By Jung Sung-ki
Staff Reporter
Three in 10 South Korean people don't know when the Korean War broke out, an indication that people lack understanding of historical and national security issues, according to a survey Tuesday.
The telephone poll of 1,000 adults over 19 showed that 33 percent of respondents said they didn't know when the fratricidal war broke out.
It was conducted by the Ministry of Patriots and Veterans Affairs on the occasion of the 60th anniversary of the outbreak of the Korean War next year. It had a margin of error of plus or minus of 3.1 percentage points.
By age, 47.4 percent of those aged between 19 and 29 couldn't accurately state when the war broke out, while 47.9 percent of those over 60 were also unaware of the date, the survey said.
``Most of those in their 60s or more only knew that they had grown up during the war, but failed to identify what year it broke out,'' a ministry official said.
Nearly 15 percent of those surveyed didn't know who provoked the conflict, the survey said.
About 95 percent were aware of troop contributions by United Nations member states, but failed to name how many participated, it said.
The Korean War was the single largest conflict to hit the peninsula in the past century. Millions of soldiers and civilians perished on both sides of the national divide, while about two dozen nations, including the U.S. and China, were involved.
The conflict, which technically continues to this day as it ended in a truce rather than a peace treaty, constitutes a considerable portion of the history curriculum in South Korean schools.
Earlier this year, the government unveiled plans to promote information about the war, including the opening of a Web site that carries substantial information.
The Ministry of National Defense is considering opening the ``online war memorial'' by the year's end. The Web site will be modeled on a French war memorial in which people can get detailed information about war veterans and major battles.