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| Kim Un-yong, center, then International Olympic Committee vice president, poses with South Korean delegation members to 2020 Sydney Olympic Games. Korea Times file |
In a letter written in 2018, IOC Vice President John Coates encouraged President Moon to recognize Kim Un-yong
By Kang Hyun-kyung
Helen Kim, daughter of the late sports administrator Kim Un-yong, received a letter from the Ministry of Patriots and Veterans Affairs (MPVA) last September informing that her family's request regarding her father's interment in the national cemetery had been denied due to his 2004 embezzlement conviction.
"I was disappointed," the younger Kim, a London-based lawyer, told The Korea Times over the phone last week. "My father's life and legacy and his contribution to Korea, taekwondo and the Olympic movement are on public record internationally."
She said she and her other family members crossed their fingers for getting the MPVA's nod, a recognition ― albeit posthumously ― which she said her father deserved.
Kim Un-yong (1931-2017), the former vice president of International Olympic Committee, was a towering figure in Korea's sports history. His sports diplomacy was critical behind South Korea's hosting of the 1988 Summer Olympics and the 1986 Asian Games.
He was also a key driving force behind the inclusion of the Korean martial art taekwondo as an Olympic sport. Serving for decades as a member of International Olympic Committee (IOC), first as a member then as vice president, he was the man who orchestrated the athletes of the two Koreas' joint march under the U.N. blue unified Korea flag in the opening and closing ceremonies of the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games, an event which created a media buzz for its symbolic meaning. He founded the World Taekwondo (WT) and served as president of the Korean Sport & Olympic Committee (KSOC).
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| Kim Un-yong, left, shakes hands with then Samsung Chairman Lee Kun-hee after presenting an Olympic medal to the business leader in this December 1991 file photo. Korea Times file |
His stellar career, however, crashed abruptly in 2004 when he was found guilty of embezzling hundreds of millions of won. He was sentenced to two years and released in 2005 on parole. In 2008 when President Lee Myung-bak was in power, Kim was pardoned and his conviction was expunged.
In 2015, he received the Sports Hero award, which is presented to selectively chosen star athletes and sports administrators who had made giant contributions to Korean sports, and inducted into the KSOC Hall of Fame.
The decoration is one of the numerous accolades bestowed on him for his decades of service and sports diplomacy during his life.
"We, therefore, believed it might succeed, even though it required the cooperation of the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and the MPVA," Kim's daughter said.
The KSOC confirmed that it had assisted the Kim family upon their request to restore the late IOC executive's honor, but noted that the attempt to bury him in the national cemetery was not part of the anniversary project.
"We got a phone call from one of the Kim family members last year. I remember it was either his son or son-in-law," KSOC official Park Jin-woo said. "We've been supporting the families of KSOC Sports Heroes regarding the recognition as family members are not familiar with the detailed procedures inside the ministries. We helped the Kim family… I regretted that their request wasn't accepted."
The MPVA and Kim's daughter have presented different interpretations about Kim's eligibility for interment in the national cemetery.
Although Kim had greatly contributed to Korean sports through his sports diplomacy, the MPVA claimed that honoring him is against the law as the National Cemetery Act bans honoring people having criminal records.
Kim's daughter, however, claimed the MPVA's decision is flawed. She maintained her father's conviction was expunged following the 2008 presidential pardon and thus the law doesn't apply to their case.
Through her two lawyers, she filed a petition with the Central Administrative Appeals Commission requesting it to review the MPVA's decision. The commission members will meet on Tuesday at a hearing to deliberate on the Kim family's petition and decide whether to approve it or not.
"We're supposed to know the results within two weeks," Kim's lawyer Heo Yong-haeng said. "We don't know how it will turn out. If our client's request is denied, I think we should take the next step, which is filing for a lawsuit against the MPVA to the administrative court."
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| International Olympic Committee (IOC) delegation leader John Coates, left, speaks with Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike prior to the start of the Four-Party Representative Meeting in Tokyo, Japan, in this November 2019 file photo. Reuters-Yonhap |
The Kim family's fight to restore the late IOC executive's legacy began in 2018 when a prominent Australian IOC member wrote a letter to President Moon Jae-in encouraging the South Korean leader to approve the burial of Kim's remains in the national cemetery.
In the letter obtained by The Korea Times, John Coates, president of the Australian Olympic Committee and current IOC vice president, described the late Kim as a hero deserving of posthumous recognition.
"He was a tremendously effective leader who helped shape the history of modern Korean sports and its pre-eminent place in the worldwide Olympic Movement," Coates wrote. "In 1994, Dr. Kim's dedicated efforts over the preceding 30 years brought about the official adoption of taekwondo as an Olympic sport at the IOC session in Paris, for provisional inclusion in the Sydney Olympic Games…. I sincerely hope that you can intervene and ensure the appropriate recognition of Dr. Kim Un-yong's lifelong service and contributions to Korea by granting authority for his burial at the national cemetery."
President Moon didn't respond to Coates. Instead, his letter was forwarded to the MPVA.
In April 2018, the MPVA replied to Coates, explaining that Kim was not eligible for the burial in the national cemetery under the National Cemetery Act.
In a second letter sent to the MPVA the next month, Coates expressed disappointment in the Korean government's failure to honor Kim.
"It seems to me that his great service, sacrifice and remarkable accomplishments over many years would be enough to overlook a wrongful conviction that was politically motivated and subsequently annulled," he wrote in the letter.
The Korea Times contacted Coates via email to ask whether his position about Kim has remained the same since 2018. He has not yet responded to the email.
When asked to confirm if it had received a letter from Coates, the MPVA said it's true that the letter was forwarded to the ministry and they responded to him that recognizing the late Kim was against the law, citing the relevant clauses of the National Cemetery Act.
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