[Petition 7] "My father sounds the drum, dying"

Posted on : 2019-04-21 15:51 KST Modified on : 2019-04-21 15:51 KST
Massacre at Thuận Trì village, Duy Hải commune, Duy Xuyên District, Quảng Nam Province (massacre of Đặng Sỏ and his family)
Đặng Minh Khoa

Date of birth: 1950

Date of massacre: Feb. 16, 1969

Description of massacre: “Boom! Boom! Boom!” The sound of drumming rang outside my house. It was a day before the Lunar New Year holiday, and my father Đặng Sỏ (then 59) was preparing for an ancestral service at the shrine in front of our house. Suddenly and out of nowhere, South Korean soldiers descended on the house. My father put up a bitter struggle, and they pointed their guns at him and pulled the trigger. Up until his dying breath, he pounded on the drum to alert the other villagers to the danger.

Startled by the sound of gunshots, my family members raced out of the house. The South Korean troops were standing in front of the gate, and they proceed to kill all nine members of my family and set fire to the shrine. My sister Đặng Thị Huỳnh, then 26, was also present at the scene, but she took advantage of the confusion to flee and escaped with her life. On the day, I lost my father, my mother Nguyễn Thị Thêm (57), my older brother Đặng May (34), my younger sister Đặng Thị Mỹ Hương (16), my two sisters-in-law Lâm Thị Ưng (32) and Hồ Thị Tửu (30), my niece Đặng Thị Mỹ Yến (four), and even the unborn nieces or nephews in the wombs of my sisters-in-law. The South Korean troops buried the bodies in secret.

That much is what I heard from the only survivor, my sister Đặng Thị Huỳnh. I was 19 at the time. I was studying in Saigon (now Ho Chi Minh City), and even though it was Lunar New Year, I couldn’t go home because of the war. I heard what happened from my sister and I hurried to my home commune of Duy Hải. I couldn’t go inside the house, so I wandered around it until I was captured by South Vietnamese police and ended up spending eight months in prison in Hội An for being involved in the “student movement.” I returned to Saigon after my release and didn’t go back to my hometown until after the war ended in 1975.

What I want from Korea: I have done everything I could to let people know about the atrocities committed by the South Korean soldiers who massacred my family. I have no need of material or economic assistance from South Korea, and I have not asked for it. But I do ask that the South Korean government acknowledge the crimes committed by South Korean troops and formally apologies to the survivors and family members of the victims.

What I want from Korea: Years have passed and it’s now part of the past, but the survivors and family members like me continue to suffer the pain and wounds from that day. I hope South Koreans will show the least bit of conscience and work to help heal the wounds of victims in Vietnam.