Precursor to the Mỹ Lai Massacre: 1968 Phong Nhị, Phong Nhất_#8(2)
Chapter 8(2) : The First Captive of the Vietnam War
December, 2013, reporters meet with Ahn Yong-soo at his home in Gaepo Dong, Gangnam gu, Seoul. Ahn’s persistent effort recovered his brother’s honor at last. Photo by humank
Forty some years later in April 28, 2009, the Ministry of Unification, as a result of a vote by a deliberation committee, recognized Ahn Hak-soo as a captive of North Korea. On May 2nd, the Ministry of National Defense officially announced him as a ‘POW detained in North Korea’ per the decision of the Special Committee for POWs. On December 1st of the same year, according to the regulation that those who aren’t repatriated within one year are considered and will be filed as having died in battle, a notice of death on the battlefield was sent out. It was the day that the first official Korean captive of the Vietnam War came into being.
Heretofore, military authorities denied the existence of Vietnam War POWs. After the Vietnam War ended in 1975, Ahn Yong-soo and his family continuously filed civil complaints to the Blue House and the Ministry of National Defense. They were able to use classified documents acquired from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs as a basis for requesting the release of information from the National Intelligence Service, Defense Security Command, Ministry of National Defense, and Army Headquarters, and this served as significant starting point for revealing the truth.
In September of 1967, immediately after Ahn Hak-soo went missing, the commanding officer of his base, in fear of punishment, did not report his disappearance and instead kept Ahn’s record as a normal employee, as it was later revealed. According to classified documents from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, military authorities, even after confirming that Ahn had been kidnapped by North Korea, filed him as a defector to the North. Ahn Hak-soo was shot to death in 1975 after attempting escape near Pyongyang, and his wife and son were sent to concentration camp.
In June of 2010, Ahn Yong-soo filed a compensation claim for 4 billion KRW against the state for the damages that governmental authorities inflicted on his family, but after the second trial, the justice department ruled that the family would receive 250 million KRW, acknowledging only the government’s negligence in properly investigating in response to civil complaints. It did not acknowledge the state’s fault in fabricating Ahn’s defection to the North, and the appeal was dismissed.
Ahn Yong-Soo's autobiographical essay/ roman-à-clef, Concealment and Truth.
Ahn Yong-soo, despite his excellent academic performance, could not attend the university of his choice because he was considered someone of abnormal identity. He could not pursue education in law, nor was he allowed to sit for the bar exam. He left for Everdine, Scotland in 1984 when passport background checks were abolished, but the Army Security Command officers came after him and harassed him in Scotland as well. His other brothers incurred the same fate. His father was expelled from the principal’s official residence in 1969, lost his job in 1970, and was forced to work as a temporary laborer at a textbook factory in Hoengseong-gun Gangwon Province in 1972. That only lasted for two years, and he eventually resorted to the countryside, where he died on September 20, 2001, his last words being, “I can’t close my eyes in peace unless there is action in response to our civil complaints,”
Ahn Yong-soo, who studied theology in Korea and Scotland, went through his laying on of hands as a pastor in 2007. In November of 2014, he wrote his autobiographical essay/ roman-à-clef, Concealment and Truth, to commemorate Korea’s 50th year anniversary of participating in the Vietnam War.
- Written by humank (Journalist; Seoul, Korea)
- Translated and revised as necessary by April Kim (Tokyo, Japan)
The numbers in parentheses indicate the respective ages of the people at the time in 1968. This series will be uploaded on Steemit biweekly on Monday.