Ahn Unveils 3 Steps for Forgiveness, Reconciliation
By Kang Hyun-kyung
Staff Reporter
A top government commission official admitted that plenty of victims and their families suffered the consequences of false accusations and fabricated charges made during authoritarian governments and some of them are still being harassed with the truth remaining hidden.
Ahn Byung-ook, president of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, proposed a three-step reconciliation approach, characterizing the wounds and traumas that still exist in society as ``a major stumbling bloc'' to the Global Korea vision.
``To move on, our society needs to offer a sincere apology to those victims so that they can accept it and forgive what the past regimes did to them. We will be able to remove the hurdle as mutual recognition will naturally lead to reconciliation,'' Ahn said in an interview with The Korea Times at his office in Seoul, Tuesday.
He went over the truth verification process of a kidnapped fisherman to illustrate how the three-step reconciliation approach works.
Back in 1967 during the Park Chung-hee government, a 23-year-old fisherman, named Seo Chang-deok, living in a small southern town, was abducted by the North Korean Coast Guard while fishing in waters near Yeonpyeong Island in the West Sea near the maritime border.
Seo was repatriated to the South after 124 days of detention in the North.
Seventeen years later, Seo, who was illiterate and didn't even know how to write his name in his first language, had uninvited guests from the security forces.
He was accused of being an informant for North Korea and sentenced to 10-year imprisonment after he made a false confession as a result of illegal detention and torture by security officials.
In 2007, during the Roh Moo-hyun administration, the truth commission found the espionage case was fabricated and Seo was innocent.
The watchdog recommended that the government ``officially apologize, restore the honor of the victim and hold a retrial'' of the case.
``We can imagine the painful trauma Seo and his family went through together over the years. The fisherman and his family now live in peace after the truth verification, and the case illustrates how the 3-step approach worked,'' Ahn said.
``There were many other victims and families members who were falsely accused under the authoritarian governments, which resorted to `red scares' on a regular basis to keep the regime safe,'' he added.
Ahn noted that some victims and their families still bear the scars of old wounds from decades ago and, in this sense, the pain still haunts them.
``We've listened to them and their stories, and worked on the cases to unearth truth that had been buried for many years. We let them know that neither they nor their parents were guilty of espionage through our investigations,'' said Ahn.
He said his commission has played a crucial role in helping victims and their families reconcile with other community members with its truth verification and investigative activities, which he called a tough job.
The commission, established in 2005 with the benchmarking of South Africa's now-defunct Truth and Reconciliation Commission in the 1990s, is preparing to wrap up its mission. Its four-year term ends in April next year.
To date, the commission has completed work on a total of 3,271 cases, including the truth verification of 1,813 of 10,962 cases submitted to it for deliberations.
To share South Korea's unique experiences in truth and reconciliation with other countries, the commission has recently released an English publication, titled ``Truth and Reconciliation: Activities and the Past Three Years.''
The 215-page book, which is not for sale, describes the background, activities, procedures of investigation and cases the commission has verified.
``It took three years for us to produce this English publication, mainly because there were a lot of unique historical and socio-political situations facing the country. We needed time to research accurate and appropriate terms and expressions that represent exact nuances and situations,'' said Ahn.
For more information about the book, visit www.jinsil.go.kr/english or call 822 3406 2555/2627.