By Kim Rahn
A local court has held the state accountable for the massacre of civilians by South Korean soldiers and police officers during the Korean War, allowing the bereaved families to get compensation.
It said the truth about the incident was uncovered in 2009 thus paving the way for the payment of compensation to the surviving relatives of the victims.
The Seoul Central District Court ordered the state to pay a total of 2.13 billion won ($1.9 million) to 173 surviving family members of those massacred, Tuesday, 59 years after the killings that were conducted in the name of a “crackdown on communists.”
The court said, “At that time, soldiers committed unlawful actions, infringing on the civilians’ right to life guaranteed by the Constitution and their right to be tried in line with due legal process. The bereaved families have suffered psychological pain as a consequence.”
It said it decided on the amount of compensation after considering the stigma they may have faced for being labeled as the “families of communists,” the likely financial difficulties resulting from the stigmatization, and also taking into account the changing inflationary rate that affected their finances over the last 60 years.
But the court didn’t acknowledge compensation for a person who was frozen to death while seeking shelter near a brook in one of the affected villages after his house was torched by soldiers, saying it was not a result of the killing.
In 2009, a fact-finding commission disclosed that 103 civilians were killed by the South Korean Army and another 62 by police in several South Jeolla provincial villages between August 1950 and February 1951 during operations to smoke out suspected communist sympathizers. Another 143 were also killed by North Korean soldiers.
The alleged massacre victims included male and female, the elderly, children, pregnant women and the disabled.
The commission suspects the actual number of victims may be higher than the official figures indicate, especially taking into account the many others who were displaced and entire families that may have perished as a result of the crackdown. It recommended the state apologize for its wrongdoings and offer support to the bereaved families. sis world — services sector reform, educational reform and fostering booming sectors, such as healthcare and agriculture.
“First we have to tackle services sector productivity issue. It is a good growth area as the services sector in this country is much slower than in advanced countries. Korea needs a more vibrant and internationally active small- and medium-sized enterprises (SME) sector. Such businesses will be critical to improving Korea’s under-developed high value-added services sector,” he said.
“Korea needs to go beyond manufacturing and become a leading country in services, using many skills that have made the country great in manufacturing.”
He believes that educational reform will also bring a critical opportunity to Korea.
“Korea doesn’t have many vocational education programs. A lot of people go to universities but not many people do vocational programs. We should develop such programs to create more jobs and create global champions in more areas,” he said.
“For example, Germany is a good example of a country with rich vocational programs. Germany has a company that makes the best toilet in the world. You don’t learn that in good universities.”
Lastly, the consultant, who previously served as head of McKinsey’s Korea and China offices, called for Korean firms to invest more in new business domains, such as healthcare and agriculture, as the country is well-positioned to drive the so-called technology enablement of the different sectors
“You have to know what are new business domains and higher value-added manufacturing sectors. You should be looking at things like medical electronics, healthcare delivery and so on. They are going to be humongous businesses in the future,” he said.
“Korean companies should be encouraged to go into these businesses. Samsung and LG can do well. We can build huge new opportunities for Korean companies to go after”