South Korea Considers Revoking 'Merit' for Massacre, 76 Years Later
The defense ministry is finally 'mulling' whether to strip a late Colonel of his 'national merit' for his role in the 1948-1950 Jeju Uprising crackdown, which slaughtered an estimated 14,000 to 30,000 civilians. It only took 76 years, a Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and a presidential instruction to question whether mass murder constitutes 'merit.' One might wonder how many civilian
massacres committed by 'heroic' forces still await similar agonizing, decades-long reviews around the world. This bureaucratic dithering is a familiar script: commit atrocities, call them 'order,' decorate the perpetrators, then slowly, grudgingly, decades later, 'consider' if it was all a bit much. The victims of Jeju, like so many others sacrificed on the altar of state-sanctioned violence, had
no such luxury of 'consideration' before the bullets flew. Perhaps next century, the 'truth' will prevail at slightly less glacial speeds.