hankyoreh

Ku Su-jeong

Among the dozen or so people gathered in the darkened yard, she immediately recognized him. Nguyen Yen Ly, 93, was seated at a stone table. It had been 20 years exactly. A septuagenarian before, he was now looking ahead to his hundredth year. He could no longer recognize or hear the visitor he had waited for before so eagerly. “He doesn’t remember our names either,” his family told me. Even so, they leaned close to his ear and shouted together, “She’s here from Korea!” He sank to the ground and pounded with his cane as he cried out, “Ku Su-jeong, Ku Su-jeong.” Somewhere in the fog of his memory, the elderly man found the name of the stranger he had met 20 years earlier.

It was in 1999 that Nguyen first met Ku, then a correspondent for the Hankyoreh (executive director of the Korea-Vietnam Peace Foundation). The place was the village of Phuoc Binh, located in the Tinh Son commune of Son Tinh prefecture in Quang Ngai Province. After breaking the story of Vietnam War-era massacres of civilians by South Korean soldiers in a May 1999 article titled, “‘Oh, the South Korean Soldiers Were Terrifying!,’” Ku went to visit dozens of villages in and around the five provinces where South Korean combat forces had been stationed between 1964 and 1973 (Quang Nam, Quang Ngai, Binh Dinh, Phu Yen, and Khanh Hoa) to record accounts from the victims.

It was through this effort that the voices of around 100 of the 9,000 total victims of civilian massacres were first shared with the world. One of those providing an account was Nguyen Yen Ly. His extended family included nieces and nephews living in the same home; many of them were lost to the brutality of the South Korean soldiers. Even back then, 30 years had passed since the massacres, and the elderly man had had to strain to “recall the names of each of my nieces and nephews.” He wept bitterly at the time.

When Ku saw him again on Mar. 5 of this year, he did not summon back stories of the atrocities committed by South Korean troops. Instead, he signed a piece of paper presented before him by Ku. His son had written in the name, date of birth, address, and massacre location and date, but Nguyen supplied the signature himself. It was titled “Massacre Survivors’ Petition for an Investigation into Civilian Massacres by Korean Soldiers during the Vietnam War and the Restoration of the Victims’ Dignity.” Where Nguyen had testified to the massacres in 1999 as a survivor and eyewitness, now he was resolving to hold the South Korean government accountable as a surviving family member. He turned around, clutching the petition to his chest. Ku held his hand and said, “I promise I will be back. Please stay healthy.”

Nguyen managed to reply, “You want me to wait another 20 years?”

Nguyen was one of around 103 petition signatories that Ku met over the period from Mar. 1 to 15 in 17 villages in the central Vietnamese provinces of Quang Nam and Quang Ngai. The petition was part of “season two” of the “We’re Sorry, Vietnam” campaign, a joint effort by South Korean civil society toward peace and a just resolution to historical issues with Vietnam in the wake of Ku’s initial report for the Hankyoreh. But now they are no longer simply saying “sorry” – they are helping with calls for the South Korean government to take action.

“Now is the time for the victims to become agents. Just as the comfort women issue in South Korea involves war crimes by the Japanese but is ultimately our issue, this issue too is something Vietnam has to resolve.”

executive director of the Korea-Vietnam Peace Foundation

The Korea-Vietnam Peace Foundation opted for a petition as a way of letting the South Korean government know directly how many survivors there are. The decision was based on the prevailing view in academia that in addition to South Korean citizens, foreign nationals are not excluded from the right to demand restitution and corrective measures for illegal and unjust actions by the government according to petition law. The petition to the Blue House included demands for an investigation, acknowledgment of the facts, an official apology, and measures to redress the damages. Upon receipt, the Blue House is obligated to undertake a review to verify the facts and notify the petitioners of the outcome within 90 days (with a possible 60-day extension).

“In the past 20 years, there were exactly three people who came to South Korea, in 2015 and 2018. Most of [the survivors] live in farming villages deep in the heart of Vietnam and have never even been to Ho Chi Minh City [Vietnam’s largest city]. It’s unimaginable that they would travel to South Korea. So we envisioned the petition as an opportunity to share the voices of many survivors rather than just three.”

It was a daunting task even for Ku, who has been involved in peace campaigning since first covering the brutal crimes of South Korean troops while studying at Vietnam National University in Ho Chi Minh City in 1993.

“I was really worried how the survivors would react to have a petition [to a foreign government] presented to them as people in a socialist state who have never experienced freedom of assembly, association, and demonstration,” she said.

The response turned out to be surprising. “We wanted to do something like this!” survivors told her. “I’d never considered it because I’m a dunce who never learned how to read, but this is something I really wanted to do!” one said.

News of the petition-bearing visitor from South Korea spread quickly. Ku would start early in the morning to avoid rush hour, making the three-hour trip by motorbike from Hue in Thua Thien-Hue Province to the village of Phong Nhi in Quang Nam Province. After receiving all the signatures and returning to Ho Chi Minh City and the Korea-Vietnam Peace Foundation chapter, she found her phone ringing off the hook.

“I need to let people know about the unjust deaths of my family members.”

“I want to support the petition too.”

Ku had originally planned to visit all five of the provinces where South Korean combat units had been stationed during the Vietnam War. But after hearing the entreaties of the victims, she had to leave her petition efforts in the provinces of Binh Dinh, Phu Yen, and Khanh Hoa until next time.

Clutching their petitions to their chests, the survivors wept even more than they had when testifying to their experience 20 years earlier. Le Thi Duc, 74, who had been a witness to the horrific sight of her family members’ massacred bodies in the village of Phuoc Binh, found herself bedridden after giving her first account of the day.

“My heart was just pounding and I couldn’t breathe,” she said. Twenty years before, Ku had stifled her own tears, believing she wouldn’t properly record the testimonies if she cried alongside them; this time, she wept alongside the survivors as she took their petitions.

“I carried a sense of indebtedness with me after meeting those 100 or so survivors 20 years ago. I would never have reached this point had it not been for their encouragement. At a personal level, it feels like I’ve unburdened myself of that feeling of debt. I have no regrets.”

The most difficult part for Ku as she spent 15 days with her interpreter visiting 17 different villages was not the arduous journey that left her sleeping just two to three hours a night, nor was it the public authorities who are objects of fear in a socialist state.

“As I listened to these accounts of the past, I had to decide whether they qualified for the petition. It was always an ocean of tears. Facing that, I couldn’t get myself to actually say the words, ‘You won’t be able to submit a petition.’”

When victims have passed away, family members are allowed to petition on their behalf, but civil law restricts the right to direct lineal ascendants and descendants. “It isn’t fair,” cried one survivor whose six brothers and sisters were slain, but who was not able to sign the petition because they were neither their parent nor offspring. When she had difficulty on the ground determining whether a survivor qualified for petitioner status, Ku would sometimes call attorney Im Jae-seong from the group MINBYUN-Lawyers for a Democratic Society, who provided legal counseling services.

“There are times when it’s tough to get in touch with a lawyer in Korea, you know? The victims get anxious waiting. Some of them bite their fingernails.”

Some also refused the petitions. Ngo Van Mao lost nine family members in a massacre in the village of Khanh Lam in the Dinh Thien commune of Son Tinh County, Quang Ngai. The massacre at Khanh Lam was another scene of brutality that Ku first learned about during the petition process. Ngo, a person of merit in the long struggle against the US, was a senior official in the Communist Party, highly ranked enough to have a photograph hanging in his home showing him with the Vietnamese president.

“You’re doing the right thing,” Ngo told his South Korean visitor before sending her away.

“Why should I as a victim be entreating you?” he asked her. Despite having many opportunities to visit South Korea as a high-ranking official Vietnam, Ngo had never gone there, nor did he send his son, who became an exchange student with South Korean state funding. His bitterness ran deep.

Ngo had another reason for not demanding that the South Korean government take responsibility.

“As a party member, I cannot go against the Vietnamese government’s official position that we should move on from the past and into the future,” he said. According to Ku, the reasons for Vietnam not sharing its own internal investigations as a victim of war crimes are complex.

“Vietnam is a country that was unified through an armed conflict between North and South Vietnam beginning in 1973,” she explained.

“Despite what many expect in the West, the wounds were healed and the integration happened relatively quickly. If these historical issues are placed in the spotlight, those wounds from the unification process would all erupt once again. They’re probably also worried that if they start dredging up issues involving massacres by South Korean troops, a lot of other historical issues are going to come spilling out all at once – massacres by the US and French militaries, the starvation deaths of two million people during the Japanese occupation, and so forth. With South Korea ranking consistently in first place for investment in Vietnam over the past decade or so, they’re obviously going to be conscious of what the South Korean government thinks.”

In this environment, Ku was not in a position to seek permission from the Vietnamese government to travel to different massacre sites and collect petitions from survivors. Foreigners still require permission from authorities to visit farming and mountain communities outside of tourist destinations; those visiting for research purposes must receive a research visa, but Ku ruled that approach out from the beginning.

“Part of it was that my schedule didn’t allow me to stay long in any one village or house, but I always collected petitions and then left quickly, ‘guerrilla-style,’ because I was worried the authorities might come.”

Even the most cautious of interlopers is easily discovered. Leaving a village late one night, Ku found herself facing county authorities at the side of the road. They were high-ranking security officials.

“I didn’t know you needed a permit. It’s the first village I’ve been to, the first house,” she told them. But the authorities had already been tracking her activities. They kept her detained for three hours before letting her go.

“I got the sense that the local authorities knew all about the South Korean petition collection and decided to turn a blind eye to it,” she recalled.

She was also caught from time to time by village authorities. She was never arrested – each time it happened, the residents would side with her, insisting that if she was taken in, they should be taken in too.

“In socialist countries, people tremble just hearing the word ‘authorities,’ but nobody was afraid. They looked after me. Later on, the village authorities would also be in tears listening to the eyewitness accounts. It had happened in their community; in some cases, it might have involved their own families.”

After gathering her 103 petitions, Ku headed for the Blue House. Two survivors sharing the name Nguyen Thi Thanh – both of whom lost their family members and suffered multiple bullet wounds during massacres in the villages of Ha My and Phong Nhi/Phong Nhat in Quang Nam province – submitted the petitions in person on Apr. 4. The two were also selected as winners of the Jeju April 3 Peace Prize for their role as plaintiffs in an April 2018 citizens’ peace tribunal to investigate civilian massacres by South Korean troops, where their accounts of the killings helped win a ruling for the plaintiffs’ side.

The Korea-Vietnamese Peace Foundation also planned to embark on a petition collection campaign in South Korea once the petitions were received. The posting of the victims’ photographs and stories on the foundation’s website is expected to lead to “solidarity petitions” from South Koreans declaring their support for the survivors. The foundation is also considering submitting a petition via the Blue House petition page to ensure the Blue House answers the survivors’ demands in a responsible way. Once a petition has over 200,000 signatories, the government is obligated to reply to it. Other approaches under consideration include submitting petitions to the Ministries of Foreign Affairs and National Defense and delivering copies to the UN.

At the end of the petition, the survivors wrote, “We look forward to and await the South Korean government answering these earnest voices, these voices that took so much courage to express.” The question now is how worthy an answer the Blue House will give to their just demands.

By Seo Bo-mi, staff reporter of Hankyoreh 21

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