hankyoreh

Jeong Nak-heon, who lost his son 38 years ago, finally manages to bury him.

Jeong Seong-hee was a student at Yonsei University. He was arrested by police while taking part in a campus demonstration as a first-year student in 1981; three days later, he was forcibly enlisted in the military. During service, he was subjected to constant surveillance and questioning by the security unit; he was also forced to undergo brainwashing and act as a student mole. In July 1982, eight months after his forced conscription, he was found cold and dead while on night duty at a barbed-wire fence checkpoint on the front.

Military authorities claimed the death of Jeong, who was devoutly religious, was a suicide. They hurriedly cremated his remains, which they scattered at the crematorium rather than giving them to his family. Thirty-eight years later on Nov. 14 of this year, a spirit that had roamed for decades without a cemetery was finally laid to rest at the Democratization Movement Memorial Park in Icheon, Gyeonggi Province. Placed in the grave was a handful of dirt from the crematorium where his ashes were scattered, along with a few of his surviving personal effects. Jeong Nak-heon, who lost his son at the age of 43, was now finally pouring earth on his grave at the age of 82.

According to the Ministry of National Defense Truth Commission, forced conscriptions began with the launch of the military administration under Chun Doo-hwan in September 1980. Between then and November 1984, a total of 1,152 student activists were forced into the military. Some of the students apprehended were blind in one eye or suffered from polio-related disabilities. Meanwhile, the Defense Security Command (DSC) systematically controlled soldiers’ activities as part of what it referred to as its “afforestation project.”

The DSC carried out brainwashing campaigns in which a total of 1,192 people — including 921 forced draftees as well as ordinary enlisted soldiers and civilians — were subjected to beatings and torture and forced to write “confessions” about their activities and political leanings and apologize for them. Some were also forced to become student moles, sent on special leave to monitor and report the activities of student activist groups. Six young people lost their lives to the brutality of the military administration over this period of four years and two months, including Jeong, Korea University student Kim Du-hwang, Sungkyunkwan University student Lee Yoon-seong, Dongguk University student Choi On-soon, Hanyang University student Han Young-hyeon, and Seoul National University student Han Hee-cheol.

By Jang Cheol-kyu, senior staff writer

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