BUSAN — President Lee Jae-myung said on the 16th that writing the Buma Democratic Uprising and the Gwangju Democratization Movement into the preamble of the Constitution is "the minimum step to ensure that the blood-stained history of our people, who fought to defend South Korea's democracy and popular sovereignty, is never forgotten."
Lee made the remarks in a commemorative address at the 47th anniversary ceremony for the Buma Democratic Uprising, held at Busan City Hall. "Forty-seven years ago today, the cries that began here in Busan and Masan broke through the vast darkness of dictatorship and became a flame that would not be extinguished, brightly illuminating the democratic republic of South Korea," he said. "The courageous shouts of citizens pushed back the dark night of dictatorship and brightly ushered in the morning of democracy."
He went on to say that "the cries of that day 47 years ago, which seemed as futile as throwing an egg against a rock, finally cracked the enormous wall of the Yushin dictatorship." Adding meaning to the event, he said: "The Buma Democratic Uprising did not merely end one dictatorship. By upholding the firm principle that power cannot reign over the people and that the state must exist for the people, it became a solid cornerstone in the development of South Korean democracy."
"The cries and spirit of Buma carried on to Gwangju in May 1980, then to the June Democratic Uprising of 1987, and on to the Candlelight Revolution and the 2024-2025 protests against martial law," Lee said. "That is why the Buma Democratic Uprising is a name that can never be left out of South Korean history, and a great milestone of our democracy."
"Engraving that noble spirit deeply into history and into our hearts, and passing it on intact to the next generation, is the task of all of us who wish to enjoy and defend democracy," he said, stressing the need to include the spirit of the Buma Democratic Uprising and the May 18 Democratization Movement in the constitutional preamble. "I would like to take this opportunity to once again ask the National Assembly to move swiftly to gather public views and hold reasonable debate on a constitutional amendment," Lee said.
He particularly emphasized: "Wasn't it something everyone, ruling and opposition parties alike, said in unison whenever the occasion arose — that the spirit of the May 18 Democratization Movement and the Buma Democratic Uprising should be written into the constitutional preamble? Now is the time to act, not to speak."
He also said the government "will not turn away from the wounds and pain that state power inflicted on the people, the holders of sovereignty, in the past," pledging to "do our utmost to restore the honor of victims who suffered unjustly." He added: "I believe that is the minimum duty the state today is obliged to fulfill."
"Forty-seven years ago, the citizens of Busan and Masan stood shoulder to shoulder and called for popular sovereignty. We will move forward without wavering toward a true democratic republic, a South Korea where that sovereignty lives and breathes," Lee said. "Just as the cries of that day became the history of South Korean democracy, we will devote all our strength to making the democracy we build together today a lamp that lights South Korea's tomorrow."