The Truth and Reconciliation Commission on Recent History begins its work on Thursday, 56 years since the Constitutional Assembly established the Special Committee to Investigate Anti-Korean Activities [Banmin Teugwi] only to have its work thwarted by the regime of Rhee Syngman and other former collaborators. Half a century has passed and yet not much has changed. Collaborators' descendants say the commission and the attempt to restore the truth is a scheme to divide the country, and they call uncovering facts that have long been covered up "turning the past on its head." The same difficulties remain.
Ten years ago the world applauded the work of South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission. When Nelson Mandela was released from prison in 1989 he said South Africa and the whole of the African continent needed a culture of truth and reconciliation, and when he was inaugurated as president five years later he started the commission with Archbishop Desmond Tutu as its head. Former president Frederik Willem de Klerk, who had helped the birth of he Mandela government, demanded wholesale amnesty, but Mandela responded by saying that there could be no amnesty and reconciliation before the truth was known, and that wrongs can be forgiven but never forgotten. The commission investigated and recorded crimes by the racist white government as well as wrongs by Mandela's African National Congress (ANC). When the ANC resisted Tutu told them that "yesterday's oppressed can become today's oppressor." There is no distinction when it comes to facing the truth.
Ever since the Ulsa Treaty of 1905, the keywords that have defined Korean history have been annexation, colonial rule, American Military Government and the rise to power of the collaborators, National Division and the Korean War, fratricidal war and massacre, dictatorship and human rights violations, and disproportionate growth and economic inequality. Psychological wounds in youth inhibit normal growth. Sociologically, they make it difficult for a society to stay unified and move forward. That is why the commission must pursue the truth. Only by restoring the truth can the perversions of history be corrected and the wounds of the country's collective memory be healed. It will also prevent a repeat of a history that was unfortunate for everyone.
The Hankyoreh, 1 December 2005.
[Translations by Seoul Selection]
[Editorial] New Commission Must Pursue the Truth |
