On April 28, 2016, the Supreme Court reached a verdict on the English translation of Truth and Reconciliation, a summary report of the TRCK’s cases. Having took six years to reach this verdict, the question arises as to why the Supreme Court struggled to reach such a decision?
The essence of this verdict is not about the English translation, but rather it revolves around the historical definition of the Gwangju Democratization Movement, also known as the Gwangju Massacres. The official terminology of this event represents the primary struggle that led to a prolonged court battle. It also reveals a great irony: Despite being established to uncover and verify the truth of historical events; it was within the TRCK itself that employees filed a lawsuit to verify the truth.
This verdict was a victory for the plaintiff, Dr. Kim Sungsoo, against Lee Youngjo, the head of the TRCK. The Court found that Lee attempted to distort the facts by banning the book and claiming that the quality of the translation was insufficient. However, Kim, who translated and oversaw the editing of the English report, disputed this.
Photo: Dr. Kim Sungsoo during a demonstration against the government’s involvement in the presidential election in 2012.
TRC publishes the English Report In 2005, the TRCK was established to uncover and reveal past wrongdoings and government abuses in the Republic of Korea. Although the first two presidents of the TRCK accomplished this mission while in office, this changed in December 2009 when the third term president, Lee Youngjo, was inaugurated under the Lee Myungbak presidential administration. Lee has been a leader of a far right-wing group that has campaigned against the Student Rights Ordinance and actively suppressed civil rights and journalistic freedom. Lee and his group have also claimed that the current South Korean history text books are distorted by radical leftist academics, and therefore, must be amended by the government to reflect a viewpoint that is more aligned with the right-wing parties.
As soon as Lee was inaugurated as the third term president of the TRCK, he banned the English Report, Truth and Reconciliation. This report was produced by Lee’s predecessor, Ahn Byungook, who is considered a liberal historian.
Lee claimed that “the English level of the report is terrible with lots of grammatical errors, as well as many syntax mistakes with awkward sentences and ｅxpressions.” Dr. Kim protested against Lee’s banning of the English report and demanded that Lee specify exactly which parts in English were ‘terrible with lots of mistakes’. However, Lee could not support any such claims.
The Supreme Court issued a verdict, saying that there were “no errors or mistakes in the English translation”
Due to his resistance and protest against the banning of the report, Kim was demoted and in April 2010, Lee dismissed him, claiming Kim’s contract had expired. In May 2010, Kim, another translator and a proofreader jointly filed a lawsuit for defamation against Lee for KRW 20 million respectively. Six years later, the Supreme Court reached its verdict, saying that there were “no errors or mistakes in the English translation.”
Kim said that “Lee could not produce any evidence of what he said in court. During the trial he even denied what he said. He totally denied that he ever said the English was terrible when interviewed by the media. So when I asked him ‘If that’s the case and you didn’t say any such thing, then why didn’t you ask the journalist to correct this?’ Lee just kept silence in the court.”
In fact, the hidden truth of this trial is that it’s not about the English translation but rather it’s about the historical truth. Kim said “the banned book contains a section titled, ‘The Historical Background of Korea‘s Past Settlement’ which was written by Lee’s predecessor, Ahn Byungook. In that section, Ahn describes the Japanese colonial period and South Korea’s dictatorship as ‘oppressive history’. He also praises the democratization movement, and Lee did not agree with Ahn’s views.”
On November 5, 2010, at an international symposium in the United States, Lee presented a paper, Commissioning the Past: South Korean Efforts at Truth and Justice after Democratization. In this paper, Lee did not use the South Korean government’s official terminology of the “Gwangju Democratization Movement”. Instead he said “a popular revolt that broke out in Gwangju”. He also avoided the official government terminology of the Jeju April 3rd Uprising; instead, he called it “a communist-led
rebellion that broke out in Jeju”. Lee’s terminology was only used by far right-wing groups or fascist groups in the Republic of Korea. This is also the likely reason for Lee to deliver his paper in English only rather than in Korean as well.
Kim discovered this and received a media award for writing a news article on the incident. In the article, Kim writes, “In a democratic society, academics may express their historical views freely. However, when Lee presented such a paper, his position was not as an academic, but as a public official who was representing the TRCK. What is more, the TRCK is an organization that is more concerned about the position of the victims than the perpetrators. In view of this, Lee is not qualified to be a minister-level public official.”
Photo: A Biography of Ham Sok Hon by Dr. Kim
Q: What is the overall historical view of Lee Youngjo?“Lee’s views on the first truth commission in the ROK is very different from Ahn’s, his predecessor. In Truth and Reconciliation, Ahn stated that ‘The Syngman Rhee government had a policy of re-hiring officials who previously worked with the Japanese colonial government. In order to strengthen their political position in Korea, the Rhee government employed pro-Japanese officials rather than punishing them for their pastwrong-doings. As a result, the first truth commission’s activities were hindered, and they were eventually disbanded by the Rhee government. This allowed bureaucrats, police officers, and military officials who cooperated with the Japanese colonial government to maintain their power and influence during the Rhee government, as well as through subsequent military regimes.
However, unlike Ahn, Lee argued that ‘Some scholars are inclined to view the collapse of the first truth commission as an outcome of collusion and conspiracy among Rhee and his collaborators. However, considering his life-long career as an independence movement leader, his staunch anti-Japanese views, and his personal disdain of pro-Japanese collaborators, Rhee’s refusal to endorse the first truth commission appears to result more from the need for nation building than from any conspiracies. Rhee must have found building the state and protecting it from the communists more urgent than purging un-Korean activities.’ Between Ahn and Lee, which view is more close to the historical truth?”
Q: The TRCK was established to uncover and verify the truth for the victims rather than for the perpetrators, was it not?“Yes it was. However, Lee insulted the victims’ loss and bereavement when he advocated for the perpetrators. As a result, on July 23, 2010, the Families of Korean War Massacres Victims made the following announcement: ‘The former head of the TRCK, Ahn, stated that ‘while the US Air Force (USAF) bombings could have been a necessary action, it bombed innocent South Korean civilians without any safety measures and this is a violation of international humanitarian law, as well as a war crime.’
However, regarding the same matter, Lee stated that ‘the USAF bombings of South Korean civilians is not a legal problem as it was a necessary part of military strategy, and there is no proof that the USAF bombed South Korean civilians deliberately.’
The victims’ families issued a statement denouncing Lee’s comments, ‘If your parents and all of your family members were killed by USAF bombings, would you still say such a thing?’”
Q: The TRCK closed at the end 2010 and produced the final report. Does the final report reflect Lee’s views?“Yes. Therefore, the investigators of the TRCK publically announced that they cannot acknowledge Lee’s TRCK final report, and they wrote The Investigators’ White Paper. Portions of this report were published in OhmyNews as a series of articles. In these articles, the investigators stated that ‘truth is not the victor’s spoils.’”
The court battle was not an easy legal battle since it was between a minister-level official and a regular employee. This case also affected other parties. The public prosecutor prosecuted Kim’s lawyer, claiming that the prolonged trials and the fact that Kim’s lawyer was a former TRCK commissioner represented “conflicts of interest”. As a result, Kim’s lawyer was imprisoned for ten months. Kim said that “this could be the reason why only one American, among the three Americans who proofread the book, decided to participate in the lawsuit against Lee. It was sad to hear the non-participating members say that they could not participate for fear of potential retaliation from Lee and the government.“ During the 2012 general elections, Lee attempted to ran for a seat in the National Assembly for the ruling party (although he’d eventually lose the chance due to Kim’s the above news article). Recently, he has joined the camp of a conservative presidential candidate.
Sungsoo Kim was born in 1960 in Seoul, South Korea. He graduated from the Korean National Railway College and worked as a civil servant. In 1979, Kim met Ham Sok Hon (1901-1989), who heavily influenced him. Called the ‘Korean Gandhi’, Ham was a Quaker and independent movement activist during the Japanese colonial period. He eventually became a civil rights activist during the military dictatorships.
Photos: Dr. Kim and his family having lunch with Prime Minister Han Myung-sook in 2007 (left). Dr. Kim and his family (right).
At 5:40 A.M. on February 4, 1989, Kim received a telephone call notifying him that Ham Sok Hon had passed away. Within an hour, he was at the hospital to view Ham’s body. When Kim saw Ham in the coffin, he felt a part of himself had died as well. With Ham’s death, Kim’s mind began to wander through a labyrinth of reflections: Ham’s life and death, as well as Kim’s own life. Three hours later, Kim gave his resignation letter to the Korean National Railway, where he had spent the last eight years.
Three and a half years later, as a history student, Kim wrote his undergraduate thesis, Sok Hon Ham and Democracy in Korea, at the University of Essex in Great Britain. In 1994, this was followed by his master’s thesis, Sok Hon Ham‘s Understanding of Taoism and Quakerism, at the same university. In 1998, he wrote his PhD thesis, The Life and Legacy of a Korean Quaker: Ham Sokhon, at the University of Sheffield.
In 2000, Kim returned to South Korea and published A Biography of Ham Sok Hon, both in Korean and in English. Shortly afterwards, he joined the Presidential Truth Commission on Suspicious Deaths, and later worked in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Republic of Korea (TRCK).
Like Ham and most Quakers, Kim is a man of integrity and authenticity. Kim confessed that Ham had inspired him to become a historian rather than a railway engineer; a latitudinarian rather than a fundamentalist, a humanist rather than an evangelical and a romantic rather than a puritan.
These were not the only ideals Kim learned. He also gained the courage to stand against an unjust regime. Throughout Ham’s entire life, he relentlessly fought against injustice, and it’s this that probably inspired Kim to follow a similar path. Kim said, “Ham Sok-hon once said, ’if you believe you are just, you must contend even with the absolute being, God.’ That is why I will take this case to the end until the truth is revealed.”
Kim now works and lives in the UK with his English wife and two children. His wife, Ann Elizabeth Kim, earned a BA and MA in Classical Greek and Latin Literature at Cambridge University. She also earned an MA in Japanese Literature from the University Sheffield. As the couple moved to Korea in 2000, she was unable to complete her PhD in Japanese Literature. Kim expressed appreciation for his wife’s support, “I am very grateful to my wife. She did not complain even when I lost my job at the TRCK.”
Despite the hardships he faced during his time at the TRCK, Kim said that “if South Korea establishes a new truth commission, I would like to work for it again.”
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