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| Park Jung-woo, left, head of the Seoul Bar Association, and Duong Thanh Bac, vice president of the Vietnam Lawyers Association, hold up a joint statement calling on the Korean government to properly investigate and carry out reparations for Korean soldiers' alleged killing of Vietnamese civilians during the Vietnam War, after a press conference at the Seoul association's office, Wednesday. / Courtesy of Seoul Bar Association |
By Lee Suh-yoon
Korean and Vietnamese lawyers called on the government to investigate and provide reparations for the alleged killing of Vietnamese civilians by Korean soldiers during the Vietnam War.
Several members of the Vietnam Lawyers Association came to Korea and announced a joint statement on the issue with the Seoul Bar Association (SBA), Wednesday.
"Finding the truth behind the civilian killings during the Vietnam War is necessary for human rights and peace, and it will also strengthen future ties between Korea and Vietnam, allowing them to develop their relationship on the foundations of historical truth," Park Jung-woo, head of the SBA, and Duong Thanh Bac, vice president of the Vietnam group, read in turn from the joint statement at a press conference at the SBA office in southern Seoul.
"The Seoul Bar Association and Vietnam Lawyers Association call on the Korean government to investigate the truth behind civilian killings in the Vietnam War and provide confirmed victims with proper reparation measures."
Civic groups in the two countries have made efforts to find the truth about alleged massacres since 2000, such as filing suits to demand the government disclose related documents, but the administration's response has been insufficient, they said.
Former President Park Chung-hee sent around 320,000 soldiers to Vietnam between 1964 and 1973 to aid U.S. forces against the North Vietnamese communist insurgency. There, Korean troops allegedly killed up to 9,000 civilians in 80 different cases, according to one estimate by a Korean researcher who interviewed survivors at over 50 massacre sites and villages, using records left by a North Vietnam war crime investigation committee. Women, children, and the elderly were no exception in the mass killings, their bodies often mutilated or burned afterward, according to the records. The motivation and the chain-of-command behind the massacres still remain unclear.
So far, the government has never officially admitted the killings of civilians by Korean soldiers or made an official apology.
The closest thing to this was made in March last year, when President Moon Jae-in said he "expressed regret for the unfortunate history between the two countries" during a state visit to Hanoi, the Vietnamese capital. Former Presidents Kim Dae-jung and Roh Moo-hyun also expressed similar sentiments in the past, but like Moon, avoided directly mentioning the alleged civilian massacres.
Earlier this month, 103 Vietnamese survivors submitted a joint petition to Cheong Wa Dae, calling for a direct apology from the government here.
"I was only eight years old at the time of the massacre but I still remember clearly everything that happened that day," Nguyen Thi Thanh, 59, whose mother, siblings, and aunt were killed by Korean soldiers at the village of Phong Nhi on Feb. 12, 1968, said in front of Cheong Wa Dae before delivering the petition on behalf of other survivors.
She also testified at a mock trial organized by civic groups in April last year, which concluded the Korean government should recognize its responsibility for the tragedy and compensate victims.
"It is known the Korean soldiers killed around 70 civilians at the village of Phong Nhi in Quang Nam Province," Lee Yong-woo, a lawyer director for human rights at the SBA, said at the conference.
"Last year, Korean lawyers filed and won an information disclosure suit against the Korean intelligence agency for its records on the Phong Nhi massacre, which are the collected testimonies of Korean military commanders who were in Phong Nhi and Phong Hat on Feb. 12, 1968, but the government agency continues to withhold these documents."
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