NEWS FOCUS 3

Additional revision of Jeju 4·3 Special Act needed

for victims of guilt-by-association system

Jwa Dong-cheol, Deputy Editor of The Jeju Ilbo

Discussion for just resolution of Jeju 4·3 held at National Assembly Library

Revision of Jeju 4·3 Special Act needed to grant compensatory damages to victims’ spouses and children excluded due to inaccurately registered family relationships

Provincial office to place staff in Osaka for payment of compensation to victims in Japan

 

Lawsuit to provide compensatory damages to 100,000 victims’ families difficult to be filed individually

Complementary revision of the Jeju 4·3 Special Act has been suggested for the recovery of damages that the spouses and children of Jeju 4·3 victims suffered due to inaccurate family relationships and the guilt-by-association system.

On Jan. 17, 2023, a forum to commemorate the first anniversary of the general revision of the Jeju 4·3 Special Act was held under the theme of “Just Resolution of Jeju 4·3” in the conference hall of the National Assembly Library, Seoul. The event was co-hosted by Jeju Special Self-Governing Province, the Jeju Special Self-Governing Provincial Council, the Jeju Special Self-Governing Provincial Office of Education, and the offices of Rep. Wi Sung-gon, Rep. Song Jae-ho, and Rep. Kim Han-kyu (National Assembly members from the Democratic Party of Korea).

Yang Seong-ju, secretary-general of the Association of the Bereaved Families of Jeju 4·3 Victims, pointed out that although the revised Jeju 4·3 Special Act requires the payment of up to 90 million won to each of the Jeju 4·3 victims in compensatory damages, no clauses exist concerning the recovery of damages their spouses and children suffered. “The government says that the revision enabled lawsuits to claim the recovery of damages for victims’ families, but filing an individual lawsuit is not easy, given that there are more than 100,000 people who lost their loved ones due to Jeju 4·3.

Yang referred to the civil lawsuit wherein the court ruled that the plaintiffs (victims and their families) shall be paid consolation money of 100 million won for each deceased victim, 50 million won for the victim’s spouse, and 10 million won for each of the victim’s children. “It is realistic to revise the Jeju 4·3 Special Act to specify the en bloc payment of the consolation money based on the preceding court judgment,” he claimed. He reminded the audience that the Jeju 4·3 Special Act defines the period of Jeju 4·3 as spanning from March 1, 1947, to Sept. 21, 1954, based on which the victim’s eligibility for compensation payment is determined. As he indicated, however, the law specifies no remedy for those who suffered state-inflicted damage under the charge of engaging in activities to discover the truth of Jeju 4·3 and restore honor to the victims.

Concluding his statement, Yang called for an additional revision of the Jeju 4·3 Special Act to include clauses on compensating for damages to those who were implicated in the fabricated North Korean spy cases during the period after the statutory Jeju 4·3 period.

 

Jeju 4·3 Special Act needs to be revised to reflect opinions of victims’ families

Kim Se Eun defended the plaintiffs in the first lawsuit for national compensation in accordance with the Jeju 4·3 retrial, wherein the court ruled in favor of the Jeju 4·3 victims. The human rights lawyer claimed that it is reasonable to revise the Jeju 4·3 Special Act to reflect the opinions of victims’ families that those unrecognized due to the guilt-by-association system should be able to receive compensatory damages.

As did Yang Seong-ju, Kim also referred to the legal ground for her argument to the civil court ruling (Case No. 2021Na 11079), wherein the national government pays consolation money worth 100 million won for a victim, 50 million won for the victim’s spouse, and 10 million won for each of the victim’s children, as the legal grounds of her argument. In the case, one of the defendants was imprisoned twice due to Jeju 4·3, the first from May 1949 to March 1950 and the second from May 1954 to April 1965, for a total of 4,411 days in prison. The Jeju District Court judged that the government should pay consolation money not only to the victim but also to his wife and children, especially given that the children experienced considerable mental suffering for a dozen years from infancy to adolescence due to the absence of their father.

Lawyer Kim expected that in light of the litigation in practice, subsequent Jeju 4·3 lawsuits will highly likely recognize consolation money not far off the amount recognized in the preceding litigation. In this regard, she agreed that there is a need to collect opinions from victims’ families and revise the Jeju 4·3 Special Act to create clauses on the compensatory damage. She added, however, that the plaintiff(s), mostly the deceased victims’ families, will be held responsible for the verification of the facts they claim to be true, and that seeking compensation following the litigation procedures tends to require a substantial amount of time. This is why the national government needs to take responsible action to find a remedy in advance, she stressed.

Currently, the Ministry of the Interior and Safety is conducting research through an external agency to devise measures to correct the distorted family relationship registers of Jeju 4·3 victims. A suggestion was made for the same purpose during the forum, which relates to the need to revise the Jeju 4·3 Special Act to include a relevant clause before the official period for the payment of national compensation is terminated. This is because during the chaotic turmoil of Jeju 4·3, many Jeju residents made registrations for marriage, births, and deaths which differed from the facts so that they could avoid any damage that could be caused by the guilt-by-association system.

For example, there was a case where a resident reported that his parents had died of old age in the 1960s, although in fact, they had been killed at the time of Jeju 4·3. In this case, his parents’ actual deaths (1948), their registered deaths (1960), their belated marriage registration (1959), and their son’s birth registration (1960) are distorted. If the inaccurate family relationship is corrected, the deceased victims’ marriage registration and the registration of their child’s birth will become invalid. To address this issue to some extent, the Supreme Court enforced a rule, starting from July 2022, that broadened the range of cases applicable to the correction of family relation registers.

However, Lawyer Kim Se Eun said that if, for example, a victim of an unlawful conviction due to Jeju 4·3 survived Jeju 4·3 (1947-1954) but died suddenly in 1975, his or her biological children who had been adopted by other families to avoid the guilt-by-association system are unable to correct their inaccurate family relation registers. This gives reason to complement the recently enforced Supreme Court rule, Kim pointed out.

Another suggestion for the improvement of the Jeju 4·3 Special Act involves the retrial of victims of unlawful courts-martial. Since the first retrial began in 2019, 581 victims have been acquitted and exonerated. However, in the cases of those convicted in general trials, the deceased victims without living family members are unable to file a lawsuit even with the existence of the clause on special retrials which was added to the recently revised Jeju 4·3 Special Act. Special retrials regard those identified as Jeju 4·3 victims as eligible applicants, while ex officio retrials are to be filed concerning 2,530 victims who were unlawfully convicted at the courts-martial.

The forum also raised the issue of implicit discrimination against Jeju 4·3 victims. Although the clauses of the Jeju 4·3 Special Act presuppose no discrimination against the victims, the Jeju 4·3 Peace Park fails to enshrine the memorial tablets of some victims in its Memorial Tablet Enshrinement Hall. With regard to this, a participant in the forum insisted that authorities prepare remedies for those who have been implicitly excluded to be recognized as Jeju 4·3 victims following the 2001 Constitutional Court judgment. Kang Min-cheol, director of the Jeju Special Self-Governing System Task Force (former chief of the Jeju 4·3 Support Division), Jeju Special Self-Governing Province, said that Jeju Province will place a staff member in the South Korean Consulate General in Osaka, Japan, to smoothly handle applications for payment of national compensation submitted by victims’ families in Japan.

The provincial government plans to hire a local staff member who is fluent in both Korean and Japanese and place the staff member in the South Korean Consulate General as early as March. Currently, it is estimated that some 900 family members of Jeju 4·3 victims reside in Japan. As most of them are in their 80s, they are having difficulties applying for compensation, especially in notarizing their family relation registers in Japanese before submission. The deployment of dedicated staff will help the victims’ families living in Japan to apply for national compensation and encourage more victims and bereaved families to apply for recognition of eligibility.

Prior to the forum, Heo Sang-su (former professor at Sungkonghoe University) spoke on the topic of “A Task for International Resolution of the Great Incident on April 3,” followed by Lee Chang-su (CEO of the Institute for Law, Human Rights, and Society), who gave a presentation titled “Tasks for Just Solution of Past Misconduct and Jeju 4·3.” Lee Kyu-bae (president of the Jeju 4·3 Research Institute) presided over the subsequent panel discussion, which featured panelists which included Han Kwon (chairperson of the Jeju 4·3 Special Committee, Jeju Special Self-Governing Provincial Council), Kang Min-cheol (former chief of the Jeju 4·3 Support Division, Jeju Special Self-Governing Province), Hong Il-sim (school inspector in the Democratic Citizenship Education Division, Jeju Special Self-Governing Provincial Office of Education), Kim Dong-hyun (head director of the Jeju People’s Artist Federation), Kim Se Eun (lawyer, Haemaru Law Firm), Yang Seong-ju (secretary general of the Association of the Bereaved Families of Jeju 4·3 Victims), and Lee Chang-su (CEO of the Institute for Law, Human Rights, and Society).

 

++ A forum to commemorate the first anniversary of the general revision of the Jeju 4·3 Special Act is held at the National Assembly Library.

++ Materials are distributed to the participants of the forum on Jan. 17, 2023, in the conference room of the National Assembly.

++ Materials are distributed to the participants of the forum on Jan. 17, 2023, in the conference room of the National Assembly.

NEWS FOCUS 1

“You said you’d be back home in a week,

but it took such a long time.”

Victims identified through DNA testing after 75 years

 

The Reporting Session on the Exhumed Remains Identified as Jeju 4·3 Victims was held on Feb. 28, 2023. With reverence and solemnity, those gathered in the Jeju 4·3 Peace Education Center faced the remains of Jeju 4·3 victims who returned to their families 75 years after their disappearance.

Families of the recently identified Jeju 4·3 victims were invited to the event that was hosted by Jeju Special Self-Governing Province and organized by the Jeju 4·3 Peace Foundation. The attendees also included Oh Young-hoon, governor of Jeju Special Self-Governing Province, Kim Kyung-hak, chairperson of the Jeju Special Self-Governing Provincial Council, Kim Chang-beom, chairperson of the Association of the Bereaved Families of Jeju 4·3 Victims, and Koh Hee-bum, president of the Jeju 4·3 Peace Foundation. Commencing the solemn ceremony, the participants were briefed on the victims’ identification results. The remains were carried into the event hall, where the victims’ families were reunited with their loved ones. The family reunion was followed by a tribute of flowers, the burning of incense, delivery of memorial remarks, enshrinement of the urns, and performance of a joint ritual.

The identified remains include Kim Chil-gyu (victim of an unlawful conviction by the court-martial, 34 years old at the time of execution), Kang Chang-geun (missing victim, 20 years old at the time of disappearance), and Kim Doo-ok (missing victim, 26 years old at the time of disappearance). Praying for the victims to find eternal rest, their bereaved families placed their names onto the urns of the remains that had finally been retrieved after being buried in the cold ground for decades. Looking at the urns, the victims’ families were unable to hold back their tears and the eyes of the audience also reddened.

Kim Jeong-soon (80), Kim Chil-gyu’s daughter, said her father had promised to be back home in a week, but it took such a long time until she got to see him again. “I am grateful that he finally returned, however long it took,” she said, expressing her gratitude to those who discovered her father.

“I never dreamed of finding my father’s remains,” said Kang Sul-saeng (77) in her first meeting with her father, Kang Chang-geun. As her father got married at 18 and went missing the following year, she never thought of the possibility of seeing her father her whole life. The elderly daughter burst into tears, saying, “Today, I finally called him ‘father’ for the first time.”

Kim Yong-heon, one of Kim Doo-ok’s nephews, recounted his memory of his father who had desperately wanted to see his missing elder brother until he passed away. “If still living, my father would be very happy today,” the victim’s nephew expressed regretfully, expecting that efforts will continue to exhume and identify remains.

Comforting the victims’ families who endured the long, mournful years, Oh Young-hoon, Kim Kyung-hak, Kim Chang-beom, and Koh Hee-bum reflected on the exhumation of remains and the DNA test results. Representatives from the public, private, and academic sectors also pledged that they would continue to discover and identify Jeju 4·3 victims’ remains.

The recently identified remains were retrieved from 2007 to 2009 where the area northeast of the Jeju International Airport runway which is oriented north to south and the northern area of the runway intersect. The victims had remained unidentified until 2022, when some of the victims’ direct and collateral family members provided their blood samples for the first time. The latest findings confirmed once again that collecting more blood samples from victims’ families increases the possibility of identifying the victims.

The technical development is also important, according to Lee Soong Deok (professor in the Department of Forensic Medicine, Seoul National University), who was in charge of genetic identification. “Above of all, however, the more families (up to third cousins) that participate in blood collection, the greater the possibility of identification,” he emphasized, asking the families of unidentified victims to show interest and take part in DNA tests.

The exhumation of Jeju 4·3 victims’ remains began in 2006, with 411 victims exhumed and 141 of them identified. Jeju Special Self-Governing Province and the Jeju 4·3 Peace Foundation will continue the exhumation and identification project this year. Authorities will expand the areas of excavation to discover those killed in regions outside Jeju before and after the Korean War, judging that many victims of unlawful convictions are buried in such massacre sites as Sannae Gollyeonggol, Daejeon, and Daegu Prison. Efforts will also continue to be made for the genetic identification of any remains exhumed from these sites, alongside the collection of more blood samples from victims’ families.

I have never thought I could find my missing father after more than 70 years have passed. My father got married at the age of 18 and went missing at the age of 19. Reportedly, he was taken to the police station and stayed there for a few days, with his whereabouts unknown afterwards. Rumor had it that he must have been sent somewhere outside Jeju Island or that he might have been killed at sea. Throughout my life, the thought kept striking me that I would never be able to see my father. Even when I saw a television advertisement for the collection of blood to identify Jeju 4·3 victims, it didn’t sound related to me so I didn’t even think that I could find my father using my blood sample. Last year, however, I decided to at least give it a try and participated in the DNA test for the first time. To my surprise, I received a phone call that they had identified some of the remains as belonging to my father. That night, I was so glad that I couldn’t sleep at all. After more than 70 years have passed, I could finally call him “father” for the first time in my life, but I was choked with tears and unable to speak.

My father, whom I missed for so many decades even in my dreams, finally returned. I don’t know how to describe this overwhelming joy, and yet the unutterable lament, over the return of my father who ended up being held dead in his daughter’s arms after seven decades. I am grateful that I could have my father’s remains enshrined in the Remains Enshrinement Hall of Jeju 4·3 Peace Park before I die. I express my sincere gratitude to everyone who has worked hard for Jeju 4·3 victims. Hopefully, more victims’ remains will be exhumed and identified soon and will comfort the pent-up sorrow of their bereaved families. Thank you. (Remarks by Kang Sul-saeng, the late Kang Chang-geun’s daughter)

NEWS FOCUS_1

Works for global recognition of Jeju 4·3

Efforts for UNESCO Memory of the World inscription begun

Promotional committee launching ceremony held

Efforts began for the inscription of documentary heritage of Jeju 4·3, the worst tragic event in contemporary Korean history, on the related Register of the UNESCO Memory of the World (MoW) programme.

On Feb. 20, 2023, Jeju Special Self-Governing Province (Governor Oh Young-hoon) and Jeju 4·3 Peace Foundation (President Koh Hee-bum) held the launching ceremony of the Promotional Committee for the UNESCO MoW Inscription of Jeju 4·3 Documentary Heritage (Jeju 4·3 MoW Inscription Promotional Committee) in the International Convention Hall of the Korea Press Center, Seoul. With over 150 attendees, the ceremony announced the co-chairpersons of the committee, including Oh Young-hoon (Governor of Jeju Special Self-Governing Province), Kim Kyung-hak (chairperson of the Jeju Special Self-Governing Provincial Council), Kim Kwang-soo (Superintendent of the Jeju Special Self-Governing Provincial Office of Education), Hyun Ki-young (novelist, winner of the 3rd Jeju 4·3 Peace Prize), Dan Smith (director of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, winner of the 4th Jeju 4·3 Peace Prize), Moon Hye-hyeong (Jeju 4·3 victim’s family member), Park Ju-yeong (head of the Student Union, Jeju National University), and the late Jin A-yeong (Jeju 4·3 victim, an honorary co-chairperson). Koh Hee-bum (president of the Jeju 4·3 Peace Foundation) and Kim Chang-beom (chairperson of the Association of the Bereaved Families of Jeju 4·3 Victims) have been appointed as co-executive chairpersons.

 

The official event began with the screening of a video of the late Jin A-yeong [a symbolic Jeju 4·3 victim who used to cover her crushed lower jaw with a cotton cloth], followed by the recital of “Lady Cotton Cloth” [a tribute poem for Jin A-yeong] by its author, Heo Young-sun. Moon Hye-hyeong, a Jeju 4·3 victim’s family member, was invited to read her story related to the documentary heritage of Jeju 4·3. Lastly, a joint declaration was read and the Jeju 4·3 MoW Inscription Promotional Committee was launched.

Oh Young-hoon, Kim Kwang-soo, Kim Chang-beom, Hyun Ki-young, and Park Ju-yeong read the joint declaration together, conveying the participants’ earnest aspiration for the inscription of Jeju 4·3 documentary heritage on the MoW Register.

During the ceremony, Governor Oh emphasized that the members of the promotional committee will make concerted efforts to have the nation’s proud history of resolving Jeju 4·3 be inscribed on the UNESCO MoW Register, eventually establishing a world-recognized model of resolving the past misconduct and peacefully overcoming historical tragedies.

Jeju society has consistently mentioned the necessity and possibility of inscribing the Jeju 4·3 documentary heritage on the MoW Register. Public discussions began in 2012, with the promotional efforts made starting from 2018.

Over 30,000 items will be compiled for the application for the MoW inscription, ranging from those documents produced during Jeju 4·3 to those produced after the historical event officially ended. The first includes administrative materials from public authorities, records of conviction by the courts-martial and general courts, and documents developed by the U.S military, while the latter is related to the deliberation and determination of Jeju 4·3 victims, investigation of Jeju 4·3 by the Jeju Provincial Council, testimonies by Jeju 4·3 victims, movement to discover the truth of Jeju 4·3, and efforts to achieve reconciliation and mutual prosperity between the victims and the perpetrators. The items will also include the video of the late Jin A-young and three postcards sent by the late Moon Soon-hyeon (Moon Hye-hyeong’s father) from Daegu Prison.

The documentary heritage of Jeju 4·3 is considered a historical memory and record of overcoming the pain of collective victimization caused by state violence amid the Cold War and national division and of discovering the truth and achieving reconciliation, with mutual prosperity following. Its value is internationally recognized as an exemplary record of resolving past misconduct of state power.

The Jeju 4·3 MoW Inscription Promotional Committee plans to carry out various activities, such as forming national public consensus on the legitimacy of the inscription and disseminating the value of Jeju 4·3 documentary heritage. In doing so, the committee will stage an online campaign to draw continued public attention and support to the inscription.

The inclusion of documentary heritage on the MoW Register is determined through a review by the International Advisory Committee (IAC) in its biennial ordinary session, where each member state can put forward up to two new nominations. In South Korea, the Cultural Heritage Administration submits to the IAC ordinary session the application for two candidates selected through a preliminary application and review.

 

 

++ Jeju 4·3 materials included on the list of documentary heritage for the application for the MoW inscription. Claim for Jeju 4·3 Victim’s Status (first), List of Convicted Prisoners (second), and postcards sent from prison (third). Cabinet minutes (fourth and fifth),