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“Apologize for and End the Broadcasts Glorifying Japanese Collaborationists Paik Sun-yup and Rhee Seung-man

By Choi Sung-jin

The Korea Liberation Association (KLA), activists for liberation from Japanese colonial rule (1910-1945) and their descendants, announced Friday that it would launch an intensive battle if KBS depicts former President Rhee Syngman as a “founder of the republic” in a documentary titled “People Who Made the Republic of Korea Move: First President Rhee Syngman and the First Republic” that is scheduled to be broadcast on Aug. 15. The planned measures include the return of Order of Merit for National Foundation medals.

KLA, whose members include some 6,000 independence activists and surviving family members of independence activists, announced its plans and expressed its opposition to the Rhee Syngman broadcast during a protest visit to KBS on Friday.

In meeting with KBS programming center chief Seo Jae-seok and other network officials, KLA officials including adviser and former Chairman Yoon Kyung-bin, Vice Chairperson An Hong-sun, and Secretary General Na Jung-hwa pointed out that the preamble of the Constitution states that the country inherited the mantle of the Provisional Government.

“If, on top of failing to provide the whole truth about the pro-Japan Rhee Syngman administration, which put collaborationists into ministerial positions, KBS also depicts [Rhee] as the founding president of the republic, with talk about the ‘60th anniversary of the founding of the republic’ that does not recognize the lineage of the Provisional Government, the Korea Liberation Association will be obliged to block this through an intensive battle,” a KLA representative said at the meeting.

The KLA added that one of the methods it was planning to use in the battle involved a campaign to return its members' Order of Merit for National Foundation medals. Over 7,000 such medals are held by KLA members.

In response, KBS public relations office director Bae Jae-seong said, “The Rhee Syngman program focuses on showing the many policy decisions and choices made by the former President over the period from the late Korean monarchy to 1960, and will be aired from an objective perspective on the merits and demerits of his legacy without glorifying or demonizing a particular personage.”

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