Victims of Jeju April 3 Incident to receive compensation from government

The Jeju April 3 Incident honor recovery committee holds a meeting at the Jeju Special Self-Governing Provincial Hall, Jeju Island, to decide compensation to victims, Thursday. (Yonhap)

The government announced on Thursday it will pay about 25.2 billion won ($18 million) to 300 victims for the Jeju April 3 incident. This will be the first state-given compensation since the incident occurred 74 years ago.

The Ministry of Public Administration and Security's "Jeju April 3 Incident honor recovery committee" held a meeting on Jeju Island and decided to pay compensation to 300 out of 304 applicants -- 220 people who died or went missing, 77 people suffering from aftereffects and 3 survivors who had been wrongly convicted.

The Jeju April 3 Incident refers to the suppression against civilian uprising through 1947-1954 on Jeju Island. Distorting the uprising as a communist riot, the then-government massacred about 30,000 civilians, about 10 percent of the island's entire population at the time.

This provision to pay compensation to victims was added to a special law in February 2021, making this the first decision to provide paid compensation to victims.

Among 2,117 people who were eligible for compensation payment, as of the end of July, 304 victims applied and 300 were decided as the first recipients, including two surviving victims older than 100 years-old. The other four applicants have already received state compensation related to the incident or have been excluded from the payment due to designation as people of national merit.

The compensation amount is 90 million won each for the 220 victims who died or went missing, and 50 million won to 90 million won each for the 77 survivors suffering from aftereffects, depending on the level of disability. Three victims who were wrongly imprisoned will receive 30 million won to 90 million won depending on the number of detention days.

Currently, if a person was wrongly sentenced to imprisonment, he or she can charge compensation to the government, maximum 366,400 won per day, which means victims who have served a year in prison must receive more than 130 million won. The imprisoned victims during the April 3 incident will receive up to 90 million won as prescribed by the special law, and they can claim additional compensation afterwards.

The 300 notified victims will be immediately paid compensation by the Ministry of Public Administration and Security when the request is filed through a local district office within 30 days.

It is predicted that around 1,000 out of 2,117 people eligible for the first payment will receive a decision to get paid, through meetings that will be held two to three times by the end of December. The Interior Ministry plans to pay compensation to 2,100 people in 2022, 2,150 people per year from 2023 to 2025, and to the remaining people in 2026. It is estimated about 960 billion won will be paid to about 10,101 victims.

By Lee Jung-Youn(jy@heraldcorp.com)