Starbucks in Korea Touches Off Regional Rancor, Left-Right Rivalries With Reminder of Bloody 1980 Gwangju Revolt

A deeply offensive Starbucks promotional campaign in South Korea is rattling coffee cups all the way from the center of a historic uprising to the boardrooms of Korea’s biggest conglomerate.Korean coffee lovers can no longer use gift certificates to buy joe in the city where thousands of young people rebelled against dictatorship 46 years ago this month. “The Starbucks incident” was more than “a mere mistake by a staff member,” said the mayor of Gwangju, the focal point of the revolt, but “a major social disaster.”It’s not enough that the CEO of Starbucks Korea has had to resign and citizens groups are calling for a boycott of all Starbucks’ 2,143 Korean shops. Now the justice ministry is asking for an investigation of purchases by a government agency of anything to do with Starbucks — “surveys, contests, events that utilized merchandise from the specific coffee brand” — anything, that is, other than “simple cups of coffee.”No mere tempest in a coffee pot, the storm has been boiling ever since Starbucks heralded the sale of souvenir mugs on May 18 as “tank day” and proudly invited customers to buy souvenir “tank tumbler sets.” It was on that date in 1980 that thousands turned out on the streets of Gwangju, Korea’s sixth largest city, population of 1.4 million, in the often-restive southwestern Cholla region.The term “tank day” appeared as a sardonic reminder of a revolution that ended 10 days later after the government sent in tanks, killing and injuring hundreds and jailing many more.The emotional response reflects deep divisions in Korean society in which people from Cholla, including Gwangju, see the revolt as an expression of historic resentment against domination by Seoul and the eastern region. The hero of Gwangju, the late Kim Dae-jung, who inspired the revolt from a prison cell, was elected president in 1997 at the apex of a career championing regional interests. The central government has cracked down on attempts at blaming the revolt on North Korean agents.Officially, nearly 200 demonstrators are listed as having died when government forces fired into the mob, but unofficial counts are much higher. A large museum in Gwangju venerates the revolution against troops ordered by the president, Chun Doo-hwan, a former general who had seized power several months earlier and exercised dictatorial rule until finally forced to agree to a democratic constitution in 1987.Compounding the ill-conceived “tank day” promotion, Starbucks embellished the tumbler sale with the slogan, “Tak on the table.” The word “tak,” Korean for a sharp blow, was a reminder of the death in the democracy movement of a young protester whom police said had died in custody when he slammed his head on a table — a coverup for the torture he endured.The fallout swirls around one of the heirs of the Samsung conglomerate, whose tentacles spread from electronics to dozens of other enterprises. Chung Yong-jin, chairman of a department store complex headed by a sister of the late Samsung chief, Lee Kun-hee, controls the company that has the Starbucks franchise.Mr. Chung has gone through a ritual apology, saying, “I deeply feel responsible for everything,” but those words have had little impact on the emotional outpouring in which coffee lovers are making the ultimate sacrifice — breaking cups of coffee.Starbucks employees are feeling the heat. JoongAng Ilbo reports a Starbucks manager writing: “I’m afraid to go to work. Our partners on the floor are in agony because of this marketing disaster. Why should those of us sweating away in the stores be subjected to ideological scrutiny and verbal abuse?”The top-level apology didn’t help. Posting the companies official apology, said the paper, made employees “a target that tells customers, “Come and yell at me.’”

Starbucks in Korea Touches Off Regional Rancor, Left-Right Rivalries With Reminder of Bloody 1980 Gwangju Revolt

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