Commemorating Hong Beom-do was an attempt to improve inter-Korean ties: sources

The Yoon Suk Yeol government's push to relocate the bust of the Korean independence fighter Hong Beom-do from the military academy is to correct the attempt by the previous Moon Jae-in government to reframe the military's identity...

A bust of Hong Beom-do, second from the right, is erected at the Ministry of National Defense on Monday. [YONHAP]

The Yoon Suk Yeol government's push to relocate the bust of the Korean independence fighter Hong Beom-do from the military academy is to correct the attempt by the previous Moon Jae-in government to reframe the military's identity in regard to its relationship with North Korea, claimed several sources.

Hong, a general of the Korean Independence Army during the Japanese occupation, is revered in South Korea for his victories over Japanese forces in several high-profile battles such as the Battle of Fengwudong at northeastern China in 1920.

However, he is also accused of having ties with communists, including an event where Soviet forces disarmed Korean independence fighters.

A senior official with ties to the People Power Party (PPP) said the Moon jae-in government was promoting Hong not because he was an independence fighter.

"The fundamental goal was to deny the history of the [Korean] military, whose foundation is based on the alliance between South Korea and the United States," said the official, requesting anonymity.

“Circumstantial evidence has been found that the previous government was trying to promote Hong in place of Kim Won-bong," the official said.

The official said the Moon government first tried to decorate Kim, another high-profile independence fighter during the Japanese colonial era.

The goal was to establish a new identity for the South Korean military, whose roots are based on the Korean Liberation Army that fought against the Japanese.

The Korean Liberation Army was a military organization established on Sept. 17, 1940 under the Provisional Government of Korea (1919-48) with financial and personnel support from the Chinese Kuomintang.

If the Moon administration's attempt had succeeded, the historical roots of the South Korean military would lie on an army that fought against Japan and not North Korea.

The PPP official said this attempt failed due to strong opposition from the public as Kim Won-bong played a significant role in the newly founded North Korea and even received awards from its leader, Kim Il Sung.

Cadets and officials of the Korea Military Academy pose for a photo during a bust-erecting ceremony held at the military academy in Nowon District, northern Seoul, on March 1, 2018. [YONHAP]

According to sources, the previous government's attempt in changing the identity of the South Korean military started during a Defense Ministry's briefing to President Moon in August 2017, just three months after Moon was sworn into office.

At the briefing, Moon reportedly ordered the ministry to include the history of the Korean Independence Army, Korean Liberation Army and Shinheung Military Academy in the military academy's curriculum and incorporate the Korean Liberation Army in the military’s chronology.

Shinheung Military Academy was a military training institution for independence fighter recruits, many of whom later joined the Korean Independence Army. It later became Kyung Hee University in Dongdaemun District, eastern Seoul, in 1960.

President Moon also reportedly directed the ministry to change the date of the Korean Armed Forces Day, which is on Oct. 1 to Sept. 17. Sept. 17 is the day that the Korea Liberation Army that fought against the Japanese was founded in 1940.

According to the National Archives of Korea, Armed Forces Day is designated as Oct. 1 because it was on that date in 1950 that South Korean forces broke through the 38th parallel for the first time in the Korean War.

It is also the day in which South Korea signed the Mutual Defense Treaty with the United States in 1953, which became the foundation for the two nations' alliance.

According to the sources, senior presidential officials, including the chief of staff Im Jong-seok and the president's policy chief Jang Ha-seong were present at the meeting.

"A number of presidential officials especially stressed that there was no legitimacy of having the Armed Forces Day on Oct. 1," a military source with knowledge of the meeting said.

"Those that were at the meeting understood the directive on the Armed Forces Day from President Moon as an order to change the foundation of the South Korean military to iconic figures that even the North Koreans could agree to, such as Kim Won-bong, who praised Kim Il Sung, or Hong Beom-do, who was a communist," the military source said.

The meeting also reportedly discussed decorating Kim Won-bong and Hong Beom-do.

Moon’s orders were immediately followed by a blitz from the ruling Democratic Party (DP) and the Defense Ministry.

DP lawmakers in September 2017 submitted a bill proposing changing the date of Armed Forces Day.

The Defense Ministry in January 2018 in a report to Moon stressed its plan to redefine the military's historical roots through studies on the Korean Independence and Liberation Army while uncovering the independence movement history of the Shinheung Military Academy.

Rebranding Kim Won-bong as the founding father of the Korean military was spearheaded by a committe within the Ministry of Patriots and Veterans Affairs (MPVA).

The committee mostly consisted of people leaning to the left.

“Kim Won-bong and other independence activists who rightfully deserve credit must be conferred accordingly at the centennial anniversary of the March 1 Independence Movement in 2019 to boost national pride,” read one of the recommendations written by the MPVA committee in November 2018.

“The government at the time saw filtering out the South-U.S. alliance and adding pro-North figures into the South’s military identity as measures to speed up inter-Korean talks,” a source with ties to these moves said.

The purpose of decorating Kim Won-bong was to erase the “Kim Il-sung” stigma and frame his Korean Liberation Army as the root of South’s military, the source added.

A repatriation ceremony on the return of Hong's remains from Kazakhstan is held at Seoul Air Base in Seongnam, Gyeonggi, on Aug. 15, 2021. [YONHAP]

Talk on improving South-North relations was repeatedly found in the innovation committee’s meeting minutes.

Some members raised the need for a South-North debate to decide whom to honor and a joint study to discover persons of national merit while specifying Kim as the subject.

But when attempts to decorate Kim were met with public backlash, Moon’s office brought Hong Beom-do to the table.

Moon’s visit to Kazakhstan, where Hong’s remains were buried, to begin the repatriation process of his remains was in April 2019, just after the March 1 deadline set by the MPVA to decorate Kim.

Moon in his Memorial Day address delivered in June of that year gave a final poke at the Kim Won-bong initiative by saying that Korea’s independence movement efforts peaked when Kim joined the Provisional Government in 1942.

The presidential office backed and stated Kim’s decoration “is not possible and there are no plans to change related laws” four days later when Moon’s remarks about Kim received fiery criticism.

The “plan B” involving Hong kicked off from then to result in a repatriation ceremony in the Aug. 15 Liberation Day ceremony in 2021. The ceremony was initially planned for March 2020 but was delayed by the Covid-19 pandemic.

Hong’s remains returned to South Korea in a Korean Air Force KC-330 cargo aircraft, receiving an escort from six fighter jets.

The current Yoon Suk Yeol office reportedly probed into the entire series of events and came to the conclusion that the Moon administration took intricate steps over many years to mar the military’s identity.

The bust relocation controversy is turning into an all-out ideological clash between the current and former administrations.

“President Yoon’s orders to ‘set things straight’ while citing ideology and philosophy despite facing considerable opposition indicates that the relocation issue is not a subject of compromise,” said a source in the presidential office.

“The office is treating this as a matter of identity and principles that must be rectified.”

The Korea Military Academy (KMA) on Thursday announced plans to press on with relocating Hong's bust to a different location while the other four busts of independence fighters will be moved within the military academy.

The Defense Ministry on Monday said in a statement that it is inappropriate to have the busts of Hong and four other independence fighters with alleged communist affiliations and commemorate them at the KMA, considering the military academy's identity.

BY KANG TAE-HWA, SOHN DONG-JOO [sohn.dongjoo@joongang.co.kr]