Truth in danger in South Korea
One of the most impressive things to happen in Asia in the past 20 years has been the emergence of South Korea as a vigorous democracy with a competitive, high-tech economy and a sophisticated urban society.
Considering what the Koreans endured last century, that’s a miracle of human resilience. They were occupied by the Japanese and subjected to a brutal system of assimilation designed to erase their nationality, conscripted into Japan’s wars as soldiers and comfort women, divided and occupied by the Allied powers, trampled over and massacred in one of history’s most vicious wars, then ruled by harsh dictatorships, one of which survives in the North.
That’s a terrible history that can’t simply be pushed out of sight. Commendably, South Korea embarked about four years ago on a reappraisal of the historical record, taking as its model the Truth and Reconciliation Commission set up in South Africa after apartheid.
The South Korean version has worked hard during those four years to determine the truth behind about 11,000 cases of alleged state crime and abuse submitted by the public in its opening stages.
Working on a modest budget, its researchers have dug up the physical evidence: skeletons with bullet holes in the back of the heads and hands bound with wire, buried in mass graves or shoved down mine shafts.
Even harder, with no powers of subpoena or compulsion, they’ve dug into memory. Now elderly witnesses have talked of seeing truckloads of prisoners taken out into the country and not coming back. Relatives have talked of decades of fearful association with these alleged communists and traitors. A few former policemen and soldiers have come forward and confessed to taking part in mass executions.
But only 3200 cases have been explored. Now, in just over two months, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission is being wound up. Its latest report has been withdrawn on dubious grounds, the findings accused of political partisanship. A new government is in power, edgy at being seen as inheriting a strand of authoritarian rule.
That was always going to be hard to avoid. Since its inception in 1948, the Republic of Korea was controlled by a succession of right-wing, mostly military presidents, with periodic outbursts of student-led revolt, until more contested elections brought a succession of civilian presidents from 1993.
The first three of these – Kim Young-sam, Kim Dae-jung, and Roh Moo-hyun – were former opposition figures who had all suffered under the military regimes. It was under Roh that the Truth and Reconciliation Commission was launched, with a mandate to cover not just the Korean War atrocities, but also the litany of human rights abuses under the previous dictatorships.
Then in December 2007, the electorate swung to the right, installing as president Lee Myung-bak, a former top Hyundai executive who had carried our a sweeping transformation of Seoul as the city’s mayor. Lee had joined the Grand National Party, an amalgam of conservatives including many connecting with previous military regimes.
President Lee has made it clear that the commission’s four-year mandate will not be renewed when it expires at the end of March. Last month the commission’s president, a liberal-minded history professor named Ahn Byung-ook, came to the end of his two-year term, and was replaced by another commission member, Lee Young-jo, an academic known for past association with the New Right Union, a conservative political advocacy group.
The new commission chief has controversially withdrawn from circulation an English-language report by his predecessor on the grounds of alleged translation errors. He has also criticised the commission for not producing enough results from its $20 million in funds over the past four years. But he’s not arguing for more funds. His friends in the New Right Union make it clear that ”left-wing bias” is the problem.
A reading of the contested document makes it clear that the English is not the problem: it is quite clear and correct. There is a distinct left-wing tinge to Professor Ahn’s introduction. For example, he writes about General Park Chung-hee’s rule from his coup in 1961 until his death in 1979 at the hands of his intelligence chief: ”Influenced by the extreme rightist ideology of Japanese nationalism and the sophisticated manipulation skills of the US military, the Park military junta introduced an extreme right-wing fascist regime into Korean society during a time when the nation lacked thoughts, values and awareness of democracy.”
Yet the body of the report is generally factual and includes details of massacres carried out by the North Korean army in areas it controlled during the Korean War, as well as killings by South Korean and US forces. (Well before the commission, the Pentagon acknowledged in 2001 that American soldiers had shot civilians sheltering under a bridge at a village called No Gun Ri in 1950. When I met Professor Ahn last August, he said the commission had not received any accusations against the Australian forces in the war.)
It would be a huge pity if the commission is disbanded before its work is done. The historical self-examination has done the Republic of Korea an immense amount of credit, and stands in sharp contrast to the obfuscations and denials of its neighbours, not least North Korea. The way to counter perceived bias is surely to get in and argue for wider analysis.
Yet none of the allies which shed blood to defend this republic (the United States had 36,574 killed, Australia 339) have spoken out about this impending shame and cover-up – not the governments, not the official military historians, not the veterans. Surely they should be putting a message to President Lee that this is not what we fought for?
