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Blue House Chief of Staff Noh Young-min (center) attends the funeral of Paik Sun-yup, a controversial four-star general who is considered a pro-Japanese collaborator by some and as a war hero by others, at Asan Medical Center in Seoul on July 12. (photo pool)

The passing of Paik Sun-yup on the evening of July 10 has left South Korean society sharply divided over how to assess the legacy of a collaborator during the Japanese occupation who also contributed to the establishment of the Republic of Korea. Daejeon National Cemetery has been decided on as the four-star general’s place of interment. But with the presentation of a National Assembly bill to amend the National Cemetery Act to forcibly relocate the graves of collaborators from national cemeteries, a heated battle appears likely to ensue if the legislation is passed.

The South Korean Army announced in a statement on July 11 that the hero of the Korean War had died the previous evening at the age of 99 (born Nov. 23, 1920). “The funeral service will be held at Asan Medical Center in Seoul at 7:30 am on July 15, Army Chief of Staff Suh Wook presiding, and Paik will be given a military burial at the Daejeon National Cemetery at 11:30 am,” the Army said in the statement.

The contentious question of where Paik would be buried was ultimately settled in favor of the Daejeon National Cemetery, rather than the Seoul National Cemetery in the Dongjak neighborhood. Paik is survived by his wife Noh In-suk, his sons Nam-hyeok and Nam-hong, and his daughters Nam-hui and Nam-sun; his wake is being held at the Asan Medical Center funeral home.

The news of Paik’s death sparked a sharp debate in the political establishment and on social media. Ju Ho-yeong, floor spokesperson of the United Future Party (UFP), said on July 11 that Paik was “the true father of the ROK army” and that it would be a travesty “if General Paik can’t be laid to rest at the Seoul National Cemetery.” Following the government’s announcement that Paik would be buried at the Daejeon National Cemetery, UFP Spokesperson Kim Eun-hye alleged on July 12 that the government was “even making a political issue of this hero’s final resting place.”

But Kim Jong-cheol, spokesperson for the Justice Party, was opposed to the idea of Paik being buried at any national cemetery. “As a member of the Gando Special Force, which Japan organized to put down Korean freedom fighters [in Manchuria during the Japanese colonial occupation], Paik Sun-yup was a key figure in Japan’s suppression [of Korean independence],” Kim said. The Blue House sent a floral wreath signed by President Moon Jae-in, while Blue House Chief of Staff Noh Young-min and two officials from the National Security Office — director Suh Hoon and first deputy director Kim You-geun — paid their respects at Paik’s wake.

Born in Gangseo County, North Pyongan Province, in November 1920, Paik plotted a curious course through Korea’s tumultuous past century. In 1940, Paik enrolled in the 9th class of a military academy in Bongcheon County operated by the Manchukuo Imperial Army. He later became an officer in the Gando Special Force, a unit of Koreans that had been set up by Manchukuo, a puppet state of the Japanese Empire, to suppress Korean freedom fighters by force. The South Korean government took issue with Paik’s involvement in the unit when it officially condemned him in 2009 as having been an anti-nationalist collaborator with the imperial Japanese.

But after the Korean War broke out in July 1950, following the establishment of the Republic of Korea, Paik was put in command of the ROK Army’s 1st Division. That August, he made a name for himself through his leadership in the Battle of Tabu-dong, on the Nakdong River. In October, he was the first to enter the North Korean capital of Pyongyang at the head of a combined force of South Korean and American troops. Until recently, newly appointed commanders of US Forces Korea would pay Paik a visit and praise him as a symbol of the US-ROK alliance, and South Korea’s conservatives have lionized him as a savior of the nation.

The disagreement about Paik’s legacy reflects a larger divide: those who find South Korea’s legitimacy in the Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea and in Korea’s liberation from Japanese colonial rule in August 1945 versus those who emphasize Syngman Rhee’s decision to set up a separate government in South Korea and the state that was consequently founded in August 1948.

Paik never made an apology or expressed any regrets for his collaboration with the Japanese. In his autobiography, published in Japan in 1993, the only remarks he made about his time with the Gando Special Unit are as follows: “We were trapped in Japan’s scheme because we were suppressing Koreans who were fighting for their independence. But Korea’s independence was not delayed because of our commitment to suppressing them.”

Despite Paik’s death, the debate over his legacy isn’t likely to go away. Kim Hong-geol and other lawmakers with the ruling Democratic Party are pushing to revise the Act on the Establishment and Management of National Cemeteries so as to force the remains of Japanese collaborators who are currently buried at national cemeteries to be disinterred and reburied elsewhere.

By Gil Yun-hyung, staff reporter

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