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Members of Korean War Bereaved Family Members’ Association of North Chungcheong Province and other groups watch video footage of testimony by Sunwoo during an annual joint memorial for civilian victims of the war in North Chungcheong Province

Recordings have surfaced with testimony by anti-Communist prosecutor Sunwoo Jong-won (1918-2014), who reportedly organized and orchestrated the Bodo League, thousands of whose members were slaughtered during the Korean War.

As a prosecutor at the Seoul District Prosecutors’ Office, inaugural prosecution department director for the Justice Ministry, and head of the Bureau of National Security intelligence and investigation division, Sunwoo was a central figure in forming and managing the Bodo League, which was composed of left-wing converts in 1949.

The Korean War Bereaved Family Members’ Association of North Chungcheong Province and North Chungcheong History and Culture Alliance, respectively headed by Lee Se-chan and Park Man-sun, released video footage of testimony by Sunwoo during an annual joint memorial for civilian victims of the war in North Chungcheong Province, which was held on June 21 at the North Chungcheong NGO Center.

Five minutes and four seconds long, the video shows Sunwoo’s responses during a visit to his office on Oct. 18, 2007, by an investigator with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

“A lot of them weren’t ‘ideological elements’ - they were people without ideology. Did they know what the Communist Party is? A lot of them went in without knowing,” Sunwoo says in the recording.

Park called the footage “the first example of testimony straight from a senior official responsible for organizing and managing the Bodo League.”

In the video, Sunwoo answered questions about the political leanings of Bodo League members.

“The people captured spreading leaflets in Goesan [a county in North Chungcheong] were real peasants, people who had never been involved with any political party [such as the Workers’ Party of South Korea],” he responded. “You couldn’t see them as Communist. Few of them had joined because of something they had heard.”

Sunwoo also said the Bodo League massacre was directed by police and supported by the military.

“Police led [the killing]. But police can’t do things like that on their own,” he testified. “I suppose they did it because the military told them do.”

Park said Sunwoo’s account “offers support that state authorities at the time massacred countless innocent people knowing that they weren’t Communist Party members.”

Groups such as the National Korean War Bereaved Family Members’ Association claim that as many as 200,000 Bodo League members nationwide were killed after the Korean War.

“We should waste no time in organizing a second Truth and Reconciliation Commission and amending the related legislation to create a special law for reparations and compensation, establish a truth and reconciliation foundation, and find the remains of victims,” Park said.

By Oh Yoon-joo, Cheongju correspondent

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