Anger over Starbucks' effort to sell a "tank" of a tumbler in South Korea on the anniversary of a 1980 uprising brutally suppressed by the military is still raging, prompting a second apology. Chung Yong-jin, head of Starbucks Korea's majority owner Shinsegae Group, bowed deeply three times in a televised apology Tuesday, his second in two weeks, per NBC News. Starbucks Korea's CEO has already been removed, and five marketing staff tied to the campaign have been taken off duty as the company cooperates with a police probe triggered by victims' families.
Starbucks Korea had declared May 18 as "Tank Day" to launch a large drink tumbler, infuriating the families of the hundreds of pro-democracy protesters killed or injured during the 1980 Gwangju uprising, to which the government responded with tanks and helicopters. The campaign slogan—roughly translated as "Thwack it on the table"—further inflamed anger, echoing a notorious 1987 police claim that a student activist died from "a thwack" on a desk, not from torture.
Shinsegae says it has found no proof the marketing team intended to mock the democracy movement but pledged anyone found to have acted deliberately would face dismissal and potential civil and criminal liability. The controversy has spurred boycott calls, cup-smashing protests in Gwangju, and the removal of Starbucks products from government events, with President Lee Jae Myung condemning the campaign as "disgraceful," per NBC and the AP. The ruling Democratic Party says Chung's apology doesn't go far enough and is demanding full disclosure of the investigation, while conservatives decry what they call "consumer censorship."
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