[KS] Korean War atrocities

[Brother Anthony]

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The atrocities did not begin with the outbreak of the war. There were a considerable number of terrible massacres in the years preceding. Sometimes people speak as if the Cheju Island massacres were an exceptional event. they were not, of course. The massacres in villages around Jiri-san suspected of helping partisans are known to some, but there were many incidents in other places that have remained completely unknown. Here too, 4.19 saw the beginnings of a healing process that was totally stopped and even reversed after 5.16, when sometimes the very tombs of victims whose remains had been recovered by families in the preceding months were obliterated. There was a very powerful programme aired on KBS in 2003 about that, in the 'human history'  series (Inmul hyondaesa) which is archived at 
http://www.kbs.co.kr/1tv/sisa/manhistory/vod/1264317_968.html
 where a few very old members of the victims' families dared to speak out, some stressing that even now the younger members of their families wanted them to stay silent. Many of the early programs in that series were very powerful, before it grew tame  with a change of personnel. The full list of programmes is at 
http://www.kbs.co.kr/1tv/sisa/manhistory/vod/vod.html
  with the programs listed in reverse order.
It is certainly to be hoped that the truth can be spoken and some justice rendered before it is too late. Particularly terrible in that program was the fact that the families of those killed often know where the bodies were dumped, on hillsides or in caves, but are still (or were still in 2003) prevented from giving them proper burial.
Brother Anthony
Sogang University, Seoul
http://hompi.sogang.ac.kr/anthony/

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