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[Gentleman Jack]

Searched, didn't find a thread

AP: S. Korea covered up mass abuse, killings of 'vagrants'

This is a lengthy, brutal read, but worth going through. I'll post the opening and then lead the rest as an exercise to the reader

The 14-year-old boy in the black school jacket stared at his sneakers, his heart pounding, as the policeman accused him of stealing a piece of bread.

Even now, more than 30 years later, Choi Seung-woo weeps when he describes all that happened next. The policeman yanked down the boy's pants and sparked a cigarette lighter near Choi's genitals until he confessed to a crime he didn't commit. Then two men with clubs came and dragged Choi off to the Brothers Home, a mountainside institution where some of the worst human rights atrocities in modern South Korean history took place.

A guard in Choi's dormitory raped him that night in 1982 — and the next, and the next. So began five hellish years of slave labor and near-daily assaults, years in which Choi saw men and women beaten to death, their bodies carted away like garbage.

Choi was one of thousands — the homeless, the drunk, but mostly children and the disabled — rounded up off the streets ahead of the 1988 Seoul Olympics, which the ruling dictators saw as international validation of South Korea's arrival as a modern country. An Associated Press investigation shows that the abuse of these so-called vagrants at Brothers, the largest of dozens of such facilities, was much more vicious and widespread than previously known, based on hundreds of exclusive documents and dozens of interviews with officials and former inmates.

Yet nobody has been held accountable to date for the rapes and killings at the Brothers compound because of a cover-up orchestrated at the highest levels of government, the AP found. Two early attempts to investigate were suppressed by senior officials who went on to thrive in high-profile jobs; one remains a senior adviser to the current ruling party. Products made using slave labor at Brothers were sent to Europe, Japan and possibly beyond, and the family that owned the institution continued to run welfare facilities and schools until just two years ago.

Short version: The South Korean government ran forced labor/concentration camps and tried to obstruct/hide that fact in order to avoid losing face in the run up to the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul. To this day there has been no official recognition or reparations paid to the victims of torture, since its perpetrators still hold influential roles in the current ruling party.

 

[Ashes]

Good grief!

 

[entremet]

Please. Let's end the Olympics. So much shady stuff from those games.

 

[KenzinFive]

South Korea basically had military dictatorship after military dictatorship for most of the 20th century so yeah, shit was fucked for quite a while. It didn't become the Korea we know today until the late 1990s honestly.

 

[Cybrwzrd]

So which one is "best" Korea and which one is "worst" Korea now?

Seriously South Korea, WTF. Snark aside, this makes me ill.

 

[Dreams-Visions]

yo this is some sick shit.

Read all of it.

 

[Vincent Alexander]

So which one is "best Korea and which one is "worst" Korea now?

North worst. South "best". But both awful, it seems.

When city officials, foreign missionaries or aid workers visited, a select group of healthy inmates worked for hours to prepare a sanitized version of Brothers for the guests. Guards locked everyone else in their dormitories. Choi said inmates watched hopelessly as these clueless do-gooders trooped through

I can't even imagine what that feeling is like. Help is right there, but there isn't shit they could do about it. Each time they probably had their hopes that MAYBE they'll be found out, only to crash that much harder each time.

 

[SolidChamp]

The Park Chung-hee regime was brutally corrupt and failed its people on so many levels. Even the police force was compromised and incompetent.

 

[Succinct Verbosity]

Wasn't the leader of South Korea during the war almost a straight-up fascist?

 

[kswiston]

Please. Let's end the Olympics. So much shady stuff from those games.

I wonder how many people have been killed during various "cleaning up for the Olympics or World Cup" campaigns.

 

[Cybrwzrd]

The Park Chung-hee regime was brutally corrupt and failed it's people on so many levels. Even the police force was compromised and incompetent.

So the current president is the child of that guy? What's with Korea and dynasties.

 

[Kusagari]

South Korea and Japan: where war criminals and human rights violators are glorified by the government.

 

[akira28]

hrm...this puts a lot into context.

 

[ibyea]

S. Korea's prosperity was built during the era of military dictatorships, and the country paid a heavy price for modernization. Democratic S. Korea didn't truly come into being until the 90s.

 

[darscot]

Please. Let's end the Olympics. So much shady stuff from those games.

Throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

 

[Rest]

South Korea basically had military dictatorship after military dictatorship for most of the 20th century so yeah, shit was fucked for quite a while. It didn't become the Korea we know today until the late 1990s honestly.

Yeah, none of this should really be surprising. South Korea was a third world country until not very long ago. The question people should be asking is not "how bad was it at its worst?," but instead "does it meet the standards and expectations of a modern civilization today."

 

[King Tubby]

Those very first paragraphs are hard enough to read. I couldn't imagine undergoing that kind of hell.

Please. Let's end the Olympics. So much shady stuff from those games.

I think blaming this on the Olympics is rather misguided. This is the fruit of totalitarianism, the Olympics simply happened to be the motivation for these atrocities.

South Korea and Japan: where war criminals and human rights violators are glorified by the government.

It would probably be expedient to tally a list of countries where this doesn't happen.

 

[explodet]

This news saddens me, and yet somehow doesn't really surprise me.

So the current president is the child of that guy? What's with Korea and dynasties.

To be fair, both the US and Canada have had a father and son as the head of state.

 

[ibyea]

So the current president is the child of that guy? What's with Korea and dynasties.

Dynasty? No, it's just that she has significant political influence as a conservative politician due to her connection with her father, who was a former politician, and is the leader of the New Horizon party. Sort of like the Clintons and Bushes in the US.

 

[BigAl1992]

I seriously expect some like that from North Korea, not the bloody south. Then again, I suppose I shouldn't be surprised now that I know about that military dictatorship the other have pointed out.

 

[KINGofCRA5H]

Saw this earlier on Deadspin. Terrifying stuff. How people allowed this kind of stuff to happen is beyond me.

Good work by the AP.

 

[SolidChamp]

Wasn't the leader of South Korea during the war almost a straight-up fascist?

Yeah, something like that. Unfortunately, staunch nationalism, xenophobia, and discrimination (against handicapped, physically deformed, and obese people) is still pervasive throughout their culture to this day. It was born out of that era and never really went away.

Don't even get me started on how the mentally challenged, handicapped, and orphans are treated in S.Korea today.

They still have a long, long way to go.

 

[NastyBook]

The savagery is off the charts here. Absolutely disgusting. I know it's late, but RIP to all the victims that died there.

 

[akira28]

I seriously expect some like that from North Korea, not the bloody south. Then again, I suppose I shouldn't be surprised now that I know about that military dictatorship the other have pointed out.

yeah can you believe that at one point North Korea was considered the easy going one?

 

[guek]

South Korea basically had military dictatorship after military dictatorship for most of the 20th century so yeah, shit was fucked for quite a while. It didn't become the Korea we know today until the late 1990s honestly.

Yup. Post-war Korea was a nightmare. My dad has stories.

 

[Soyongdori]

yeah can you believe that at one point North Korea was considered the easy going one?

North Korea was wealthier than South Korea post-war, believe it or not,

 

[Talon]

I seriously expect some like that from North Korea, not the bloody south. Then again, I suppose I shouldn't be surprised now that I know about that military dictatorship the other have pointed out.

The country was raped and pillaged by China and Japan for about seven centuries, and then it arose to a sovereignty after violent uprisings. Of course it started as a military dictatorship.

The country was quite tumultuous through the 20th century with student protests fomented by communism that ran into direct opposition of the military powers.

The Reagan of South Korea really accelerated the country into the 21st century, but he was killed by his military advisors. Dude got a little big for his britches and wanted to become a nuclear power. His daughter is the current President.

Korea has single 5-year term presidencies. There was a super liberal former student protester two presidents ago, but there was some impropriety at the end of his rule. He made some progress with North Korea with the sunshine policy. The last guy was an arch-conservative corporate lackey - imagine Michael Bloomberg but actually super conservative. He peaked by pardoning Samsung's chairman even though there was literally a secret room full of cash used for bribery. And now we have Reagan's daughter.

Country has extremely harsh libel laws which has a huge chilling effect on the media. Harsher even than the UK's. Small nation is overtly influenced by a handful of very active conglomerates that are run by families; however, it's a pretty active political populace so there's constant pushback.

That said, as long as quality of life is pretty decent, the attitude is still ¯_(&#12484_/¯.

 

[Chesskid1]

horrible read.

south korea is obsessed with looking good to the ouside.

 

[travisbickle]

I live in South Korea and have been to a number of art exhibitions about this. It's "covered up" in the same way that all historic government abuses of power are covered up, not very well.

 

[Gentleman Jack]

I live in South Korea and have been to a number of art exhibitions about this. It's "covered up" in the same way that all historic government abuses of power are covered up, not very well.

I'm interested in these exhibitions, do they have an internet presence in English, or any language with browsable media?

 

[Chickadee]

Horrific. Those poor people.

 

[timetokill]

horrible read.

south korea is obsessed with looking good to the ouside.

That seems to be the case with most Asian countries as far as I can tell.

 

[ibyea]

More fun facts, this is the country in which around 1000 people died and thousands more were injured in Gwangju during the uprising in May 1980.

 

[bodyboarder]

That's beyond fucked up.

 

[ibyea]

That seems to be the case with most Asian countries as far as I can tell.

That's the case with every country. I can bring up messed up crap just like this from just about every country.

 

[timetokill]

That's the case with every country. I can bring up messed up crap just like this from just about every country.

Obviously bad shit has happened everywhere. It just seems like the concept of "face" is hyper-prevalent in some big Asian societies (Japan, Korea, China).

 

[ZoddGutts]

Going by the movies that they make around the 80's and 70's like that Lawyer movie, it seem pretty bad, students/activist were getting beaten up and killed by policemen by the orders of the tyrant government at that time.

 

[ibyea]

Obviously bad shit has happened everywhere. It just seems like the concept of "face" is hyper-prevalent in some big Asian societies (Japan, Korea, China).

That's less important than the fact that the people from the military dictatorships are still alive and still doing politics, and the fact that their political legacy remains.

 

[lupinko]

This news saddens me, and yet somehow doesn't really surprise me.
To be fair, both the US and Canada have had a father and son as the head of state.

Canada's head of state is Elizabeth II.

 

[travisbickle]

I'm interested in these exhibitions, do they have an internet presence in English, or any language with browsable media?

I'll try and find them, but I'm talking smaller exhibitions. I meant I learnt about this through art exhibits, but I'm sure you can read about it in books too. I've talked with my Korean brother-in-law about it also, laws in the 80s were all about "morales" and cleaning up the country ... sort of extreme "criminal's are all that's wrong with society" laws. I'm pretty sure there was a recent movie about it too?

 

[timetokill]

That's less important than the fact that the people from the military dictatorships are still alive and still doing politics, and the fact that their political legacy remains.

True. It's insane that some of these guys are still in power.

 

[Valkerionseven]

Sadly South Korea has a lot of incidents like this that are covered up in their recent history. They cover them up to keep a stable face and deflect from issues like most governments with issues like these do.

Post imperial Japan colonization for example, during the rise of tensions between what would become North and South, there were mass killings, rapes, and destruction of smaller villages and towns by what would be the South/was the south throughout the war time era. Jeju island for example a popular resort area these days was home to a pretty brutal mass killing and destroying a good bit of the island because they were most likely going to join the North in terms of ideology. For decades it was literally illegal to talk about it because it made the nation lose face and would be considered treasonous. Government finally had to admit to the incident when a mass grave was found right next to the Jeju airport a few years ago.

Huge list of things like this where until there is a ton of evidence that leaks to the public its a "understood" be quiet about it thing sadly. There was a reason so many people left it that's for sure.

 

[ReplacementPelican]

Please. Let's end the Olympics. So much shady stuff from those games.

Look. It's important to figure out which country has the man who can run the fastest in 100m. It's important, okay? You can't just end that. What would people do?

 

[Dreams-Visions]

I can only begin to imagine the stories that will emerge whenever the N. Koreans are freed from their oppressors.

 

[maomaoIYP]

So South Korea was competing to be the best Korea all this time in secret?

 

[Laieon]

I live in South Korea and have been to a number of art exhibitions about this. It's "covered up" in the same way that all historic government abuses of power are covered up, not very well.

Yeah, I'm also living here. I thought this was pretty well known. I don't even know if I'd say they try to hide the fact that things like this happened. Haven't been to any exhibitions though. South Korea didn't become the South Korea we know until the 90s.

I've been told by multiple Koreans that the reason Korean police are so timid and laid back now is because of how brutal they used to be, they've done a 180 in attempt to fix their image. Now they're just known as the guys who sleep in parking lots and might occasionally pull someone over for a traffic infraction if they feel like it.

Post War, North Korea was doing a better economically until the 60s or 70s, South Korea wasn't always the country that was tremendously ahead.

It's because of things like this that younger Koreans aren't exactly fond of the idea of having a dictator's daughter as acting president.

 

[Deleted member 17706]

So South Korea was competing to be the best Korea all this time in secret?

I believe the standard of living and economy of North Korea were actually quite a bit better than in the South up until the mid 70s or so. This was probably due to the North being much better developed than the South was at the time of their split. South Korea immediately after the war and really up until democratization was quite a brutal place to live.

 

[Violet_0]

I recall them still operating that remote island were they ship disabled people to work as slaves in mines at salt farms while the police looks away

 

[Dreams-Visions]

I recall them still operating that remote island were they ship disabled people to work as slaves in mines while the police looks away

??????????????????????

got a source? that's quite the accusation.

 

[Violet_0]

??????????????????????

got a source? that's quite the accusation.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/w...eas-slave-farms-for-the-disabled-9954527.html
there was a thread about that a while ago
apparently it's salt farms, not mines