hankyoreh

From the left are pictured Kwon Tae-oh

After putting off its decision for four months, the Liberty Korea Party (LKP) has made its recommendations for the Gwangju Uprising Fact-Finding Commission. The people it has recommended to sit on the commission are Kwon Tae-oh, a career soldier and former secretary-general of the National Unification Advisory Council; Lee Dong-uk, former reporter for the Chosun Monthly, and Cha Gi-hwan, an attorney.

But since some of the recommended figures claim that the government troops’ massacres during the Gwangju Uprising (which began on May 18, 1980) have been greatly misrepresented, the LKP is under fire for undermining the purpose of a fact-finding investigation into the government’s crackdown on the uprising, which was bloody and contravened humanitarian principles. Groups of advocates for victims of the Gwangju Uprising object that these figures will block efforts to get to the truth.

While announcing its recommendations on Jan. 14, the LKP described these three figures as “the right figures who can contribute to national unity by objectively investigating the truth about the Gwangju Uprising that has been misrepresented or concealed.” While the LKP ultimately declined to recommend Ji Man-won, a figure on the far right who has argued that North Korean troops took part in the uprising, the figures that the LKP ended up recommending are also thought to stand for the far right’s claims about the uprising.

Lee Dong-uk, former reporter for the Chosun Monthly, is currently the CEO of a publisher called Freedom Front. In a video uploaded on YouTube in 2013, Lee said, “The essence of the Gwangju Incident was that a lot of decent people got mixed up with a few rabble-rousers.” In a 1996 article for the Chosun Monthly titled “Fact-checking: 10 Misreports and Exaggerations Related to the Gwangju Incident,” Lee argued that the prosecutors’ announcements and press reports about government troops’ use of heavy weapons and tanks had been exaggerated or distorted.

“In the interest of national unity, both the citizens’ army and the government troops sent to suppress it need to be examined fairly,” Lee said during a telephone call with the Hankyoreh.

Cha Gi-hwan was appointed to the board of the Foundation for Broadcast Culture on the recommendation of the Grand National Party during the presidency of Lee Myung-bak, and he also served as a non-permanent member of the Sewol Special Investigation Commission in 2015 on the recommendation of the Saenuri Party. (Both the Grand National Party and the Saenuri Party are predecessors of the current Liberty Korea Party.) In connection with the Gwangju Uprising, Cha said that “The film ‘May 18’ [which is about the Gwangju Uprising] and things like it are spreading the false impression that the Republic of Korea is a country that brutally slaughters its own people.”

“We need to clear the ROK army of the false charges against it,” Cha told the Hankyoreh over the phone.

Kwon Tae-oh, who was the commander of the 8th Corps of the ROK Army under former president Park Geun-hye, served as secretary-general of the National Unification Advisory Council.

On Monday, four organizations, including one dedicated to honored veterans and bereaved families of victims of the Gwangju Uprising, held a press conference in front of the National Assembly. “The recommended individuals are likely to obstruct and interfere with the commission’s legitimate fact-finding activities. The Liberty Korea Party needs to recommend figures who will be committed and determined to learning the truth, rather than undermining and distorting the values of the Gwangju Uprising,” these groups said.

“If the Liberty Korea Party is not willing to learn the truth, it should take this opportunity to retract its recommendations.”

The Gwangju Uprising Fact-Finding Commission is being established in accordance with the Gwangju Uprising Fact-Finding Special Act, which was passed by the National Assembly in Feb. 2018 with the goal of investigating the human rights violations committed by the government’s martial law troops and identifying who gave the order to open fire. While the Special Act officially took effect in September, the commission has been unable to launch for four months because the Liberty Korea Party has kept putting off its recommendations for commission members. The rest of the nominations have already been made, with one person nominated by the Speaker of the National Assembly, four by the Democratic Party and one representing smaller parties who aren’t members of parliamentary caucuses.

By Lee Kyung-mi and Song Gyung-hwa, staff reporters

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