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South Korean Government Confiscates Property Once Owned By Pro-Japanese Koreans

occupation-era-seoul

Did one of your ancestors hold an administrative post in the government that ran your country over 60 years ago? Better hope you’re not living in South Korea:

South Korea has confiscated more property originally owned by collaborators with Japanese colonialism in the last century, a state agency said Friday.

The seven people included Lee Jeong-Ro, Min Young-Gi and Lee Yong-Tae who received Japanese court titles and money from Tokyo as reward for their work, said the Investigative Commission On Pro-Japanese Collaborators’ Property.

Four others were senior administrators during the 1910-1945 colonial era.

The land seized Thursday is worth 4.1 billion won (5.6 million dollars).

The commission has now seized property originally owned by 29 collaborators since it began work in July 2006. The land is worth an estimated 77.1 billion won (82.3 million dollars).

The commission said it was seeking to confiscate the property of another 106 people.

Under a special law enacted in 2005, the commission has listed 452 people who collaborated with the brutal colonisation.

“We’ll do our best to complete the confiscation of pro-Japanese collaborators’ property before the commission’s four-year term expires in July 2010,” Jang Mi-Jeong, spokesman for the commission, told AFP.

Do you believe in the punishment of people for the alleged crimes of their ancestors?

17 comments - What do you think? Posted by James - February 29, 2008 at 3:34 pm

Categories: Anti-Japan, Politics Tags: japan, nationalism, Politics, seoul, south korea

morpheus

same system is already held in china for many years
and huge number of innocent people were railroaded
Klauscore

“Did one of your ancestors hold an administrative post in the government that ran your country over 60 years ago?”

Fortunately not, because then he would have been a Nazi. Lots of riches, looted during that time, were later returned to their rightful owners in Austria (some too late!).

Is that what is happening in Korea? What are the criteria for the confiscation?

http://www.japanprobe.com James

The articles about the program are not very detailed, but from what I gather, property is being seized from people whose ancestors worked with the Japanese colonial government.

Unlike the artwork and property that was looted by Nazi Germany and later returned to its rightful owners, this Korean government agency takes property and gives it to descendants of those who fought against Japanese colonial rule. There doesn’t appear to be any individual specifically claiming that the land or property in question was once theirs and was seized unlawfully.

shazzb0t

This is simply governmental abuse. A land grab that the state justifies with the ghosts of the past. Pretty disgusting.
The Friendly Marshmellow

I voted yes in the poll. I guess I’m a bad person…

Mew?

Doesn’t make you a bad person, it’s just your personal opinion. What made answer yes though?

My sister-in-law’s father was Waffen-SS soldier and fought for Nazi Germany in WW2. She and my nephew are the nicest of people, just because her grandfather was a Nazi in the past, doesn’t make her or her son a Nazi now. I would dread the thought of a government confiscating her house for something that happened before she was even born.

She still has her dad’s old medals, she is really shamed of showing them to people but I find it really cool.

Dmitri

I think there is a question of the morality of those who kept the land and riches that their ancestors received from a brutal occupation.

Perhaps they could have donated some of those riches, then the government would not need to interfere…

But then there is also the issue of time. I mean, how far back should governments go? If we start digging in the past, many will be accountable for bad things. Colonisations, dictatorships, wars… and many people have profited from wars, colonisations, dictatorships, without being evil or a collaborator…
Level3

I think it would probably be a very challenging research project to find ANY civilized nation anywhere that was not once the property of someone else seized (or seized back) in war.
How far back do we go?

Is there any Korean version of the Japanese Ainu or Native Americans? Could they file a claim against all Koreans for a return of their land?
zaciroth

Omg let it die already. What good is it really going to do the more you stress about past all it does is cause more problems for the future and make people more angry. Seriously it happened in the PAST GROW UP ABOUT IT. My family is part Scottish American. I’m not going to apologize for the native Americans that were killed like Roman and england aren’t going to apologize to the scotts and Druids they killed GET OVER IT.
Pingback: More “Japanese Collaborators” Lose Their Property in Korea
http://briandeutsch.blogspot.com Brian

60 years later everybody styles themselves a freedom fighter. Everybody imagines a healthy and strong 35-year resistance movement. I suspect each family tree holds its share of collaborators. Except in those days, “collaborator” was called “citizen.”

In my blog entry on this I mention that these must have been some pretty serious offendors *rolls eyes* The Korean government has had various “truth and reconcilliation” committees that have cleared a bunch of people, including 80+ Korean convicted war criminals, of responsibility in the war and occupation, saying that they were compelled to do whatever they did by the Japanese Empire. Interesting to note that one of these committees recommended that the US pay compensation to Korea for villages destroyed by bombing during the Korean War. Some might argue that tens of thousands of lives lost plus 60 years of total military and economic support would be compensation enough, but not the historical amnesiacs that populate 2008 Korea.

This whole business of “Japanese collaborators” is politically motivated, pure and simple, and those people who happened to fall prey to it this time are victims of an agenda. Twenty years from now will they be rooting out American collaborators, and those who fought against the Dear Leader? (Probably)
NF

Cool – now can I claim damages against the governments of Denmark and Norway for the looting and pillaging that the vikings did against my ancestors 1,000 years ago.

ektekf

As an American of many different origins, I could claim damages on my ancestors by my ancestors, haha!

The past shouldn’t matter in this way (taking property from innocent people whose family’s history is tainted)- it should matter in the sense that we have learned from it. I think the fact that I exists shows that we have learned better than to treat people differently because of their heritage. This sort of thing is just immature people finding excuses to be racist and do what they want to get what they want. I am proud to be a “no” vote and part of the good chunk of people are helping the human race mature.

Mas

Wow, way too many people bringing in senseless arguments and metaphors. The polled question is also way too generalized considering the linked article, to the extent that either a child came up with it or whoever wrote it is not fluent in English (it doesn’t even say what happened was a crime, nor is it exactly ‘punishment’).

Basically, while I agree that the idea that demands apologies and what not are not needed anymore (again, not part of the article but w/e), the article and the actual government stance (all found with in further links), seems to simply take re-issue property that was given by the powers that governed the area when Japan annexed Korea. It’s not like they are taking property that the original ancestors worked hard for, but free land grabs (which the nation does not believe that they have had the “right” to, regardless of the definition of that). So I would agree that it’s fine, considering that there are people regarding the issue who are still alive (thus, Vikings and Native Indian comparisons are flat out moronic).

http://bonesworld-gooch.blogspot.com/ Bones

Um, Native Americans are still alive and well, you know…

Edward

Native americans are very much still alive. although most of them got wiped out by mass genocide from Christian settlers, but anyway….

Hey well, i don’t agree with this land grab sounds strange to me. but hey, maybe some of them flt guility and wanted to give the land back. probably not most of them though…

Andrew

I believe that these actions are done in the right. The government after WWII and the Korean War was unable to enact such policies of seeking punitive measures for collaborators due to the stresses of rebuilding a nation with new parameters, such as democratic rule, etc.
The 2005 act is very specific and only refers to land and property acquired through Japanese collaboration. In essence, this law basically says, “The Japanese were never rightful rulers of this country and thus has no right to divide up the land to give to anyone, much less Korean supporters. So, being that this is so, all of those lands received from any Japanese source must be forfeited forthwith.”
It’s not cruel to pursue this means of punishment. Japanese colonialism is very recent history, experienced by individuals only a few generations ago.

South Korean Government Confiscates Property Once Owned By Pro-Japanese Koreans

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