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Nguyen Duc Choi, a witness to the massacre of civilians by Korean troops during the Vietnam War, speaks at a press conference on the case for state compensation held at the offices of MINBYUN-Lawyers for a Democratic Society on Aug. 9. (Yonhap News)

For the first time, a Vietnamese witness has testified in a South Korean court about the massacre of Vietnamese civilians by Korean troops during the Vietnam War. The witness, who flew all the way to Korea to give testimony in the trial, said he hopes the Korean government will acknowledge the truth of the massacres.

Nguyen Duc Choi, 82, who was a member of the South Vietnamese militia during the Vietnam War, was examined on the witness stand on Tuesday as part of a state compensation lawsuit that Nguyen Thi Thanh, 62, has filed against the Korean government. The lawsuit is being heard by Park Jin-su, a judge in the 68th civic law division of the Seoul Central District Court.

This is the first time a Vietnamese witness has testified in Korean court about civilian massacres during the Vietnam War. Nguyen Duc Choi testified on Tuesday that he had personally witnessed Korean troops slaughtering dozens of residents of Phong Nhi village on Feb. 12, 1968.

“We entered the vicinity of Phong Nhi village after hearing over wireless that Korean troops were killing the villagers. I saw Korean soldiers killing the villagers through binoculars, and I also heard shouting in Korean,” the 82-year-old said while on the witness stand.

“I’d grown familiar with Korean faces, and I’d heard Korean spoken during a number of encounters with Korean soldiers in restaurants and shops and on the streets,” the witness said, explaining that the killings he’d seen had been perpetrated by Korean soldiers.

“After the departure of the Korean troops who had killed the villagers, we entered the village with American troops and found dozens of bodies piled up around the village and saw most of the houses on fire.”

Nguyen Duc Choi gave testimony in a damages lawsuit filed against the Korean government by Nguyen Thi Thanh, a survivor of the Phong Nhi massacre during the Vietnam War. Some 70 residents of Phong Nhi — a village in the district of Dien Ban, Quang Nam Province — were killed by Korean troops with the 2nd Marine Division, also known as the Blue Dragons, which had been deployed to fight in the Vietnam War.

Nguyen Thi Thanh, who was 8 years old at the time, lost five family members in the massacre. A bullet fired by a Korean soldier hit her on the left side, an injury that still affects her today. Nguyen Duc Choi, the witness in the trial, is her uncle.

The Korean government refuses to take responsibility on the grounds that Nguyen Thi Thanh’s claim that she was harmed by Korean troops has not been adequately demonstrated. The Korean government has also raised the possibility that the civilians were attacked by Viet Cong members masquerading as Korean soldiers as part of psychological warfare against the American military and that, even if Korean troops did kill the villagers, they may have mistaken them for enemy combatants in the heat of combat.

An individual surnamed Ryu who was part of the unit that carried out the operation in Phong Nhi appeared in court in November 2021 to testify about the massacre. But the government has refused to accept his testimony, citing internal inconsistencies.

The plaintiff holds the Korean government responsible on the grounds of a fact-finding report drafted by the US military shortly after the Phong Nhi massacre. Incidents of state violence are often difficult to prove because it typically takes the victims a long time to find the courage to speak up.

But in the case of this 1968 incident, the US military entered Phong Nhi immediately after the massacre to investigate what happened. The US military’s report, which is stored at the US National Archives, reportedly includes testimony by locals and photographs of the scene.

The Korean government reportedly drafted a report of its own based on a separate investigation carried out a year after the Phong Nhi massacre. But the government has ignored the plaintiff’s request to submit its report.

“Considering that the government holds that the plaintiff doesn’t have enough material to demonstrate her claims, it should submit the report held by the National Intelligence Service to remedy that issue,” said Im Jae-sung, an attorney for the plaintiff, during a press conference before the trial on Tuesday.

By Choi Min-young, staff reporter

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