Court orders compensation for Vietnam War victim

A court ruled Tuesday that the Korean government must compensate a Vietnamese victim who sued the government for damages related to a massacre of Vietnamese civilians by Korean marines during the Vietnam War.

Nguyen Thi Thanh, a survivor of an alleged massacre by Korean marines in Phong Nhi village in Vietnam during the Vietnam War, talks to the press through a video call after the Seoul Central District Court in Seocho District, southern Seoul issued a verdict Tuesday. [YONHAP]

A court ruled Tuesday that the Korean government must compensate a Vietnamese victim who sued the government for damages related to a massacre of Vietnamese civilians by Korean marines during the Vietnam War.

This is the first time that a court has acknowledged the country's responsibility to compensate victims of the Phong Nhi massacre in central Vietnam in 1968.

The Seoul Central District Court ruled in favor of Nguyen Thi Thanh, a 63-year-old Vietnamese woman, who sued the Korean government asking for compensation worth 30 million won ($23,800) in April 2020 for the deaths of around 70 Vietnamese civilians in the village of Phong Nhi in February of 1968.

“The government should provide compensation of 30 million won to the plaintiff and pay additional interest for the delayed compensation,” the court said.

The 63-year-old testified that she witnessed Korean marines killing the residents of the village and that she lost five family members in the massacre.

Nguyen, who was a child at the time, was also shot and continues to suffer from the injury.

The verdict accepted most of the arguments made by Nguyen based on evidence and witness statements made by soldiers who participated in the war.

“The Korean marines threatened the plaintiff and her family with guns and shot them after forcing them to come out of their house,” the court added. “The platinff’s family members died at the site, and we accept that the plaintiff sustained severe injuries.”

According to the court, the soldiers also shot the plaintiff’s mother, who was not with the family at the site, after forcing her to gather at a place with the others.

“This is an evidently illegal act,” the court added.

During a hearing last August, her uncle Nguyen Duc Choi, who served in the South Vietnam militia at the time, stood in the court as a witness.

“There were Korean soldiers gathering at the village and people fell after the soldiers shot them,” Nguyen Duc Choi said during the hearing.

“I have seen soldiers throwing grenade, burning houses and scores of bodies being piled up.”

A Korean soldier who participated in the war also stood as a witness during a previous hearing in November of 2021, saying that he saw civilians getting killed and that there was an order to kill them.

The Korean government had earlier denied responsibility, arguing that Vietnamese nationals cannot file a lawsuit at a Korean court due to a treaty signed between Vietnam, Korea and the United States.

However, the court ruled that the treaty was an agreement between governmental institutions only and did not prevent private citizens from seeking damages.

The government also argued that the communist Viet Cong may have conducted the massacre while disguised as Korean marines, and that even if Korean marines had committed the act, it would have been justifiable considering the nature of guerilla war.

The court rejected those arguments.

The Korea government had also argued that the statute of limitation had expired, but the court said Tuesday that the plaintiff may not have exercised her right appropriately because neither country had conducted a thorough investigation.

BY CHO JUNG-WOO [cho.jungwoo1@joongang.co.kr]