It is interesting that the ROK government is using the same argument that the Japanese have been using to deny paying reparations to individual Koreans for World War II era atrocities, that a post-war agreement between the ROK, the US and Vietnam nullified these claims:
Nguyen Thi Thanh expresses her feelings through a video chat after the Central District Court orders the Korean government to pay approximately 3 million won and losses incurred by the delay to her, Tuesday. Newsis
A district court has ruled in favor of a Vietnamese national who filed a lawsuit against the Korean government for the 1968 atrocities committed by Korean troops against Vietnamese civilians during the Vietnam War.
It is the first time that a Korean court ruled against the Korean government regarding the atrocities committed by the ROK Marine Corps.
On Tuesday, the Central District Court ordered the Korean government to pay approximately 3 million won and losses incurred by the delay.
“(Then) the soldiers of the 2nd Korean Marine Brigade entered the plaintiff’s house and threatened the family members at gunpoint to force them outside. And then they fired at them. The court acknowledges that the family members of the plaintiff were killed on the spot and the plaintiff was seriously wounded as a consequence,” the ruling reads. “This is obviously illegal.”
The court denied the Korean government’s claim that a Vietnamese national cannot file a lawsuit against the Korean government as stated in the military accord signed among Korea, the United States and Vietnam, saying that the agreement signed by military authorities and government institutions itself didn’t make Vietnamese civilians ineligible to seek compensation from the Korean government.
You can read more at the link, but considering what is alleged to have happened the compensation is very low:
Nguyen Thi Thanh, 62, filed a compensation suit against the Korean government in 2020. As a victim of a wartime massacre by Korean marines, she has sought an apology from the Korean government along with 3,000,100 won ($2393) in compensation ― the minimum amount required for a court ruling.
The troops in question were from the 2nd Marine Division, also known as Blue Dragon Division. They allegedly killed 74 unarmed civilians in the villages of Phong Nhi and Phong Nhat of Qu?ng Nam Province in Vietnam, where Nguyen lived, on Feb. 12, 1968.
“Korean soldiers shouted and threatened families with grenades to come outside,” Nguyen said at the Seoul Central District Court, last August. She is the first Vietnamese to testify about the atrocities before a Korean court.
Maybe the Vietnamese should put statues up in front of the ROK embassy protesting South Korean killing of civilians during the Vietnam War like they Koreans have done with a comfort woman statue in front of the Japanese embassy:
Nguyen Titan, a Vietnamese victim of a massacre during the Vietnam War, speaks during a press conference at the National Assembly in Seoul on April 19, 2018. (Yonhap)
Two Vietnamese victims of South Korea’s wartime misdeeds have called on the Seoul government to apologize and take steps to verify the truth behind the alleged mass killings during the 1960-75 war in their country.
They claimed that they are still haunted by the harrowing memories of their families being killed by South Korean troops deployed to fight in support of the United States during the Vietnam War.
They came here to testify before the “People’s Tribunal” slated to convene in Seoul on Saturday and Sunday. The tribunal, a mock trial designed to look into the incidents, is led by the local progressive civic group, called MINBYUN-Lawyers for a Democratic Society.
“I want to ask … Why did South Korean troops fire guns and threw grenades at our family, then just women and children. Why did you set even our house on fire and bulldozed through dead bodies,” Nguyen Titan, a 58-year-old woman, said during a press conference at the National Assembly. [Yonhap]
You can read more at the link, but the Minbyun group of lawyers are hard core leftists. In the past they have attacked the USFK base relocation, tried to bring back the US beef issue, and tried to have North Korean defectors forcibly returned to North Korea. So why would hard core leftists be bringing up this issue now with a left wing government in power? They are likely going to use this issue to attack and blame conservative ROK politicians for since former South Korean strongman Park Chung-hee was in power at the time.
Maybe Mike Honda can put a Vietnamese comfort women statue next to the Korean one that was put up in San Francisco:
But for a significant number of children fathered as a result of rape by South Korean soldiers, it was the start of a living hell.
Mr Nhat recalled: “Before April 1975, I had been treated well by the South Korean troops who lived on the base near my home in Phu Yen Province, central Vietnam. I was still too young to have any real sense of my identity and hadn’t yet questioned my mother about why I looked different to other Vietnamese children.
“But when the Communists declared victory, everything changed for me. Suddenly, I knew I was dangerously different.”
A period of painful bullying ensued in school. Mr Nhat said: “I was bullied repeatedly. The other children kept asking who my father was and called him a ‘dog’. I just kept suffering in silence.
“I was 18 when my mother finally sat me down and told me she had been raped by Korean soldiers – not once but three times. My two sisters are also mixed blood or Lai Dai Han as we are known in Vietnam.” (…..)
South Korean troops were not alone in their exploitation of civilian women but their country has never acknowledged the allegations or taken steps to investigate. (…..)
Mrs Ngai felt confused in the fog of war but now she is very clear about what she wants now. “I think the South Korean government should apologise for everything they did to women in Vietnam. [The Independent]
In the first Korean court ruling on compensation for illnesses triggered by the use of Agent Orange, a defoliant, during the Vietnam War, the Seoul High Court said yesterday that the U.S. chemical companies Dow Chemical and Monsanto must pay 6,795 Korean veterans a total of 63 billion won ($63 million).
“There is a high possibility that the plaintiffs, who were in Vietnam between 1965 and 1973, were exposed to the toxic chemical,” the court said. “We acknowledged the need for compensation for those who suffered 11 diseases that are the aftermath of exposure to Agent Orange, such as lymphatic gland cancer and larynx cancer.”
I think it is a good thing that these veterans won this lawsuit because it is pretty well documented the affects Agent Orange has had on Vietnam War veterans. A little known fact outside of Korea, is the fact that Korea had 47,682 soldiers fighting in Vietnam at the height of the war in 1968, at the US’s request and over 5,000 Korean soldiers were killed in the jungles there.
I have talked to many Korean Vietnam War veterans and every single one of them felt like they had been spurned and forgotten by the general Korean public. The US government at least should not forget about these veterans and help them get their compensation from the specified companies.
It will be interesting to see if President Roh will do anything as well to help these veterans. Remember this is the same guy that will not attend a memorial ceremony for six South Korean sailors murdered during a coordinated North Korean attack. With this in mind why would President Roh care about some old, sick Korean Vietnam War veterans?
Korean president Park Chung-hee in the later 1960s proposed a regional defense body with Japan and Taiwan to combat the spread of communism, newly declassified documents reveal. The dossier related to the Vietnam War made public on Friday also shatters persistent myths by showing that Korean soldiers who fought in the war were paid the same as their Thai and Filipino counterparts, and that the money did go to the soldiers and was not used by the state to boost Korea’s economic development, as some have charged.
It shouldn’t be a huge shock that President Park was trying to create a regional defense body with Japan and Taiwan at the time because it was the height of the Cold War and South Korea wasn’t nearly as strong national power as they are now. The ROK Army soldiers I have met who fought in the Vietnam War always felt unappreciated by Korea and dismissed as mercenaries for Washington. The fact that they were receiving their combat pay will probably only reenforce that stereotype, but those ROK Army soldiers that fought in Vietnam should be looked at no differently than the foreign troops that came to Korea’s aid when communist aggression threatened to take over the country. All the soldiers that served in both Korea and Vietnam are heroes and shouldn’t be dismissed or forgotten.
