Truth panel confirms North Korean forces' massacre of Christians during Korean War

2024-05-29 18:28:22      点击：440

The office of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, the Republic of Korea / Newsis

By Park Han-sol

During the early stage of the 1950-53 Korean War, North Korean soldiers in retreat from the South massacred over 1,100 Christians in accordance with the regime's drive toward religious persecution, a state commission announced, Tuesday.

In the wake of the successful Incheon Landing Operation of the United Nations Command ― the covert amphibious landing of 75,000 troops at the port of the city on Sept. 15, 1950 ― the North's army, which had previously reached the southern part of the Korean Peninsula, was soon forced to withdraw.

It was during the course of this retreat that the North Korean military killed at least 1,145 Christians, said a report by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which was made based on research by the Seoul Theological University.

The violent religious persecution, which lasted for over a month particularly in the Jeolla and South Chungcheong provinces, was launched after the North Korean authorities ordered its forces to "eliminate any reactionary groups" ahead of its withdrawal on Sept. 26, 1950.

Specifically, the paper states that the Korean People's Army of the North beat and murdered 66 members of a Protestant church in Nonsan, South Chungcheong Province, for two days from Sept. 27 to 28, after deeming the church itself to be a hostile enemy force.

The same month, in Jeongeup of North Jeolla Province, 167 church elders and those on the right wing were burned to death after being locked up in the city's police station. Another 150 were massacred and buried in an abandoned mine tucked away in the region's Mount Dusung.

While statistical data in regards to the North's massacres released by several religious bodies and individual scholars in the past remained largely unreliable, the university's latest research compiled a list of the victims' names based on months-long documentary research, visits to local churches and the gathering of personal testimonies.

The research team further argued that such mass killings of Christians should be viewed not as an accidental event, but rather as a planned purge that resulted from the North Korean authorities' political branding of Christianity as "pro-American, anti-communist" rebel forces.

"Communism and Christianity have been at odds here since the 1910-45 Japanese occupation of Korea, which continued well after the liberation in the process of building the new nation," the report reads. "The oppression of Christianity was in full swing during the Korean War and became evident in a series of massacres during the North Korean soldiers' retreat."