powers made the 
judgment it was in their national interest to align with the US because the US was the main source of international 
aid and loans or out fear of the spread of socialism or to cement its alliance with the US.

Once back in Korea, one half of the commissioners argued that elections in South Korea alone would contribute nothing 
to the unifying of Korea, so the United Nations has no right to participate in them. That included the Indian 
commissioner who stated that supporting an election only in the US zone was not legally sound. However, he was under 
instructions from his government to proceed with supporting the election. The General Assembly decision he was 
instructed was a political not a legal decision. With instructions from their governments which were under US 
economic and ideological pressure, all the commissioners aligned themselves with giving the US support for an 
election in its zone alone and thus the creation of a separate South Korean state. Legal questions or UN principles 
had been put aside. 

The 35 members of UNCTOK had the impossible task to observe an election among 20 million people living in the US zone 
which spread over 40,000 square miles. The US military government and right wing paramilitary groups controlled the 
entire election process. Most major political parties and politicians in southern Korea opposed the elections. There 
were strikes, demonstrations and protests against creating a separate South Korea. The repression of this opposition 
resulted in over 10,000 arrests and hundreds of deaths. 

On the island of Jeju 50 miles southwest of the Korean Peninsula there was an open rebellion in opposition to 
rightwing terrorism and to the election which would create a separate South Korea. The Commission was aware that the 
election had to be cancelled in two out of the three voting regions on Jeju. Over the next year, between 30,000 and 
80,000 Jeju people were killed during the suppression of the rebellion.

Having taken as its mandate to support an election in the American zone, UNTCOK virtually ignored the North-South 
political conference called by left and conservative southern leaders as a step toward forming a national government. 
The conference did take place in Pyongyang in late April. By then UNTCOK was wedded to the election being undertaken 
by the US military government in the US zone and no longer had any capacity to support a unification process.
The election was held on May 10, 1948. It was accompanied by a boycott by many center and left parties and by 
continuing anti-election and anti-opposition violence. On the basis of its minimal observations, without giving 
significance to the overwhelming evidence of coercion and military control of the election process, the Commission 
sent its report to the General Assembly calling the election .a valid expression of the free will of the electorate 
of those parts of Korea which were accessible to the Commission. From that time on, that election has been described 
in UN and US documents as .sanctioned. or .supervised. by the UN despite the extremely limited and compromised role 
of UNTCOK in the election process. 

A rush of events followed the election, including the convening of an assembly in the south but calling itself a 
".National Assembly" and the writing of a constitution for a "Republic of Korea". All these events represent the 
failure of what appeared to be the original General Assembly intent which seemed to be the end of the zonal 
occupation and division of Korea and the emergence of a national Korean state. The creation of the Republic of Korea 
(ROK) in the US zone was followed shortly by the creation of the Democratic People.s Republic of Korea (DPRK) in the 
Soviet zone. UNTCOK had thus helped solidify a division of Korea which haunts the world until today. 
In December 1948, the General Assembly debated the "Korean Question". Delegates from the Soviet Union and its allies 
argued strenuously for an invitation to the DPRK to participate in the debate. They argued against accepting UNTCOK.s 
endorsement of the May 10 election. They were defeated. The result was the December 12, 1948 UN General Assembly 
Resolution195 (III) acknowledging the ROK as a "lawful government". To achieve majority approval, the resolution did 
not call the ROK a national government nor recommend recognition of it by UN member states. But the US and the ROK 
and their allies sited this resolution in support of ROK.s claim to be the only legitimate government in Korea and 
therefore entitled to UN membership representing all of Korea. The resolution did make the UN one of the fathers of 
the ROK and the division of Korea.

The UN role in the creation of the ROK in 1948 also set the basis to label the DPRK an aggressor across an 
international border two and one half years later in June 1950, setting the basis for the UN to takes sides against 
the DPRK. Thus 66 years ago today, on Nov 14, 1947 events were set afoot which led to the creation of two Koreas and 
a tragic war on the Korean Peninsula.

Jay Hauben
hauben@columbia.edu

*The paper can be seen at: http://www.columbia.edu/~hauben/beijing2012/UN-Role-in-Korea.doc