The Jeju Reconciliation Conference aims to review and assess the effort to raise global awareness about Jeju 4.3, or the 1948 uprising on Jeju island, and to make progress toward restorative justice, societal healing, and reconciliation. This conference seeks recommendations and resolutions for next steps toward health, healing and justice that will support and benefit not only the Jeju 4.3 survivors and families, but also uplift Jeju globally as an environmental and sustainable “Peace Island”. This might include the creation and operation of a Jeju Peace University or a Jeju Environmental University based on collaborative Jeju Peace Studies in Korea and internationally. This initiative would help create a new comprehensive history that gives voice to the people and embrace concerns about dignity and autonomy. 

Schedule: 

11:00AM – Opening Ceremony 

11:05AM – Session 1: Recognition and Responsibility of the Jeju 4.3 Grand Tragedy during ‘peacetime’ Korea (March 1947 – September 1954)

1:15PM – Session 2: Jeju 4.3 as a source of a sustainable “Peace Island” policy agenda

2:25PM – Session 3: Testimony of Jeju 4.3 Survivors 

4:05PM – Session 4: Social Healing and Peace Education Cases of Jeju 4.3 Grand Tragedy

5:15PM – Session 5: Jeju 4.3 Reconciliation session

5:40PM – Keynote speech by Peter U-il Kang (Bishop, Diocese of Cheju) on “Jeju 4.3 Reconciliation through Religion”

6:00PM – Closing Remarks 

This event is sponsored by the International House at the University of Chicago, The Center for East Asian Studies, Jeju National University, and the World Association for Island Studies.

This event is free and open to the public.