hankyoreh

A park commemorating the lives lost in the battle for democracy against South Korea’s past military dictatorships opened on June 9. The opening comes 15 years after a 2001 decision on ten commemorative projects for the democratization movement.

The memorial park occupies a 150,674 square-meter plot of land in Eonong, a village in Icheon, Gyeonggi Province. Built at a cost of 46.6 billion won (US$40.3 million), it includes a memorial building and a graveyard for 136 individuals legally recognized as having been involved in the democracy movement.

Icheon first announced its intent to carry out the project in a 2007 bidding by local governments, and construction began in 2011. The park is directly administered by the city.

Forty-six people are currently buried in the graveyard, including Kim Se-jin, a Seoul National University student who committed suicide by self-immolation in 1986 to demand the abolition of mandatory short-term frontline military training for university students; Gang Gyeong-dae, a Myongji University student who was beaten to death with a metal pipe by police in Apr. 1991; and victims of the People’s Revolutionary Party incident, which involved false accusations of communism by the Park Chung-hee administration (1961-79).

The presidencies of Lee Myung-bak (2008-13) and Park Geun-hye (2013-present) led to numerous setbacks for the park. In addition to the isolated location, the development on a sloping hillside raised concerns about the possibility of landslides. Serious differences erupted between family members demanding that the exhibition facilities highlight the iron-fisted tactics of the Park Chung-hee and Chun Doo-hwan (1980-88) administrations, and the current administration, which opposed such displays.

“The atrocities of dictators need to be documented in detail, but there are a lot of shortcomings [with the exhibitions] due to differences with the administration,” said Gang Min-jo, the 75-year-old chairperson of the National Democracy Movement Bereaved Family Members’ Association and father of Gang Gyeong-dae.

“Now that we have managed to build this cemetery, I sincerely hope it will become a shrine for democracy and peace,” Gang added.

By Kim Gi-seong, south Gyeonggi correspondent

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