hankyoreh

Nguyen Thi Thanh, the plaintiff in a case seeking state liability for Korean troops’ massacre of civilians during the Vietnam War, smiles on screen during a press conference by her legal representatives in the case after the ruling was announced on Feb. 7 outside the Seoul Central District Court. (Kim Myoung-jin/The Hankyoreh)

In modern history, South Korea has been both the victim of a tragic war and the perpetrator of wartime violence.

Fifty-five years after the fact, a South Korean court issued a first-ever ruling Tuesday acknowledging the state’s responsibility to a civilian victim of violence at the hands of South Korean troops during the Vietnam War. At the same time, it also provided an opportunity for South Korea to reflect on historical scars that it has been ignoring over the years.

In the judgment Tuesday, Judge Park Jin-su of the Seoul Central District Court’s 68th civil affairs division ruled in favor of the plaintiff in a case filed by Nguyen Thi Thanh to claim damages from the state for her victimization in a civilian massacre by South Korean forces during the Vietnam War.

The ruling affirmed the message that civil society had been sending: When it comes to civilian massacres, there is no statute of limitations.

The South Korean government had claimed that because of the statute of limitations on the right to claim damages, it could not be held liable for compensation even if illegal actions were acknowledged to have taken place.

In response, the court said, “For the defendant in this case [the Republic of Korea] to claim expiration of the statute of limitations constitutes an abuse of rights.”

Its rejection of the government’s statute of limitations claims was based on a Supreme Court precedent holding that the state should not claim expiration in cases where there are grounds for interpreting a victim as being obstructed from exercising their rights, including compensation claims.

Based on testimony from Nguyen, other villagers, and soldiers who had fought in the war at the time, the court acknowledged the truth of most of the claims concerning the civilian massacre.

“It is acknowledged that between 10:30 am and 3 pm on Feb. 12, 1968, South Korean troops carrying out operations ordered the plaintiff’s family members outside their home and shot them,” the court said.

“The plaintiff’s aunt, cousin, older sister and younger brother died at the scene, while she and her older brother were severely wounded by gunshots,” it continued, adding that “these constituted clearly illegal actions.”

Many different people summoned courage to attest to the historical facts.

In November 2021, an ex-Blue Dragons member surnamed Ryu who took part in the Phong Nhi operation appeared as a witness, explaining that “company members asked what needed to be done about the civilians, and the company commander made a throat-cutting gesture with his thumb, so they killed them.”

“The soldiers talked about killing people without any kind of guilt, like they were tales of heroism,” he testified at the time.

Appearing in a South Korean court last August, Nguyen’s uncle Nguyen Duc Choi testified he had “witnessed the scene of the massacre” and “gone back into the village with US troops later to remove the bodies.”

But the South Korean government has denied the veracity of the witnesses’ accounts.

The Korean Government Legal Service, which was representing the state as defendant, argued, “It is impossible to rule out the possibility that the Viet Cong disguised themselves as South Korean soldiers or that North Korean psychological warfare units were involved.”

“It is impossible to affirm that the perpetrators were South Korean troops based simply on accounts that the people at the scene wore South Korean military uniforms and did not use Vietnamese,” the service claimed.

It also argued, “Even if South Korean soldiers did kill or injure civilians, that may be seen as a legitimate act in the context of the Vietnam War, where the specific nature of guerrilla warfare had to be taken into account.”

Throughout the case, the South Korean government declined to cooperate with efforts to determine the truth.

Previously, the group Minbyun-Lawyers for a Democratic Society filed suit against the National Intelligence Service (NIS) to demand the disclosure of findings from a 1969 investigation into individuals involved in massacres of civilians during the Vietnam War. The South Korean Supreme Court ruled at the time that the information in question should indeed be disclosed.

“The value of this disclosure is recognized, in that it would be meaningful as evidence to determine the historical facts, such as whether the Republic of Korea government did investigate those connected with massacre incidents,” the court said.

But the only information disclosed by the NIS consisted of a list of the names and addresses of three platoon leaders with the 1st Company of the 1st Battalion in the 2nd Marine Division (Blue Dragons), which was in Phong Nhi at the time.

In response, the court requested an inquiry to disclose all records of the Korean Central Intelligence Agency (predecessor of the NIS) investigation into the incidents in the Phong Nhi and Phong Nhat villages with soldiers who had fought in the Vietnam War. The NIS sent a letter to the court effectively refusing to do so, and the information in question never was provided.

Meanwhile, the ruling appears likely to ignite efforts to learn the truth about other alleged civilian massacres by South Korean troops in different parts of Vietnam.

This also raises the possibility of additional suits filed by victims.

In April 2022, the group Civil Society Network for a Just Resolution to Vietnam War Issues submitted an investigation request to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission for a civilian massacre in the village of Ha My. The incident in question allegedly involved the massacre of 135 civilians in 1968 by South Korean troops in Ha My, a village in Vietnam’s Quang Nam Province.

To date, however, the commission has yet to make a decision on whether to initiate an investigation, and it has deferred any action to address the matter.

“The petitioners on the Ha My village case also made a request for a meeting with the subcommittee, but it was not accepted,” said Shim A-jeong, one of the network’s members, in an interview with the Hankyoreh on Tuesday.

“Now that there has been a court ruling on Vietnam War massacres, we urge the Truth and Reconciliation Committee to quickly begin investigating,” she added.

By Choi Min-young, staff reporter; Jang Ye-ji, staff reporter

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