Defense ministry may record historical facts about Kim Won-bong
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Late General Kim Won-bong (1898-1958). Korea Times file
By Jung Da-min
The Ministry of National Defense said Monday it was reviewing a request from its research arm to include details of Kim Won-bong's fight for Korea's independence in the historical records of the Korean military on its official website.
Kim was the leader of a secret society fighting for independence. He and his associates became undercover operatives for the Korean provisional government in China from the late 1930s to early 1940s. But Kim later went to North Korea, where he earned commendations from Pyongyang for his efforts in the Korean War.
“The ministry understands there is a need to record the late Kim Won-bong's activities if they turn out to be based on historical facts,” ministry spokeswoman Choi Hyun-soo told reporters in a briefing at the ministry's headquarters in Yongsan-gu, Seoul.
A request was made last year by the Institute for Military History for the current history on the ministry website to be revised to include some facts about Kim's activities including his creation of the anti-Japanese Korean Volunteer Corps in 1938 in Wuhan, China. Kim was later appointed deputy commander of the Korean Liberation Army in 1942 and served until 1945.
Currently, the ministry's records only state certain facts such as those on the late independence activist Ahn Jung-geun and his assassination of then-Japanese Resident-General Hirobumi Ito in 1909, or the foundation of the provisional government in 1919, in the history before the 1945 liberation of Korea from colonial rule.
The historical assessment on Kim, however, remains controversial as he became a North Korean military commander in 1948 and fought against South Korea during the 1950-53 Korean War. He was said to have helped strengthen Kim Il-sung's regime in North Korea before being purged in 1958.
Controversy surrounding Kim has recently resurfaced following President Moon Jae-in's June 6 Memorial Day speech at Seoul National Cemetery, where he gave credit to him for his activities.
President Moon Jae-in gives a speech at a ceremony marking the 64th Memorial Day (June 6) at the National Cemetery in Seoul, last Thursday. Yonhap
“In the last five years before Japan's surrender in 1945, the Korean Provisional Government achieved the coalition of the left and right in Chongqing, China and established the Korean Liberation Army. …The Korean Liberation Army had finally mustered strength for the independence movement, after incorporating the Korean Youth Battlefield Mission Corps, the anarchist forces and the Korean Volunteer Corps led by Yaksan (Kim's pen name) Kim Won-bong into it,” Moon said last Thursday during his Memorial Day address.
Conservative lawmakers have slammed Moon.
Meanwhile, a poll by Realmeter conducted on 501 adults last Friday showed that 42.6 percent supported the recognition of Kim for his contribution to the anti-Japanese movement, while 39.9 percent opposed it citing Kim's contribution to the then-North Korean government.
The support was down 7.3 percentage points from another poll two months earlier, while the disapproval rate was up 7.3 percentage points at that time.
The latest poll has a plus or minus 4.4 percentage points of margin of error with a 95 percent of confidence level.