Photo: Nguyen Thi Thanh receives update on her court victory. Credit: Korea-Vietnam Peace Foundation.
A longstanding stain on South Korea’s history is the war crimes that its military committed during the Vietnam War. In February 2023, the Seoul Central District Court 서울중앙지방법원 ordered the Republic of Korea to pay KRW 30m (USD 23.7k) to 63-year-old Nguyen Thi Thanh, a survivor of a civilian massacre committed by South Korean troops, in South Korea’s first judicial recognition of its responsibility. (See previous coverage, “Reparation for Vietnam War.”)
The Yoon Suk-yeol 윤석열 administration appealed the ruling, drawing criticism for persistent historical revisionism on the part of South Korean conservatives. Although South Korea’s liberal presidents recognized and apologized for the country’s error in Vietnam, conservatives continued to maintain the anti-communist justification for entering the war while denying or whitewashing South Korean troops’ atrocities.
On January 27, the Seoul High Court 서울고등법원 upheld the District Court’s ruling. In doing so, the court specifically found that the Republic of Korea, as the defendant, had no evidentiary basis to claim that the massacre was committed by Viet Cong guerrillas in disguise, dismissing the additional witness statements submitted by the government. The High Court also dismissed the argument that the Korea-Vietnam Claims Treaty 한국-베트남 청구권 협정 of 1967 precluded Nguyen’s recovery.