By Leigh PayneI'm writing in response to an April 6 Korea Times article, titled ``Forbidden Book Haunts Truth Commission.'' I am very concerned about the banning of the English version of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Korea's (TRCK) findings.
Lee Young-jo, president of the commission, contends that the publication contains too many translation errors to allow its dissemination. Banning might be justified if he felt that the translation misrepresented the commission's findings.
The translation errors that he has noted, however, do not reach that threshold. A new translation might be in order, but not a ban on the publication.
The action seems inconsistent with Lee's role as president of the commission and his international promotion of the commission.
We would expect the president of a truth commission investigating past authoritarian practices to use democratic processes and respect democratic freedoms.
If the president has found distortions in the English version of the findings, he should openly and publicly identify them to justify this otherwise undemocratic action.
Because Lee has traveled internationally as a commissioner, we would further expect him to promote international exposure to the commission's findings.
Allowing minor flaws in translation to prevent that exposure seems inconsistent with his role as president and his previous international visits.
Lee's fluency in English no doubt heightens his awareness of the flaws in the translation. Surely, he could find democratic remedies to overcome translation problems and promote international awareness of the commission's findings.
If high costs prevent a new professional translation, Lee could call on volunteers from the international community of truth commission scholars to correct the current version.
Scholars who respect the TRCK's accomplishments, and promote Korea's truth commission model elsewhere, would certainly take on this task at no cost.
They would surely work with Lee and the other commissioners to guarantee that the report accurately reflects the commission's findings.
The failure of Lee to appropriately address the publication's translation problems has heightened controversy around the commission and its leadership.
Korea had previously received positive international attention for its courage and conviction to grapple with past atrocity in a deeply divided society.
The unjustified banning of the English report on the findings undermines that positive reputation.
Lee could restore that positive international reputation with a timely and democratic remedy to the translation problems and the report's release.
Such a move would be consistent with Korea's democratic transition, Lee's leadership of the TRCK and his international promotion of the body.
The writer is a professor of sociology at Oxford University. She is the author of ``Brazilian Industrialists and Democratic Change and Uncivil Movements: The Armed Right Wing and Democracy in Latin America.'' Her most recent book is ``Unsettling Accounts: Neither Truth nor Reconciliation in Confessions of State Violence.'' She can be reached at leigh.payne@sant.ox.ac.uk.
