South Korea: Panel finds previous military governments responsible for abuses at facility

A South Korean panel found that the country’s past military regimes were responsible for the atrocities committed at a facility. The assessment comes 35 years after a prosecutor first revealed the abuses that were committed at the facility, including an attempted cover-up of the evidence.

The South Korean Truth and Reconciliation Commission found that the past military regimes of the country were responsible for the atrocities committed at Brothers Home from the 1960s to the 1980s. The report which was published Wednesday, detailed the abuses committed at the Busan-based, state-funded facility for vagrants, where thousands were held.

The latest report comes 35 years after a prosecutor first uncovered the atrocities committed at the facility. This included the attempted cover-up of evidence that would have confirmed a state-sponsored crime.

From the 1960s to the 1980s, South Korea’s military dictators ordered roundups, and thousands, including homeless disabled people and children, were taken off the streets and detained in facilities where they were forced to work. Many of the inmates were subject to enslavement and rape, and in hundreds of other cases, were beaten to death or left to die.

Such incidents notably took place ahead of the 1986 Asian Games and the 1988 Olympic Games, where the military government wanted to showcase the country and ordered “vagrants” to be removed from the streets.

The Commission chair, Jung Geun-sik, urged the South Korean government to issue a formal apology to the survivors and look into ways to ease their suffering upon the announcement of the initial results of its probe into the facility. However, the panel said the atrocities committed at the facility were found to be even worse than what was previously known.

The panel is also deliberating on the application by 53 South Korean adoptees in Denmark from the 1970s to 1980s to call on the government to investigate the circumstances surrounding their adoption. The adoptees who collectively filed the application said the circumstances were corrupted due to falsifying or obscuring the origins of the children.

The panel has four months to decide whether to accept the filing. Should the commission accept the request, it would become the most far-reaching investigation into foreign adoptions in South Korea.