Team Infidel
Forum Spin Doctor
New York Times
December 3, 2007
Pg. 9
By Choe Sang-Hun
SEOUL, South Korea, Dec. 2 — Shortly after the outbreak of the Korean War in June 1950, Kim Man-sik, a military police sergeant, received an urgent radio message from the South Korean Army’s Counterintelligence Corps: Go to local police stations, take custody of scores of Communist suspects held there and execute them.
Mr. Kim complied. What he did and saw in those days is etched permanently in his mind.
“They were all tied together with military communications wire,” said Mr. Kim, now 81. “So when we opened fire, they all pulled at each other to try to escape. The wire cut into their wrists. Blood was splattered all over their white clothes.”
That Mr. Kim’s story has emerged after half a century is a testament to this nation’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, modeled after the South African group set up in the 1990s to expose crimes and injustices committed during the apartheid era.
Unlike the situation in South Africa, where the truth commission started work soon after the collapse of the apartheid government, South Korea’s commission was not created for decades. During most of that time, the country was ruled by anti-Communist authoritarian governments that wanted to keep buried the history of violence against people who had been accused of being Communists. It was not until after President Roh Moo-hyun was elected that the country created the commission in 2005, starting a nationwide investigation to uncover the history of atrocities by each Korea.
Handicapped by a budget considered too small for such a vast task, the commission’s work has been slow. Beyond that, it can neither force people to testify nor offer immunity for testimony, so few veterans have been willing to come forward. Some victims have stayed away as well, unwilling to open old wounds between neighbors caught up in the ideological struggle decades ago. Still, the commission has made progress in confirming long-suppressed stories of mass executions and in recovering the remains of victims.
South Korean troops executed tens of thousands of unarmed civilians and prisoners as they retreated in advance of the North Korean invaders during the war, according to historians. The victims were often accused of being Communist sympathizers or collaborators.
The commission’s investigators have discovered the remains of hundreds of people — including women and children — who were killed without trial. They have also identified 1,222 probable instances of mass killings during the war.
The cases include 215 episodes in which survivors say American warplanes and ground troops killed unarmed civilians.
On Saturday, Lt. Col. Almarah Belk, a Pentagon spokeswoman in Washington, said she did not “have any information on investigations into new findings as it relates to deaths of Koreans during the Korean war by U.S. military action.”
In 2001, the Pentagon acknowledged that American soldiers shot and killed unarmed civilians near the South Korean hamlet of No Gun Ri in 1950, but said the deaths were a result of confusion, and even fear.
South Korean investigators in July began digging at 4 of 160 sites believed to have been used for mass burials, places that were off limits under the country’s authoritarian rulers. They have unearthed the remains of 400 people. Skeletons were found stacked on one another, with bullet holes in the skulls and hands still tied by rusting steel wire.
The remains confirmed witness accounts that the police often made victims crouch at the edge of a trench, their hands tied behind their backs, before shooting them in the head and pushing them in, said Park Sun-joo, who leads the excavation team.
“The fact that these bones have remained abandoned so long and so close to where we live means that our society is still at its barbarian stage,” said Kim Dong-choon, a commission member.
At one burial site, in Cheongwon, in central South Korea, 110 bodies have been found.
“I think they killed up to 7,000 people there,” said Park Jong-gil, one of the commission’s witnesses who said he saw the killings at Cheongwon as a teenager. “Every day for seven or eight days, I saw four trucks in the morning and three trucks in the afternoon coming loaded with people.”
In one of its strongest rulings so far, the commission said in July that killings in the village of Hampyong, in the country’s southwest, were “a crime against humanity.”
Chung Nam-sook, 80, one of the witnesses who spoke to commission investigators, said in a later interview that in December 1950, soldiers of the South Korean 11th Army Division stormed the village to hunt Communist guerrillas but instead attacked innocent villagers gathered in a field.
“They told us to light our cigarettes,” said Mr. Chung, who lived there. “Then they began shooting their rifles and machine guns. After a while, an officer called out, ‘Any of you who are still alive can stand up and go home now.’ Those who did were shot again.” Mr. Chung, who was shot seven times, survived by pretending to be dead under the heap of bodies.
The commission’s work showed that the war was particularly calamitous for civilians because the rival armies swept up and down the peninsula, with each side trying to determine who was on whose side.
In one 1950 atrocity, according to evidence presented to the commission, South Korean police officers intent on ferreting out Communists disguised themselves as a North Korean unit before entering villages around Naju, near Hampyong. When people welcomed them with Communist flags, they killed 97, the commission said.
As their town changed hands between the rival armies, historians said, villagers who had lost family members were quick to settle scores. More than 50 years later, families still hold grudges.
Despite the successes in uncovering mass killings, some victims and their relatives say they feel cheated because the commission was not granted the right to prosecute those who committed atrocities. Its mandate is to uncover the truth for the record, recommend corrections to textbooks and other records and aid reconciliation through compensation or services for the victims.
Ja Yong-soo’s father was among 218 victims of what the commission finally ruled last month to have been “unlawful killings” by Korean marines on the southern island of Cheju in 1950.
After being repeatedly ignored by previous governments, Mr. Ja and other victims’ relatives were rewarded last month when the commission finally ruled the killings unlawful. But any move to enact a special law to prosecute these atrocities is likely to set off protests by Korean conservatives. (The law would be needed because the statute of limitations has run out.)
“Many of those human butchers and their children are now rich and powerful,” Mr. Ja, 65, said. “What am I going to say when I die and meet my father in the heaven and he asks, ‘My son, what have you done to restore my honor?’”
Mr. Kim, the former soldier, admitted that he was in charge of executing 170 people at Hoengsong and Wonju around June 28, 1950.
He said some of those killed, the “Class A” group of active Communists, were “enemies” who had attacked police stations. “But those categorized as Class B and C were innocent peasants who were lured by the Communists’ promise to give them free land,” he said.
“Till today, I feel guilty for killing them,” he said. “I bow my head in contrition.”
Elisabeth Bumiller contributed reporting from Washington.
December 3, 2007
Pg. 9
By Choe Sang-Hun
SEOUL, South Korea, Dec. 2 — Shortly after the outbreak of the Korean War in June 1950, Kim Man-sik, a military police sergeant, received an urgent radio message from the South Korean Army’s Counterintelligence Corps: Go to local police stations, take custody of scores of Communist suspects held there and execute them.
Mr. Kim complied. What he did and saw in those days is etched permanently in his mind.
“They were all tied together with military communications wire,” said Mr. Kim, now 81. “So when we opened fire, they all pulled at each other to try to escape. The wire cut into their wrists. Blood was splattered all over their white clothes.”
That Mr. Kim’s story has emerged after half a century is a testament to this nation’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, modeled after the South African group set up in the 1990s to expose crimes and injustices committed during the apartheid era.
Unlike the situation in South Africa, where the truth commission started work soon after the collapse of the apartheid government, South Korea’s commission was not created for decades. During most of that time, the country was ruled by anti-Communist authoritarian governments that wanted to keep buried the history of violence against people who had been accused of being Communists. It was not until after President Roh Moo-hyun was elected that the country created the commission in 2005, starting a nationwide investigation to uncover the history of atrocities by each Korea.
Handicapped by a budget considered too small for such a vast task, the commission’s work has been slow. Beyond that, it can neither force people to testify nor offer immunity for testimony, so few veterans have been willing to come forward. Some victims have stayed away as well, unwilling to open old wounds between neighbors caught up in the ideological struggle decades ago. Still, the commission has made progress in confirming long-suppressed stories of mass executions and in recovering the remains of victims.
South Korean troops executed tens of thousands of unarmed civilians and prisoners as they retreated in advance of the North Korean invaders during the war, according to historians. The victims were often accused of being Communist sympathizers or collaborators.
The commission’s investigators have discovered the remains of hundreds of people — including women and children — who were killed without trial. They have also identified 1,222 probable instances of mass killings during the war.
The cases include 215 episodes in which survivors say American warplanes and ground troops killed unarmed civilians.
On Saturday, Lt. Col. Almarah Belk, a Pentagon spokeswoman in Washington, said she did not “have any information on investigations into new findings as it relates to deaths of Koreans during the Korean war by U.S. military action.”
In 2001, the Pentagon acknowledged that American soldiers shot and killed unarmed civilians near the South Korean hamlet of No Gun Ri in 1950, but said the deaths were a result of confusion, and even fear.
South Korean investigators in July began digging at 4 of 160 sites believed to have been used for mass burials, places that were off limits under the country’s authoritarian rulers. They have unearthed the remains of 400 people. Skeletons were found stacked on one another, with bullet holes in the skulls and hands still tied by rusting steel wire.
The remains confirmed witness accounts that the police often made victims crouch at the edge of a trench, their hands tied behind their backs, before shooting them in the head and pushing them in, said Park Sun-joo, who leads the excavation team.
“The fact that these bones have remained abandoned so long and so close to where we live means that our society is still at its barbarian stage,” said Kim Dong-choon, a commission member.
At one burial site, in Cheongwon, in central South Korea, 110 bodies have been found.
“I think they killed up to 7,000 people there,” said Park Jong-gil, one of the commission’s witnesses who said he saw the killings at Cheongwon as a teenager. “Every day for seven or eight days, I saw four trucks in the morning and three trucks in the afternoon coming loaded with people.”
In one of its strongest rulings so far, the commission said in July that killings in the village of Hampyong, in the country’s southwest, were “a crime against humanity.”
Chung Nam-sook, 80, one of the witnesses who spoke to commission investigators, said in a later interview that in December 1950, soldiers of the South Korean 11th Army Division stormed the village to hunt Communist guerrillas but instead attacked innocent villagers gathered in a field.
“They told us to light our cigarettes,” said Mr. Chung, who lived there. “Then they began shooting their rifles and machine guns. After a while, an officer called out, ‘Any of you who are still alive can stand up and go home now.’ Those who did were shot again.” Mr. Chung, who was shot seven times, survived by pretending to be dead under the heap of bodies.
The commission’s work showed that the war was particularly calamitous for civilians because the rival armies swept up and down the peninsula, with each side trying to determine who was on whose side.
In one 1950 atrocity, according to evidence presented to the commission, South Korean police officers intent on ferreting out Communists disguised themselves as a North Korean unit before entering villages around Naju, near Hampyong. When people welcomed them with Communist flags, they killed 97, the commission said.
As their town changed hands between the rival armies, historians said, villagers who had lost family members were quick to settle scores. More than 50 years later, families still hold grudges.
Despite the successes in uncovering mass killings, some victims and their relatives say they feel cheated because the commission was not granted the right to prosecute those who committed atrocities. Its mandate is to uncover the truth for the record, recommend corrections to textbooks and other records and aid reconciliation through compensation or services for the victims.
Ja Yong-soo’s father was among 218 victims of what the commission finally ruled last month to have been “unlawful killings” by Korean marines on the southern island of Cheju in 1950.
After being repeatedly ignored by previous governments, Mr. Ja and other victims’ relatives were rewarded last month when the commission finally ruled the killings unlawful. But any move to enact a special law to prosecute these atrocities is likely to set off protests by Korean conservatives. (The law would be needed because the statute of limitations has run out.)
“Many of those human butchers and their children are now rich and powerful,” Mr. Ja, 65, said. “What am I going to say when I die and meet my father in the heaven and he asks, ‘My son, what have you done to restore my honor?’”
Mr. Kim, the former soldier, admitted that he was in charge of executing 170 people at Hoengsong and Wonju around June 28, 1950.
He said some of those killed, the “Class A” group of active Communists, were “enemies” who had attacked police stations. “But those categorized as Class B and C were innocent peasants who were lured by the Communists’ promise to give them free land,” he said.
“Till today, I feel guilty for killing them,” he said. “I bow my head in contrition.”
Elisabeth Bumiller contributed reporting from Washington.