Moon Jae-in’s administration faces calls to investigate war crimes amid rising awareness of South Korea’s atrocities in Vietnam

South Korean troops have long been accused of committing at least 80 massacres in Vietnam, resulting in the deaths of some 9,000 men, women and children

Groups from Vietnam and South Korea have called for Seoul to conduct an investigation and apologise, while critics in Japan have lashed out at the country’s ‘shocking hypocrisy’

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South Korean President Moon Jae-in. Photo: AP

Published: 6:36pm, 18 Apr 2019Updated: 9:55pm, 18 Apr 2019

A group of South Korean and Vietnamese lawyers have called on President Moon Jae-in’s administration to investigate and provide reparations for alleged atrocities committed by Korean soldiers in Vietnam, amid rising awareness of the country’s involvement in war crimes.

The issue has not been strongly acknowledged by Seoul, even as research in the past two decades has linked Korean troops to at least 80 massacres in the Vietnam war, resulting in the deaths of thousands of civilians.

“Finding the truth behind the civilian killings during the Vietnam war is necessary for human rights and peace,” said the lawyers in a statement, adding that the move would help strengthen future ties between both nations based on “the foundations of historical truth”.

Explained: the legacy of war in Asia

Former President Park Chung-hee sent about 320,000 soldiers to Vietnam to aid United States forces against the North Vietnamese communist insurgency between 1964 and 1973. There, South Korean troops allegedly slaughtered about 9,000 civilians in some 80 different attacks, according to one estimate by a researcher who interviewed survivors at over 50 massacre sites.

In one notorious case, soldiers from the 2nd Marine Division of Korea were believed to have killed about 430 people in the village of Binh Hoa in December 1966. More than half the victims were women, of whom seven were pregnant. The dead also included 166 children.

A Viet Cong base being burned in My Tho, Vietnam on 5 April, 1968. Photo: AFP

Civic groups in Vietnam and South Korea have endeavoured to uncover the truth about the alleged atrocities since 2000, but the government’s response has been insufficient, the lawyers said.

Former President Kim Dae-jung expressed “regret” during a visit to Hanoi in 1998, but subsequent administrations have failed to issue a formal apology or compensate victims.