hankyoreh

A list of documents released by the NIS on April 5 amounted to just three names and locations: “Choi Yeong-eon, Busan; Lee Sang-woo, Gangwon; Lee Gi-dong, Seoul.” (provided by MINBYUN—Lawyers for a Democratic Society)

The South Korean National Intelligence (NIS) is essentially refusing to disclose records of the massacres of civilians by South Korean troops during the Vietnam War, despite a court issuing a subpoena duces tecum (a subpoena seeking documents) on the matter.

Legal representatives of one of the survivors called for state institutions to disclose the records for the sake of an investigation, after a legal battle that lasted over three years all the way through a final Supreme Court ruling simply to obtain a list of records from the NIS that amounted to just a few names and locations.

According to the Hankyoreh’s investigation Sunday, the NIS recently submitted a reply to a court effectively refusing to comply with its subpoena, which demanded the disclosure of all records from the questioning of Vietnam War soldiers by the Korea Central Intelligence Agency (KCIA, the predecessor of the NIS) in connection with massacres at the villages of Phong Nhi and Phong Nhat.

On the second argument date on April 12 in a first-ever state compensation case filed against the South Korean government by survivor Nguyen Thi Thanh, judge Park Jin-su of the 68th civil division of the Seoul Central District Court accepted a request from the plaintiff’s legal team to submit a subpoena.

On this basis, the NIS and Ministry of National Defense were asked to submit all related records. This marked the first time a court has demanded that an administrative institution submit all of its records concerning civilian massacres during the Vietnam War.

In its reply, the NIS maintained that “the list of records from the KCIA’s questioning of Choi Yeong-eon, Lee Sang-woo and Lee Gi-dong in connection with the incident that occurred in Vietnam’s Phong Nhi village in November 1969 has already been provided to Nguyen Thi Thanh’s legal team based on a judgment in an information disclosure case.”

It went on to state, “Please understand that we cannot provide additional information, as it has been deemed appropriate to process this based on the procedures established in the Official Information Disclosure Act.”

Analysts took this as a sign that the actual disclosure of records related to the civilian massacres is still a long way off. It means that acquiring the records would inevitably require another information disclosure request and the ensuing long legal battle.

It took three years and eight months for Nguyen’s legal team to receive a list of documents from the NIS based on a final Supreme Court ruling. The list in question amounted to just three names and locations: “Choi Yeong-eon, Busan; Lee Sang-woo, Gangwon; Lee Gi-dong, Seoul.”

Im Jae-seong, an attorney with Nguyen’s legal team, first submitted an information disclosure request to the NIS in August 2017 to demand the release of a “list of documents, including the examination record and report from the KCIA’s questioning of three platoon leaders affiliated with the 1st company of the Blue Dragon Unit’s 1st battalion in November 1969.”

After the request was refused, Im filed two subsequent suits to have the non-disclosure decision overturned.

“The reply stated the list of records in question has already been provided to the relevant party based on a legal judgment, and that additional information would have to be handled based on the procedures prescribed by the law,” an NIS official said.

The official added that the NIS “intends to respond faithfully on the corresponding issue based on the relevant laws and court judgments.”

Nguyen’s representatives questioned why the NIS, a state institution, was concealing information that would allow the truth to be determined.

“To insist that an individual would need to file an information disclosure request in response to a court’s fact inquiry request is not a proper answer, and even if an information disclosure request is fired, [the NIS] is very likely to simply drag things out like it did with the ‘list episode,’” the representatives said.

The Phong Nhi/Phong Nhat massacre was an incident in February 1968 in which members of the Blue Dragons, a unit with the South Korean Marines, killed around 70 residents of the village of Phong Nhi in the Dien Ban District of Vietnam’s Quang Nam Province.

Nguyen Thi Thanh, who was eight at the time, suffered severe injuries when she was struck in her left side by ammunition fired by soldiers with the 1st company of the Blue Dragons’ 1st battalion. While she underwent a life-saving operation at the time, she still suffers from the aftereffects.

Nguyen lost five of her family members in the massacre, while her 14-year-old brother was severely wounded.

By Joh Yun-yeong, staff reporter

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