When Will Vietnamese Victims of South Korean Violence Get Justice?

The crimes of South Korean military personnel in Vietnam are well known to researchers, but they still remain unpunished. An attempt to achieve justice during the rule of the “democratic” President Moon Jae-in effectively led nowhere, but a new initiative under Lee Jae Myung may change the situation.

An artistic installation in the Vietnamese province of Phu Yen, where more than 1,800 civilians were killed by South Korean troops during the Vietnam War. Source: Hankyoreh

Let’s Recall the Facts

Thus, in February 1968, South Korean servicemen killed 74 civilians in the village of Phong Nhi – practically the entire population. In the village of Ha My, 130 Vietnamese were killed. As historian and journalist Oleg Kiryanov notes, these crimes were declassified in the United States as early as 2000. However, while the whole world knows about the American massacre at Song My (aka My Lai Massacre), these and other cases, including several villages, did not receive widespread publicity. In Phu Yen Province alone, more than 1,800 civilians died.

Even less is known about the mass rapes, some of which were spontaneous, and some carried out similarly to the Japanese “comfort stations” in Korea. According to some estimates, tens of thousands of Vietnamese women became victims of sexual violence. Children from these relations were subjected to serious discrimination, bullying, social isolation, and denied of access to education and other basic services.

For a long time, the government of the Republic of Korea refused to acknowledge the mass killings of Vietnamese civilians committed by its troops. Such incidents were explained either as the actions of Viet Cong insurgents dressed in Korean uniforms, or as mistakes by soldiers who mistook civilians for partisans. “Collateral damage” happens in any war. This approach dominated even during the rule of Park Geun-hye, when a representative of the Ministry of Defense stated that in Vietnam, there had been neither mass killings nor rapes, that Korean soldiers had fought against the communization of the South, and all accusations were enemy propaganda.

Even under President Moon Jae-in, policy on this issue did not change. During his visits to Vietnam, the........

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