Government to Search for Leftist Independence Activists to Honor

The Ministry of Patriots and Veterans Affairs set out to discover leftist independence movement activists and re-evaluate their public achievements on August 26. This is in response to the remark by President Roh Moo-hyun mentioning the need for restoring the honor of leftist independence movement activists on August 25.

The ministry first will form an “Independence Movement Case Finding and Analysis Group” within this year and discover as yet unknown leftist independence movement activists.

Also, the group will perform a re-evaluation process of already discovered leftist activists’ public achievements, setting ideology aside as much as possible.

Therefore, Mongyang Yeo Woon-hyung (1886-1947) and Yoojung Cho Dong-ho (1892-1954), who have not been acknowledged so far as national men of merit because of their communist activities, will be acknowledged for their public achievements as representatives of the government in exile and for leading the Feb. 2nd independence proclamation.

However, the ministry says that they will not change their existing rule of evaluating public achievements that exclude people who have worked in establishing and developing the North Korean regime from designating them as men of merit.

A related official at the ministry said, “Decorations will be conferred to independence activists like Ahn Jae-hong, who turned to North Korea, and Lee Dong-hui, who founded the Goryeo Communist Party,” adding, “It is of more importance to collect related documents as much as possible and analyze them from an objective point of view rather than to change the rules of evaluation.”

Ho-Won Choi bestiger@donga.com