Syngman Rhee Bodo League Massacre

In 1950, during the Korean War, South Korean forces carried out the Bodo League massacre, executing an estimated 60,000 to 200,000 civilians suspected of being communists, many of whom had no real connection to communism. Under direct orders from President Syngman Rhee, police, military, and anti-communist groups summarily killed alleged Bodo League members and other supposed sympathizers across the country without trials. The government then falsely blamed the mass killings on North Korean communists under Kim Il Sung and threatened survivors with torture or death if they spoke out. From the 1990s onward, excavations of mass graves and investigations by South Korea's Truth and Reconciliation Commission finally exposed the scale and responsibility for the massacre.

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