Nguyen Thi Thanh’s mother was out picking vegetables when South Korean soldiers broke into her house and opened fire, killing two of her children. Eight-year-old Thi Thanh was hit but escaped before the soldiers burned down the house. She later found her mother in a pile of dead bodies in a field. Now in her sixties, Thi Thanh has filed a lawsuit against the South Korean government, demanding compensation and an apology for the massacre that happened that day in Phong Nhi village.

On 12 October 2020, Seoul Central District Court held its first hearing of Thi Thanh’s case. The case has been more than twenty years in the making and may lead to official recognition of war crimes committed by South Korean soldiers during the Vietnam War.

THE KOREA-VIETNAM PEACE FOUNDATION 

In the late 1990s, Ku Su-jeong was studying for her PhD in Vietnamese history when she was handed a document by a Vietnamese official. The document, which came from the Political Bureau of the Vietnamese army, described the indiscriminate killing of civilians by South Korean soldiers serving in Vietnam. Su-jeong decided to travel to the sites of the alleged killings to investigate. There, she discovered gravestones of thousands of civilians and spoke with locals who witnessed the killings, like Thi Thanh.

When South Korean newspaper Hankyoreh published Su-jeong’s findings, there was outrage. South Korean veterans trashed the newspaper’s headquarters. Su-jeong’s home was vandalised. The issue became political when in 2001 liberal President Kim Dae-jung apologised for South Korea’s role in the Vietnam War, although he stopped short of acknowledging war crimes. Conservative Park Geun-hye, a future president herself, lambasted Kim for driving "a stake through the honor of South Korea".

Su-jeong did not give up. She started a campaign called "Sorry Vietnam" (now the Korea-Vietnam Peace Foundation), calling on the South Korean government to compensate victims. And she began encouraging ordinary South Koreans to take “peace tours” of Vietnam and speak with victims as she had done.

STRATEGIC LITIGATION 

In July 2015, three lawyers from Minbyun—an elite group of human rights lawyers, who boast President Moon among their alumni—were on the final day of their own peace tour. Park Jin-seok, Im Jae-seong, and Kim Nam-ju were visiting a memorial in the village of Phong Nhi when they met Thi Thanh. Four months earlier, she had made headlines as the first victim to visit South Korea when she attended events to mark the 40th anniversary of the Vietnam War’s end. Word had spread that the lawyers were thinking of filing a lawsuit against the South Korean government, and Thi Thanh was the only victim who agreed to meet them. When they met, the lawyers asked Thi Thanh—“what can we do?”

After talking with Thi Thanh, Jin-seok, Jae-seong, and Nam-ju decided to gather testimonies from other surviving victims and explore whether a lawsuit to obtain compensation from the South Korean state was possible. The three also decided to draft legislation requiring the government to investigate potential war crimes by South Korean soldiers. With fellow lawyers from Minbyun and assistance from Su-jeong’s Peace Foundation, they prepared for the lawsuit by establishing a “people’s tribunal” to run a mock trial. The People’s Tribunal on War Crimes Committed by South Korean Troops during the Vietnam War was presided over by three judges: Kim Young-ran, a former Supreme Court Justice, Yang Hyunah, a former prosecutor of the North-South Korea joint team at the International Women’s Tribunal, and Lee Seog-tae, a Justice of the Constitutional Court. The Tribunal held mock hearings in April 2019 and found in favour of Thi Thanh and her fellow plaintiff. The Tribunal awarded her compensation and ordered the South Korean government to investigate potential war crimes between 1964 and 1973.

The same month, Thi Thanh and 102 other victims submitted a petition demanding an investigation into civilian massacres, a formal apology, and compensation. The Ministry of National Defence did not respond until 9 September 2019 when it blandly stated that it had no evidence of any wrongdoing by South Korean soldiers. Buoyed by the success of the People’s Tribunal and with no prospect of engaging the government otherwise, Thi Thanh and Minbyun decided to file for real on 21 April 2020.

South Korea has struggled to confront the crimes committed during military rule, which ended in 1993. Many prominent South Korean politicians and business leaders prospered under the regime and have been reluctant to see investigations into the murky past. It is, therefore, no surprise that there is a reluctance to acknowledge or explore the possibility that crimes were committed by South Korean soldiers abroad as well as at home. Many South Koreans also remain fiercely proud of the country’s involvement in the Vietnam War as part of its struggle against communism.

However, South Korea has repeatedly condemned Japan for not atoning for its war crimes perpetrated against Koreans during World War 2, including forced labour and sex slavery. South Korea’s failure to confront its own war crimes has led to accusations of hypocrisy. The government should remember how much it wants justice for Koreans before it denies it to Vietnamese like Thi Thanh.

The hearing continues.

Samuel is a trainee solicitor and postgraduate at Cardiff University. He is active in several U.K.-based organisations campaigning on behalf of Hong Kong and BNOs. His research interests include transitional justice and the rule of law.

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