Former president among names in dictionary of Japanese collaborators.

The books laid open on the graves of Korean patriots on November 8th, from OhMyNews.

As part of a mission to "reveal the truth" about Koreans' collaboration with the Japanese during the 1910-1945 occupation, the Institute for Research on Collaborationist Activists released a dictionary (친일인명사전) of Japanese collaborators today:

The late former President Park Chung-hee, father of Park Geun-hye, the former leader of the governing Grand National Party, is included on a list of 4,389 collaborators during Japanese colonial rule (1910-1945).

The Dictionary of Collaborators also lists first Prime Minister Jang Myun, renowned dancer Choi Seung-hee and composer of the national anthem, Ahn Eak-tai. Jang Ji-yeon, an opinion leader, who was noted for his poem against Japan's absorption of Korea, is also included for acting as an active supporter late into the Japanese occupation.

The list, released by the Institute for Research on Collaborationist Activists, dropped former Prime Minister Shin Hyon-hwak, who contributed greatly to the nation's industrialization, and two others after a review following requests by their families.

Park, who was in power for 18 years after his 1961 coup, was blacklisted for his pledge of allegiance to Imperial Japan and its army in 1939.

He made the pledge, written in blood, "I am both physically and spiritually ready to be a Japanese subject and am willing to give my life for the emperor." The pledge was made as a self-recommendation to the Japanese Army.

Yonhap says it's a three-volume, 3,000 page collection.

Wikipedia has a short article on Japanese collaborators, or 친일파. One of the more surprising actions Korea has taken against those it considers collaborators is seizing property of their descendants. From a 2007 Korea Times article:

A presidential agency Monday decided to confiscate land that is now owned by the descendants of 10 pro-Japan collaborators during the colonial period (1910-1945).

It was the second step after the agency decided to seize the property of the offspring of another nine pro-Japan collaborators last May.

The Investigative Commission on Pro-Japanese Collaborators' Property has conducted the confiscation as part of the efforts to clear away the colonial-era legacy.

The commission will seize about one million square meters of land by the 10 collaborators, which is valued at 25.7 billion won.

The 10 Japanese collaborators include Min Young-hui, who received peerage from the Japanese government for his collaboration, and Lee Jae-gon, a leading figure in Jeongmi Treaty, which led to the disbandment of the country’s army.

Other collaborators are Min Byeong-seok, Min Sang-ho, Park Jung-yang, Yoon Deok-young, Lee Geun-sang, Lee Guen-ho, Lim Seon-jun and Hang Chang-su.

The confiscation is possible due to the National Assembly's enactment of a special law in December 2005.

The law allows the agency to seize property assets that pro-Japan collaborators obtained between 1904 and Aug. 15 in 1945 for their cooperation with Japan. Property that any third party obtained later without knowing the fact was excluded.

In the first decision last May, the commission announced that the government would seize 254,906 square meters of land owned by the family of the nine major collaborators including Lee Wan-yong, the Joseon Kingdom minister who helped Japan's colonization. The total land was valued at 3.6 billion won.

The government planned to turn around and sell the land the next year:

The government plans to sell over 12 billion won ($12 million) worth of land seized from the families of Koreans who collaborated with the Japanese colonial government in early 20th century, officials said Saturday (Mar. 29).

The money generated from the sale will be used to finance the government's new scholarship and pension programs for the descendants of anti-Japanese independence fighters, officials from the Patriots and Veterans Affairs Agency said in a policy report to President Lee Myung-bak.

The Marmot's Hole had a couple of posts---here and here---on the seizures from a few years ago. Though the links to the articles in the papers are dead---you can find some on the Herald site with some creative searching---the comments are interesting to revisit.

This intersects with lingering anti-Japanese sentiment, of course, but this isn't really that unusual a process, considering even in post-war South Korea many administrations have sought to punish the previous ones. That's touched upon in a Michael Breen Korea Times column from May, 2007:

There is a basic moral issue here and it may not be the one that people think it is.

Clearly, the panel feel themselves to be ruling from a moral high place. They are vicars in the high church of nationalism. Not only are they clearing the legacy of the Japanese period, but also, by doing so, they are highlighting the nationalistic shortcomings of all previous governments, which failed to do so.

``The confiscation has been made 58 years after a special committee to clear off remnants of Japanese colonization failed in 1949,’’ an unnamed panel member said in a story in this newspaper yesterday. The implication is, of course, that because then-President Syngman Rhee back-pedaled on punishment because he wanted to harness the administrative talents of collaborators, he was morally tainted. He should have purged even if it meant leaving only bumpkins to run the country. Bespectacled intellectuals like it that way, which is why they are so scary when they have political power.

The only other time I've written about Korea's Japanese collaborators was in December, 2007, when I looked a little at Lee Hak-rae, a Boseong county native. He signed up to be a prison guard in POW camps in Southeast Asia. In 1947 he was sentenced to death by an Australian tribunal for his mistreatment of Allied prisoners of war, chiefly his role in the Burma Railway, a forced labor campaign that claimed the lives of roughly 116,000 people, according to Wikipedia. His sentence was later commuted to 20 years hard labor, and he ended up serving only 9. Lee, along with other ex-collaborators, has been fighting for compensation from the Japanese government because they believe they were forced into serving the war effort. His point is, according to a 2007 Japan Times article:

When Japan signed the 1952 San Francisco Peace Treaty, restoring its sovereignty, Koreans were stripped of the Japanese citizenship they had been forced to adopt during Japan's colonial rule.

"Japan forced Koreans to participate in the war (as Japanese) but then refused to pay us compensation because (we were suddenly no longer Japanese citizens). That's irrational," said Lee, who now runs a taxi company in Tokyo. "The government's attitude is unforgivable."

Of course, many of the collaborators in the dictionary could be absolved by the same rationale, since Korea didn't exist as an independent entity, and the so-called traitors are considered working counter to something that didn't exist.

What's really interesting, though, is that in 2006 a Korean "Truth and Reconciliation Commission" cleared 83 of 148 of the Koreans convicted by the Allies of war crimes, and ruled them not responsible for their actions and wrong-doings. From The Marmot's Hole:

The commission ruled—now get this—that the Korean war criminals, who “unavoidably” became POW camp guards to avoid the Japanese draft (read: they volunteered as POW guards to avoid fighting at the front), were saddled by the Japanese with responsibility for the abuse of Allied POWs, and hence had to suffer the “double pain” of forced mobilization AND becoming a war criminal.

It gets better—the head of the commission said analysis of military prosecutor records, recently obtained from British state archives, on 15 Korean POW camp guards “confirmed” that they were convicted of war crimes “without clear evidence.”

I take issue with using the term "war crimes," considering war itself ought to be a crime, and is carried out by young men of all nationalities pressed into service largely against their will. However, it is remarkable that while a 3,000-page tome on collaborators is released, and their property confiscated and resold, many of the Koreans actually convicted of war crimes while serving in the Japanese army are absolved. Indeed, here's something written by respected blogger Oranckay said back in 2006, on a post to a blog that no longer exists:

What annoys me is that one hears sympathy for men who would be called collaborators if they had been working in prisons that held fellow Koreans during colonial rule. Their prisoners were (largely) white, however, so they are afforded as much understanding as possible. And they get to be called “victims.”