The head of South Korea's ruling party resigned yesterday amid suggestions that he had covered up his father's past as a military policeman for Japanese occupiers. The resignation comes during renewed national debate on the role of collaborators under colonial rule.
Shin Ki-nam, chairman of the ruling Uri party, had previously said his father was only a teacher during the 1910-45 occupation. But this week, he was forced to admit his father worked for the Japanese forces, confirming a magazine report.
PHOTO: REUTERS
The implication that Shin may have lied to cover up his father's past has made him a political liability as the country reassesses the colonial period. President Roh Moo-hyun has called for government investigations into the pro-Japanese activities of collaborators.
Roh has said those whose ancestors were collaborators wouldn't face punishment or have any rights restricted.
Still, Shin said he was stepping down from the party's chairmanship so he wouldn't be an obstacle to the inquiries, and to "lessen difficulties that the party is experiencing because of me."
Shin apologized to those who fought for Korean independence, bowing his head before journalists at a news conference yesterday. "In place of my father, I deeply apologize and seek forgiveness," he said.
Over the weekend in a speech marking the 59th anniversary of Korean liberation from Japanese rule, Roh called for a renewed look at collaborators -- an issue never intensely investigated in independent South Korea.
Several government agencies have already responded to the plea and launched investigations.
Shin said the past three days since the revelations had been the most difficult in his life, and that he would seek to unearth more about his father's history. He said before recent media reports that he only vaguely knew that his father was with the Japanese military, but didn't know details such as his father serving as a military police officer.
Shin said it wasn't easy for him to reveal his position because it concerned his father, who has always been the "object of my respect and pride."
"To be honest, the recent detailed reports of my father are shocking for me, and I still find it difficult to believe everything. I plan to check into it myself," Shin said.
Some media have even reported allegations of people who said they were tortured by Shin's father.
Moves to investigate that period have drawn opposition criticism, with the main opposition Grand National Party condemning Roh's plans to investigate collaborators as a political ploy aimed at staining its chairwoman, Park Geun-hye.
Her father was an officer in the Japanese army and former military ruler of South Korea.
Shin had assumed the party's chairmanship in May after the previous head, Chung Dong-young, stepped aside to become unification minister.
Former Nicaraguan president Violeta Chamorro, who brought peace to Nicaragua after years of war and was the first woman elected president in the Americas, died on Saturday at the age of 95, her family said. Chamorro, who ruled the poor Central American country from 1990 to 1997, “died in peace, surrounded by the affection and love of her children,” said a statement issued by her four children. As president, Chamorro ended a civil war that had raged for much of the 1980s as US-backed rebels known as the “Contras” fought the leftist Sandinista government. That conflict made Nicaragua one of
COMPETITION: The US and Russia make up about 90 percent of the world stockpile and are adding new versions, while China’s nuclear force is steadily rising, SIPRI said Most of the world’s nuclear-armed states continued to modernize their arsenals last year, setting the stage for a new nuclear arms race, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) said yesterday. Nuclear powers including the US and Russia — which account for about 90 percent of the world’s stockpile — had spent time last year “upgrading existing weapons and adding newer versions,” researchers said. Since the end of the Cold War, old warheads have generally been dismantled quicker than new ones have been deployed, resulting in a decrease in the overall number of warheads. However, SIPRI said that the trend was likely
NUCLEAR WARNING: Elites are carelessly fomenting fear and tensions between nuclear powers, perhaps because they have access to shelters, Tulsi Gabbard said After a trip to Hiroshima, US Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard on Tuesday warned that “warmongers” were pushing the world to the brink of nuclear war. Gabbard did not specify her concerns. Gabbard posted on social media a video of grisly footage from the world’s first nuclear attack and of her staring reflectively at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial. On Aug. 6, 1945, the US obliterated Hiroshima, killing 140,000 people in the explosion and by the end of the year from the uranium bomb’s effects. Three days later, a US plane dropped a plutonium bomb on Nagasaki, leaving abut 74,000 people dead by the
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is to visit Canada next week, his first since relations plummeted after the assassination of a Canadian Sikh separatist in Vancouver, triggering diplomatic expulsions and hitting trade. Analysts hope it is a step toward repairing ties that soured in 2023, after then-Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau pointed the finger at New Delhi’s involvement in murdering Hardeep Singh Nijjar, claims India furiously denied. An invitation extended by new Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney to Modi to attend the G7 leaders summit in Canada offers a chance to “reset” relations, former Indian diplomat Harsh Vardhan Shringla said. “This is a
RSS