Kwangbok Hoi Will Not Take Responsibility

The Meeting to Reestablish the National Spirit` (RNS, Chairperson Rep. Kim Hee-Sun) participated by 29 lawmakers from the ruling and opposition parties released 708 names of the traitors at the press conference in the National Assembly yesterday.

The list of the traitors includes `Eulsa 5 Traitors` including Lee Wan-Yong, who actively worked for the annexation of Korea to Japan, `Jeongmi 7 traitors,` the participants in the Jungchuwon, people who were raised to the peerage by Japan, governors, pro-Japanese activists, judges, and detectives.

In addition to 692 names that RNS received from Kwangbok Hoi, RNS added 16 names out of 17 names that were not decided whether to include in the list by Kwangbok Hoi after serious debates about whether to include the names.

Yoon Kyong-Bin, the Chairperson of Kwangbok Hoi, said that “Kwangbok Hoi will not take responsibility for the names added by the lawmakers except for the original 692 names on the list.”

Rep. Seo Sang-Sup, chairperson of the deliberation committee, explained that “there were minor opinions that the contributions in various ways after the liberation of the country and the partial contributions for the liberation under the Japanese Imperialism of those 16 people must be acknowledged.”

Prof. Shin Yong-Ha (Seoul National University), who participated in the deliberation of Kwangbok Hoi, commented that “the 17 names were excluded from the list due to the inner controversies. I have no idea what criteria the lawmakers applied to include them on the list.”

It is also pointed out that the deliberation was not carried out thoroughly by careless scanning of the material to release the list on March 1st. The meeting revealed that it decided the list by the criteria of the Traitorous Activities Punishment Law legislated in 1948 but the list includes some people who are excluded by the Special Committee For Traitorous Activities Punishment.

The meeting explained that “we acknowledge that the deliberation was not carried out thoroughly by the tight schedule. This is the first announcement and more thorough discussions will be followed after the legislation of `the law to find out the pro-Japanese activities under the Japanese Imperialism.”

The controversial figures are Kim Hwallan, Mo Yoon-Suk from the womanist circle, Kim Eun-Ho, Hyun Jae-Myong, Hong Nan-Pa of the Culture and Art circle, Kim Seung-Soo, Bang Eung-Mo of the press, who actively participated in the reconstruction of the Korean society after the liberation.

Jong-Koo Yoon jkmas@donga.com