“I Hate Communists!”; Remembering Lee Seung-bok

Today the 9th of December is the 38th anniversary of the 1968 death of a young Korean boy, Lee Seung-bok, who was murdered by North Korean commandos who had infiltrated into Gangwon province. On the night of December 9th the communists stormed into the small traditional home that the Lee family lived, in search of food and shelter. The family gave them what food they had and hoped that the commandos would soon leave.

However, things turned tragic when the communists asked the 7 year old Lee Seung-bok if he preferred North Korea or South Korea. The young boy said he liked South Korea. The commandos began to beat him, but he would not change his mind and before being killed he said the now famous line, “I hate Communists!” The North Korean commandos then proceeded to cut out the 10 year old boys mouth and then began to butcher the rest of the family after they tried to stop the killing of Lee Seung-bok.

In total the 7 year old Seung-bok, his 5 year old, brother Seung-su, his 2 year old sister Seung-ja, and his 31 year old mother Joo Dae-ha were killed by the communists and left to die outside. However, his older brother who was also stabbed and had his head smashed with a rock, did survive. Though seriously wounded he was able to stagger to the residence of his family’s closest neighbor once the commandos left and plead for help and warn others of the infiltrators. Also a family friend had arrived at the residence and was attacked by the North Koreans and stabbed in the leg but he was also able to escape and warn nearby ROK Army officials.

The now alerted neighbors immediately began to take up what crude weapons they had and began guard shifts to watch for the North Koreans until local authorities arrived. The ROK Army arrived and began to secure the area and search for the communist spies.  Unfortunately the murderers were never found and escaped, but the words of Lee Seung-bok served as a rallying cry in schools across Korea and continue to resonate to this day. However, these words resonate today not with an anti-communist message but as a myth created by the authoritarian government of then President Park Chung Hee.

So how did this change in perceptions occur? Of course by repeating a lie over and over again until people just assume it is true. This is propaganda 101 for every communist and that is exactly what they did in the Lee Seung-bok incident. Over the past 12 years so called “progressive groups” using names that actually sound legitimate, which in this case the pro-North Korean sympathizers called themselves the People’s Coalition for Media Reform, to disguise who they really are because they just can’t come out and say they are communists because then people would not take them seriously. This is the same tactic being used currently in the General MacArthur controversy raging in Inchon. Anyway this group accused the then Park Chung-hee government and the Chosun Ilbo newspaper reporters who covered the tragedy as fabricating the entire story and not even being at the scene.

This tactic of disinformation in the Lee Seung-bok case has been allowed to simmer in the Korean publics for over the last 12 years where now people take it to be the truth even though last year the Seoul District Court sentenced the leaders of the People’s Coalition for Media Reform to jail terms for fabrication and libel, but the damage has already been done in the publics’s perception of this incident.

It is amazing to me that such blatant disinformation about the incident would be allowed to simmer for this long even though there are numerous eyewitnesses including Lee Seung-bok’s own brother who survived the massacre who verify the accounts of what happened that night. The only reason I can see that this disinformation has been allowed to simmer in the public’s imagination for so long is because more liberal governments who have come to power in South Korea over the last 12 years have been eager to defame the former President Park Chung-hee who still holds a positive image with many South Koreans for turning the country from one of the world’s poorest countries and into an economic power house. There is also the dual reason of appeasing the North Koreans as well in the name of the “Sunshine Policy” even if it means destroying the image and sacrifice of this young boy.

If you want to see for yourself the story of Lee Seung-bok, I encourage you to check out the Lee Seung-bok memorial located near the Soksa interchange on Interstate 50. Just exit off of Interstate 50 on the interchange and head North for about 10 minutes on highway 31 until you see the memorial located to your right. The memorial is quite large and with a huge parking lot, so you can’t miss it.

The memorial is located near where the incident actually happened and includes an accurate replica of Lee Seung-bok’s home, his grave site, a military static display, a park, and a museum with a theater that depicts all the details of the Lee Seung-bok tragedy. The video they play in the theater can also be viewed online by clicking here. I checked the memorial out as part of a side trip while traveling to Odaesan National Park. The memorial is an interesting excursion if you are in the area and the ride up highway 31 features some really gorgeous Gangwon-do mountain scenery.