만주지역 간도특설대의 설립과 활동

Abstract

Jiandao Detached Unit(間島特設隊) was a pro-Japanese militant group which was operating in Jiandao area from 1938 to the Liberation in 1945. It was established for the purpose of oppressing the Korean army for national independence in Jiandao area and of controlling the Korean immigrants in the region. During the late 1930’s, when Korean militant groups were flourishing, Manchuria established Jiandao Detached Unit intending to re-organize the Korean youth into a conscription system under general mobilization system. The Japanese Government preferred the way of controlling and oppressing Koreans by the hand of Koreans, and Jiandao Detached Unit was a kind of this policy. Unlike previous pro-Japanese groups, however, Jiandao Detached Unit had a specialty that it was engaged in real battle in and around Jiandao. It had several features distinguished from other pro-Japanese groups. Firstly, it was an army. Military men participated in establishing Jiandao Detached Unit, and the leaders of the group were also chosen from officers in military academies or troops. The role of those military men was so absolute that even the group was nicknamed after the officer who was in charge. In addition, the structure of Jiandao Detached Unit was similar to that of an army. Secondly, it operated beyond its local area. Jiandao Detached Unit focused on searching out leaders of the independence movement and oppressing anti-Japanese militant groups in Jiandao for 5 years from its establishment in 1938. After 1944, however, it expanded its scope of activity into Lehe province(熱河省), where there was heavy fighting, and then into Hebei province(河北省) in acknowledgement of its ability to fightshowed in Lehe province. Therefore, Jiandao Detached Unit expanded its operating area into Sanhaiguan(山海關) out of Jiandao after 1944, regardless of its name derived from its local region, ‘Jiandao’. Thirdly, Jiandao Detached Unit was at the forefront of the maneuver towards civilians. It focused on activities towards the public from the beginning. It spread propaganda visiting towns and even exterminated the towns when propaganda activities were unsatisfying. Its maneuver towards civilians reached the peak when Jiandao Detached Unit broadened its scope of activity into Lehe province and Hebei province. Those activities engendered bad images about Koreans in the regions. Jiandao Detached Unit destroyed a whole town on the pretext of exposing anti-Japanese groups and slaughtered civilians, which fulfilled the Japanese intention of establishing it. To sum up, Jiandao Detached Unit was a militant group which consisted of Koreans, and it extended its operating area, far beyond Jiandao, over Manchuria, Lehe province and Hebei province, where it was notorious for its brutality. Manchuria established Jiandao Detached Unit in reward for the Korean youth in Jiandao area, where the biggest number of them resided. This conciliatory measure that Manchuria took split the Korean society, and the activities of Jiandao Detached Unit shook the society again after the Liberation.