KOREA: Ex-leader Park on list of 3,000 Japan collaborators

Institute for Research into Collaborationist Activities releases list of former Japanese collaborators, including political and media leaders

The Korea Herald
Tuesday, August 30, 2005

By Jin Hyun-joo

Seoul -- A civic organization yesterday disclosed a list of 3094 Koreans who they claimed collaborated with the Japanese authorities during Japan's 1905-1945 colonial rule of Korea. Those named include former president Park Chung-hee and the former heads of major conservative newspapers.

This is the first time a full list of pro-Japanese collaborators has been collated since Korea was liberated from Japan on Aug. 15 in 1945. But, the disclosure is likely to spur controversy over the standards by which the collaborators were selected and could result in those accused filing lawsuits against The Institute for Research into Collaborationist Activities who researched and disclosed the list.

After a five-year-long study conducted by about 100 professors and researchers, the Institute disclosed the names of pro-Japan collaborators on Aug. 29 - the date when the Korean peninsula became a Japanese colony in 1910.

The non-profit organization defined pro-Japan collaborators as those who cooperated when Japan invaded Korea, aided their colonial rule and fought in imperial wars waged during 1905-1945 that inflicted damages on Koreans and other ethnic groups.

The Korean collaborators were put into 13 categories, including traitors, judges and prosecutors, police officers, media people, religious leaders and artists.

They include Park Chung-hee, the former Korean president, Kim Song-su, a former publisher of Donga Ilbo and the founder of Korea University and Bang Eung-mo, a former president of Chosun Ilbo.

The Institute for Research into Collaborationist Activities said it will release a second list of pro-Japan collaborators next year and publish an encyclopedia of collaborators by 2007.

The list is likely to be politically exploitated since it includes some high-profile politicians who are descendents of the alleged collaborators. Park Geun-hye, head of the major opposition Grand National Party, is the daughter of Park Chung-hee who held the rank of second lieutenant in the Japanese Army during the early 1940s.

The GNP said there are both merits and demerits in Park Chung-hee's work and it is up to people to make a judgement about those, not a civic organization.

The ruling Uri Party and the minor opposition Democratic Labor Party welcomed the move, saying it can help the nation wipe its slate clean and discover the truth concerning collaborator issue.

The legislation to review and rectify controversial accounts of the nation's modern history is one of the four reform bills the ruling party put forward last September.

As part of efforts to have a correct understanding of Korea's modern history, a group of lawmakers from ruling and opposition parties on Sunday proposed a bill requiring the government to designate Aug. 29 - when imperial Japan enforced an annexation treaty with Korea in 1905 - as a national holiday.

Date Posted: 8/30/2005