[Editorial] Truth about civilian massacre deserved

A police investigative body on September 14 announced the mid-term results of a probe into the so-called "National Bodo Alliance Massacre Case." The investigative body said that 17,716 civilians were executed during the 1950-53 Korean War without any due process. Among those killed, 3,593 were members of the National Bodo Alliance. The body also confirmed that the killers were police officers and soldiers.

In 1949, the Bodo Alliance was established by then-president Syngman Rhee as a government-affiliated group, with the hope that its left-wing members could be eventually persuaded to swing to the right. However, as the war broke out, the police, military, and right-wing organizations murdered the alliance’s members across the nation. Since then, families of those killed have been burdened with the label of "communist," caught up in the continued injustice surrounding the case. The South Korean government had remained silent, calling the mass killing an "incident during the war." More than a half century has passed - it is far too late for the policy authority to offer an official apology for the case, as it has attempted to do by redefining it as a "civilian massacre committed by the South Korean government."

The tabulation of the number of victims was a result of compiling official records and other materials. The number of the alliance’s members was estimated to total as many as 330,000. Many of them were believed to have been murdered without any record of their death.

Some families of the victims filed a complaint with the government in order to uncover the truth and restore the reputation of their families. The investigative body’s preliminary information gathering and analysis should now be followed with an uncovering of the substantial truth behind the massacre.

Even now, Germany is looking into those who collaborated with the Nazis. Such a move is not aimed at punishing these people. The reason is to properly transfer true information regarding tragedies of war and totalitarian rule to the next generation. The Bodo Alliance case is a tragedy of our modern history that was caught up in the ideological rift between communists and capitalists. Finding the substantial truth is the least we can do in order that history not repeat itself.