[Column] The ever persistent cancer of Japanese collaborators in modern S. Korean history

Posted on : 2019-02-26 17:17 KST Modified on : 2019-02-26 17:17 KST
The LKP continues its heritage by disparaging Gwangju movement and sabotaging inter-Korean peace
Liberty Korea Party lawmaker Kim Soon-rye (left) and Kim Jin-tae have repeatedly disparaged the Gwangju Democratization Movement as a ploy orchestrated by North Korean agents and special forces. (Kim Gyoung-ho
Liberty Korea Party lawmaker Kim Soon-rye (left) and Kim Jin-tae have repeatedly disparaged the Gwangju Democratization Movement as a ploy orchestrated by North Korean agents and special forces. (Kim Gyoung-ho

His father was a participant in the independence movement based on the Feb. 8 Independence Declaration during his time studying in Japan. His family relocated from Nanjing to Chongqing in China with the Korean Provisional Government (KPG), but in 1937 his mother and youngest sibling died from malnutrition. After serving briefly as a National Assembly member in a liberated Korea, his father was abducted to North Korea during the Korean War, branding his children with the stigma of being members of a “communist family.” The son had to eke out a living doing odd labor and delivering newspapers. This is the sad family history recalled by the oldest son of former Special Investigation Committee on Anti-Nationalist Activity Chairman Kim Sang-deok.

Kim Chang-sook lost the use of his legs from torture by Japanese colonial police while engaging in the anti-Japanese movement in China alongside legendary independence leader Kim Koo. His oldest son died at 19, also from the effects of torture; his second son died while fighting for independence. After Korea’s liberation, he was imprisoned many times while fighting against dictatorship. He rebuilt Sungkyunkwan University, but after political thugs drove him out of his position as president, he was forced to live in rented inn rooms. His third son had to get by driving a taxi.

Only 3% of collaborationists’ land returned to state after liberation

In 2015, the investigative journalism website Newstapa aired a four-part feature documentary titled “Collaboration and Forgetting” for the 70th anniversary of Korea’s liberation; the following year, it was compiled into a book. The impoverished lives of the descendants of independence fighters, and the contrasting wealth and power passed down to the descendants of collaborators, remain a shameful reality in South Korea today. Of the 430 million square meters of South Korean land (equivalent to two-thirds the area of Seoul) owned by collaborationists during the colonial occupation – including 43 million square meters acquired by Ye Wan-yong, the last prime minister of the Korean Empire – an estimated 13 million square meters were reverted to state ownership, or roughly 3%. Just a tenth of that was sold off, amounting to 1.3 million square meters (according to June 2015 figures from the Ministry of Patriots and Veterans’ Affairs). The figure of “0.3%” became, as Newstapa put it, a “symbolic number” showing the half-hearted way South Korea had addressed its history of collaboration.

Matters of history have begun receiving media attention once again since early this year as the Mar. 1 Independence Movement’s centennial approaches. But it should not be forgotten that alongside the history of resistance, there is also a shameful history that continues living with us today, wearing a new face.

The person who became foundation chairman after Kim Chang-sook was forced out of Sungkyunkwan University was Lee Myeong-se, someone who had dutifully followed along with Japan’s wars of aggression while serving in positions such as chairman of the Korean Association of Confucian Scholars under the Japanese empire. Lee’s granddaughter, former Korea Broadcasting System board of governors chairman Lee In-ho, has described the post-liberation resolution of collaborationism as a “directive from the Soviet Union.”

“If my grandfather was a collaborator, then every member of the middle class during the Japanese occupation was a collaborator,” she said.

Collaborationist and independence suppressor still regarded as hero today

Paik Sun-yup took part in operations to suppress resistance to the Japanese occupation as a member of the Gando Special Forces in the state of Manchuria, then a puppet state in Northeast China under the Japanese empire, and he was one of the 1,006 people officially recognized as a collaborator by the Committee for Investigating Pro-Japanese and Anti-National Activities, which was established by a special act in 2005. Despite this, he is still regarded as a hero for his deeds during the Korean War. A prize is named after him, and he’s treated as an elder and given the best seat at every military-related event.

Japanese collaborators were given free rein because of Korea’s division. Since opposition to communism was regarded as the highest ideology of the state during the Korean War and the Cold War, their collaboration and treachery in the past was whitewashed and covered up. Even though Park Chung-hee wrote a blood oath pledging his loyalty to the Japanese empire and attended the Manchurian Military Academy, his pro-Japanese past was never once given proper attention when he was running for president.

The LKP continues the traditions of Park Chung-hee and Chun Doo-hwanb

In a certain sense, the offensive remarks about the Gwangju Democratization Movement that were made by members of the Liberty Korea Party (LKP) prior to their party convention, which is being held on Feb. 27, are the natural products of the party of Park Chung-hee and Chun Doo-hwan. It’s not surprising that the followers of ex-president Park Geun-hye and her father Park Chung-hee – who hid his past as a Japanese collaborator and his membership of the South Korean Workers’ Party behind a mask of anti-communist patriotism – are trying to fit the barbaric behavior of Chun Doo-hwan into the same frame of nationalism and to spread claims that North Korean special forces were involved in the Gwangju Democratization Movement.

A once pro-Japanese newspaper played a major role in spreading ugly stories about the Gwangju Democratization Movement. When the movement occurred in 1980, that newspaper was already labeling the citizens of Gwangju as “rebels” and “rioters” for their resistance, and later on it was the first to air allegations about the intervention of North Korean forces on its television channel.

A former president of that newspaper was officially denounced by the South Korean government for his pro-Japanese and anti-Korean actions, which included encouraging young Koreans to enlist in the Japanese army and selling war bonds on the streets. Those actions were essentially passed down to later generations under the updated slogan of anti-communism, under which the paper supported a dictatorship and a military coup.

The collaborationist agenda to block peace on the Korean Peninsula
staff photographer)
staff photographer)

This alliance of gaffe-prone collaborators and anti-communists who are positioned in politics, the press, the military and higher education is not content to whitewash and rationalize its past. While the ice of the Cold War has been melting over the past year, these figures have been throwing up roadblocks on the path to inter-Korean peace at every opportunity by searching for and blowing up the smallest signs of distrust and conflict while clinging to their habit of vilifying North Korea. At a time when Jim Rogers has said he’ll invest his entire fortune in North Korea while companies in Korea’s neighboring countries are seeking investment opportunities in the North, these figures’ obstructionism is a second betrayal of their country, following their collaboration with the Japanese.

Coincidentally, the day after the second North Korea-US summit is the 100th anniversary of the Mar. 1 Movement. We must remain alert to ensure that these figures don’t spoil another historic moment with their vulgar remarks.

By Kim Ri-taek, editorial writer

Please direct comments or questions to [english@hani.co.kr]

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