I’d like to think this is simply a form of creative financing:
The government will start an investigation on Friday to confiscate assets of descendants who received financial benefits from 400 pro-Japanese activities in the early 20th century.
It marks the first time in 57 years that the government has taken action against Korean citizens who cooperated with Japan, which colonized the peninsula from 1910 to 1945. A similar move was foiled in 1949 due to strong protests from the collaborators.
The Committee for the Inspection of Property of Japan Collaborators will start the investigation on Aug. 18 before seizing the property obtained by collaborators during Japanese colonization. Its preliminary investigation started in April.
I’d love to see whether any of these seizures hold up in court once collaborator descendants start issuing legal challenges.
Also interesting is how the Korea Herald blames the United States for the failure of previous attempts during the late 1940s to settle the issue of ill-begotten colonial-era gains.
66 Comments
Has the Uri Party figured out how to define “collaborator” so that its own officials don’t have to resign in shame like last time they pursued this witch hunt?
You’re spot on Mr. Marmot, the debate over the legality of this is going to be interesting.
Interesting how the Herald calls them “traitors” who “lined their pockets”. Roh just pardoned a few guys who were involved in illegal election activities. Surely that is a crime against the whole country. Why are they not traitors? Anyone involved in damaging the democratic process of the country should be labeled a traitor! Some people who were born without involvement in anything related to the occupation have to suffer now though. Sins of the father are transfered to the son it seems in Korea.
Don’t confuse the issue with your logical analogies Travolta! Besides, you’re in Japan–how can you understand Korean feelings?
Hehe damn that little flag, now everyone will think im just an insane Japanophile instead of an insane Australian ex-pat in Korea. Damn you little flag function!
Statutes of limitations come to mind, although a true People’s Participatory Democracy™ would pass a special law extending that limitation in violation of all existing legal principles except the “Public Sentiment Law“.
Yes, what will the Urinal Party think of next to distract attention from their complete incompetence on every other issue? Maybe it’ll be anti-Russian sentiment, or maybe a return to the tried and true anti-Americanism (not that this hasn’t been ongoing, but it seems maybe the place is due for another orgy of hate ala the ‘murder’ of the schoolgirls). First will have to see how this anti-Japanese crap plays out. Of course, the Uri’s always skip the perfect villain, KJI, even though he really is a total villain. Are socialists the world over as hypocritical and manipulative as these ones in South Korea?
The Urinal Party (good one) is “socialist” in exactly the same way George Galloway is, i.e., not really. Gotta get the hate-Japan orgy out of the way on Aug. 15 (hey, who liberated your country Prez Roh?) first, then maybe those bad Russians, or how about Uzbeks?
when I read about this, I ’bout shot milk out my nose.
Or, at least, I would have had I been drinking milk.
Which I wasn’t.
Anyway, it’s a dumb idea.
Exactly. I know the Korean public is smarter than to be fooled by this petty and useless political faux pas.
I like the blame the U.S. part. If Bush hadn’t shitcanned the Iraqi army and Baath officials in 2003 we’d be hearing the same thing out of Iraq in 60 years. See? We can learn from history.
You know, there would be a lot less to criticise here if the people doing this were the descendants of people who had had their property taken away and given to collaborators… like what happened with the Holocaust victims who were suing the Swiss banks. But considering that this is basically a government seizure, it sure does look a lot like a witch hunt. The property that’s being seized will probably all be ‘auctioned off’ to loyal party members for a pittance. Is the Uri party and the current administration really that dead-set on not only losing all their popular support and credibility, but also being prosecuted for corruption once they’re out of power?
The old Korean proverb has now been updated as follows:
잘 되면 우리 탓, 못 되면 미국 탓.
The articles I read on this did not mention whether or not the land and other assets confiscated will be returned to the original owners, or to the government. I’m against this sort of witch-hunt from the inception, but if the government merely seizes the assets, in fifty years we’ll have another round of this, but this time the government officials will be the traitors.
So, Samsung is going to be confiscated. And Park Guen Hye’s wealth…buh-bye. And in a few years it’ll be those who “cooperated” with the Americans. Super.
Gee, I remember when I posted about this last year when it was still in legislation people threatened to kill me saying I just made stuff up because I hate Korea so much. I wonder where those people are today? Probably making maps that say what they want so say because they don’t have any real ones.
In case it is of interest to anyone, the Korean word used about “seizing” or “confiscating” these assets and “withdrawing” the war-time command from USFK is the same hwansu (還收).
Now all I have to do is go to Naver, punch in my fake chumin bonho, include that quote with your blog address along with a note that you are anti Korean that loves to date Korean girls, and wait for the fun to begin.
If you’re willing to take such things as an indicator as to which way public sentiment is blowing, my students all named President Noh when I asked them for the worst Korean ever.
Just thought I’d mention it.
Aye, the pendulum is indeed swinging.. the quetion is, where will it be positioned in 15 months?
Distractionary politics work… and this may just be the stunt they need to stay ahead of… well, it won’t work. But ya never know here.
Which party is it that keeps harping about their opponents having a mind-set stuck in the past?
I’m not sure how i came across this, but apparantly its the official north korean news feed to tokyo:
http://www.kcna.co.jp/index-e.htm
Most people who get accused of having been collaborators were in a shady area and are so accused for simply assuming japanese names or working as local officials during Japanese rule. Too many people are accused of collaboration just for living their lives in the colonial period without rushing the system or moving to Hawai’i.
However, there are some who were clearly traitors to the Korean people ANY FRIGGIN WAY YOU LOOK AT IT. People like Yi Wanyong were portrayed as collaborators in history textbooks EVEN BY/DURING KOREA’S MILITARY DICTATORSHIPS. In cases like theirs, their acts of collaboration are so concrete and specific that the rewards they received in appreciation can be identified by time and date.
It’s painful to watch so many right-leaning expats embarass themselves on this issue, and in two ways.
First of all, hate for KDJ and RMH and Korean lefties affects their judgment so much that they have to disagree with the official positions of Park Chung Hee and Chun Doo Hwan when it comes to calling people like Yi Wanyong “traitors.” Yi’s name is synonymous with the word _maegungno_ (traitor) in Korea, and that’s because Koreans were taught to think so by right-wing dictatorships.
Secondly, the gov’t action described in Marmot’s post affects only about 400 people. Why so small a number? The commenter at #22 says “Jap Lover’s properties and decendents properties can be seized by the government.” I thought the common claim was that Japan did Korea a big favor and Koreans generally liked Japanese rule. If true, wouldn’t that have meant that hundreds of thousands of Koreans were “Jap Lovers”? Is it that there were only 400 Koreans who liked/approved of Japanese rule and thus were Jap lovers, or is it that these measures won’t affect people who merely Jap lovers?
They do not target people who were just “Jap lovers,” and that’s why the gov’t isn’t looking into thousands and thousands of people.
Commenter at #22 needs to decide what it’s gonna be - either Korea had only 400-ish “Jap lovers” or the Korean government isn’t really going after them after all.
Sorry if I am offtopic, but in another news Dr. Ki Hang Kim, originally from North Korea but left the country for the US, and an american professor may have proposed a valid counter-example to the Hodge conjecture. For the non mathematicians, this is actually a big deal and also one of the Millenium problem from the Clay Mathematics Institute, this means a 1,000,000$ prize for whoever solves it.
Dr. Kim has some the circonstances that brought him to the US.
Nice blog Robert, very useful to keep track from home of what is going on in SK.
The “traitors” in question are dead, so regardless of how “treasonous” their actions are, it’s too late to bring them to account for it. What is spurring criticism here isn’t blind hatred for the Korean left, but a quite sensible belief in the principle that people shouldn’t be punished for the long past sins of their ancestors - even if claims for property restitution are to be made against “traitors” and “collaborators”, it ought to be up to private individuals who have suffered identifiable losses to bring their claims to the courts, not for the Korean government to go about seizing what it considers “unjust” gains.
That aside, there’s also the political angle to consider: one has every reason in the world to believe that this isn’t about squarely facing the past warts and all, but a pretext for a witch-hunt with a healthy side-helping of “soak the rich” socialism. Indeed, when you say the following
You actually provide fodder for just such suspicions, as if this were truly about rooting out “traitors” and “collaborators”, it would certainly net far more than 400 people. Why then are we supposed to believe that these 400 will be the most deserving of the vast numbers of Koreans who profited in some way or other from Japan’s rule, rather than just the richest and most politically convenient targets?
Finally, all this talk of “traitors” and the like ignores the reality that for very many Koreans who supposedly “betrayed” Korea to the Japanese, the truth is that Imperial Japan was their country, the only land they were born into and knew, and as such it is a travesty of both justice and historical accuracy to condemn them for “treason” just because they helped their government fight a bunch of separatist communists. To agree with the “treason” claims against such people makes as much sense as saying the Basques or the native Hawaiians would be in the right to start hunting down all those who had served Spain and America as “traitors” should the Basques or Hawaii ever gain independence.
The Korean government probably isn’t actually going against anyone who was actually in a position to ‘collaborate’ with the Japanese government or be a ‘jap lover’ during the occupation — just their descendants.
I think a lot of people take issue, not with branding these people traitors (although Hans is right that the charge is more akin to ‘race treason’), but with the fact that the government seems to be going after their descendants, years after the fact, not on the instigation of the actual descendants of the people harmed by the actions of the supposed ‘traitors’, but on its own recognizance, without any guarantee that the seized property will ever make its way back into the hands of the descendants of the people it was taken from.
What if the US government suddenly decided to force the forfeiture of properties owned by the descendants of former slave owners without promising that the property would be given to the descendants of the former slaves? It doesn’t do anything to diminish the atrociousness of the institution of chattel slavery to say that an action like that by the US government would be wrong and illegal. Likewise, this action by the SK administration just seems like a land and property grab done in order to defame certain political enemies and enrich loyal party members — a witch hunt any way you look at it. If SK truly wants to come to terms with its past and address the issue of collaborators enrishing themselves at the expense of the common people, then that’s fine - they could open up the courts to the claims for a very limited time and offer government assistance in tracking down assets taken by the colonial government. But going about things this way just seems to be some sort of last-gasp effort to try and drag everyone else into the mud alongside the faltering Uri party.
This also sets a poor precedent for following administrations, and if the Uri party should do anything at this point, it should be looking towards a future in which its party members will be out of power. After all, a hostile administration following the No Administration wouldn’t have to stretch to far in order to prosecute several members of No’s Administration — after all, the National Security Law is still on the books. Maybe it would be wiser for the Uri party and the admninistration not to start branding people traitors.
Orankay,
On a related question. Within the Korean Left, is there any recognition that some of those who collaborated with the Japanese may have been Korean nationalists who had adopted a Gramschian approach, and were waiting for the propitious moment (such as the defeat of Japan by outside powers) to act? Granted, it would be hard to distinguish true “gramschists” from opportunists, but that’s also true of many “815″ Reds.
Hans Castorp, you have completely hit the nail on the head with your comment. Exactly the issue the left is missing. Thank you. Everyone read his post and think about it.
How come Koreans get suspicious of every US action, but cannot see Rho’s flogging of these straw dogs as a rather pathetic last gasp of a failed presidency.
This is Mugabe territory. The sad thing is that Rho is only going to get more goofy from here on out.
Left Flank,
I think this issue is very relevant because it’s representitive of the culture and belief in family name/blood. I think it’s a massive flaw in Korean culture and makes life much harder for Koreans and expats living there. It’s a witch hunt to root out the “traitors” who are only guilty of being born in a “bad” family. It’s looking at the group and labeling all within it criminal rather than the individual. It reinforces the idea that for Korea its a never ending battle between us and them. Them being anyone who doesn’t conform to the Korean norm.
It doesn’t effect me in any way shape or form though. I just think it’s very interesting. Korea is a very interesting place.
Oranckay…
I’m commenter #22. Did you click the link? Do you remember when I posted about this and you called me a liar? What do numbers of how many people are being prosecuted have to do with anything? I mentioned no numbers, and you’re going on about numbers? I said these are the laws passing in Korea when I talked about it last year, and now the government is moving on these laws. But you completely denied the existence of such laws and went so far as to say I made them up just because I’m out to get Korea…
“one has every reason in the world to believe that this isn’t about squarely facing the past warts and all, but a pretext for a witch-hunt with a healthy side-helping of “soak the rich” socialism.”
This hits the nail on the head. Why is there this pressing need to weed out those traitors? Surely it has nothing to do with the fact that the Urinal Party is nearly down to single digits in popularity.
It seems that almost everything the Urinals have done is a blatant manipulation for political gain (eg, milking anti-japanese, anti-American, anti-Chinese, anti-foreign investment, anti-capitalist sentiment).
> Travolta
> this issue is very relevant because it’s representitive
> of the culture and belief in family name/blood.
Well, quite beyond that — it’s about inherited wealth (great
wealth inherited by descendents of collaborators as a direct
result of their collaboration) — along with resentment over
poverty inherited by descendents of those who resisted the Japanese colonialists, losing their family property as a result.
There has already been some “naming and shaming” of descendents
of collaborators in general — correct me if i’m wrong, but i think at least some of that has happened under every ROK president — but in this particular project they are only or mostly concerned with generational transmission of unjustly acquired assets, leading to some contemporary Koreans being rich who maybe shouldn’t oughtta be.
There has already been a pretty fair amount of financial and other compensation given to impoverished descendents of patriots — i had thought that part of the plan of the present effort was to use the confiscated wealth to give more to them — but people here are saying not, and i’m really not sure…
Korea is far from the only country that deals with questions like this; just about every nation that comes out from under colonialism or dictatorship does. And in America we have the long-running movement to compensate African-American descendents of slaves for their inherited poverty — which i had thought was going nowhere but recently read is picking up some steam. (?)
Myself, i oppose efforts like this that go back more than a generation or two, unless it’s a very specific provable case.
I wonder if the SK government follow the same path after the eventual collapse of NK dictatorship. Something tells me that they will found themselves in Syngman Rhee’s shoes and will emply former collaborators (and even actual executioners, drug dealers and camp guard chiefs) in droves. Simply because there will be nobody else to employ there. And then, say, in year 2077 AD, when post-unification trauma will be over and all people responsible for NK crimes and massacres will be safely dead, there might be a discussion of retirbution and “correcting old wrongs”, especially if it serves the needs of some bunch of political demagogues (not to be born yet).
It seems to me that SK is only trying to behave themselves before the General Kim Jong-Il, SK will be united under the Great Kim Dynasty if Korean people won’t notice about this craziness of the Roh’s government.
Almost all of the Koreans were pro-Japan before 1945 and almost all of the Koreans were pro-China before 1905. Why do Koreans always look back?
I was just thinking about this, but most counties have laws against making things done in the past I crime, so I thought I’d check with S. Korea.
I mean, it’s almost like they used the constitution as reference for how to break the law as much as possible.
Save for its Consitution (see above), I see no reason why Korea should not have its own sort of “Truth and Reconciliation Committee” or “Treuhand” to handle these matters.
Perhaps what Roh is trying to do now is a dry run for what might happen post-unification.
Well right, there’s nothing wrong with investigating the truth in a matter, and it’s something that should be done. But to take it further to then punish someone who did nothing himself? That’s where it becomes problematic.
It is happening in Germany and Austria regularly. By which I mean property (such as artworks, but also land) held by those who did nothing themselves is confiscated and returned to the heirs of its erstwhile owners.
But a piece of artwork or any other property that can be traced to it’s original owner and returned to it’s original owner is different then a 10 million won fine (I believe that’s what the punishment along with your family being shamed and all your descendants destined to be unemployable and unable to marry) paid to the government.
Where are you getting that? Hyperbole.
The article cited states:
Look at what is happening in Germany and Austria.
Such things as artworks and land are being confiscated and returned to the heirs of the Nazi-era Jewish owners.
Do you know the background of this? During the earlier part of the Nazi era many Jews were forced to sell their real and personal property at a loss before their forced emigration. This obviously benefitted the buyers (who were often local Nazi party functionaries), who then in some cases passed this land/property down to their descendants. Because the Nazis were great recordkeepers, it has not been so hard to trace the subsequent ownership of the stolen property (it has been much harder to find the rightful heirs).
I am not familiar with Korean history, so I may be wrong, but it seems not so farfetched to me that something analogous could have happened in Korea. Why is it wrong for Korea, albeit at a late date and for politically motivated reasons, to want to redress that?
For that matter, the U.S. could well have done the same in regard to many WWII-era interned Japanese-Americans.
Yes, but I’ve also read more articles then just the one linked here… As I mentioned I first came across these laws last year and commented on them, but people just told me I was a liar and making things up, that there are no such laws in Korea. Clearly that is not the case as such a law does exist now just as it did last year when I first mentioned it. One of the articles I read had the punishment listed as being a 10 million won fine. Perhaps that has changed, but that’s irrelevant. Returning what was taken is fine, but just taking random assets that are not limited to what was originally lost, let alone returning it to it’s rightful owner, is something else.
Why is it wrong for Korea, albeit at a late date and for politically motivated reasons, to want to redress that?
Well for one, in this case it’s unconstitutional. That should be a pretty good reason.
I have no problem with investigating and exposing the truth. But it needs to be done consistently, and not applied just to those who the current administration does not like. The problem comes when you punish someone who didn’t actually do anything wrong themselves. If it is returning an item that can be traced, for example pieces of Korean artwork or historical items that are in Japanese museums for example, then this is a different story, but this case is not the same. What seems to be going on here is people are being punished for the wrongs of others, not wrongs being corrected. The difference is between justice and revenge.
There is a major underlying thing that is always an issue for myself when talking about these with others… I do not buy into the “Germany did this so Japan must too” argument. I’ve said it before, but Japan is not Germany, comparisons for Japan and Germany really stop at the time period being the same. The goals for war, and the means for war were different. Germany wanted to exterminate a race, Japan wanted to build a western style empire. If you can find examples of the European powers apologizing to their former colonies and paying money to them any more then Japan has to it’s former colonies, you’ll be able to convince me much better then bringing up Germany. Now, just because no one else does ‘the right thing’ it doesn’t mean that Japan has to, but if you’re going to make comparisons I think they need to correct comparisons. Japan could theoretically be an example for the European powers when it comes to them dealing with their past imperialism. Some people think so as shown in this argument between a few men from Africa and a few men and women from Korea on Japanese TV.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=-tDNx3GobLg
Whoa, I got a couple a type-o’s in there that could confuse things.
” Now, just because no one else does ‘the right thing’ it doesn’t mean that Japan has to,”
“Just because no one else ‘does the right thing’ it doesn’t mean that Japan doesn’t have to either…” probably makes more sense. There are some other mistakes up there too, but I think people can still understand what I am saying without major complications.
This is not a blanket comparison of Germany and Japan, but an accurate and specific one.
Germany’s annexation of Austria is quite analogous to Japan’s annexation of Korea. I’m speaking of pre-WWII times for both, so your rant is irrelevant.
When comparing the appropriation and forced sale of Jewish-owned property in Austria to what happened in Korea, it is irrelevant that the Nazis _later_ decided to commit genocide. Obviously a good number of these Jews did not die, as they have heirs.
The point is that the Jews wrongly had their property appropriated or were forced to sell at a loss. If the same happened in prewar Korea, why should Korea not want its wronged citizen heirs to have redress?
What’s more, I note that the situation with Germany and Japan is not analogous as Korea is seeking the redress in this case from Korean citizens, not Japanese nationals or the Japanese government.
I wonder were there anti-Japan Koreans living in the colonial days in Korean penninsula….?
Only 400 pro-Japanese activities, while Majority of Korean people worked for Japan?
What about the people who volunteered for Japanese army soldiers but didn’t pass the test (only 1 out of 50 had passed the test, so majority failed)? What about carpenters or engineers who made roads, who made bridges, or who made houses for Japanese residents? What about teachers, civil servants? Didn’t almost all the people work for Japan to some degree in those days?
Were the President Roh’s family fighting against Japan all through the colonial days? Were they living in mountains? Unbelievable.
Dogbertt, I see what you are saying and it makes more sense to me now that you specify you are talking about pre-WW2, at least in western standards of when it started.
But “seizing the property obtained by collaborators during Japanese colonization” doesn’t saying anything about giving it back to those who it was taken from, just seizing the properties for the state. Which is why Robert says, “I’d like to think this is simply a form of creative financing.” If it was clear that what was taken will be returned to those it was taken from, it wouldn’t be an issue because stealing has always been wrong, but what seems to be going on is all properties of the ancestors of those who didn’t necessarily steal, just didn’t fight the Japanese will be seized and not returned to those they were taken from, because there weren’t directly taken from anyone. The only stealing that will be going on will be by the current government. That is the difference between returning specific pieces of artwork to Jews in Europe and the government seizing all assets of an innocent citizen in Korea because their grandfather or father didn’t live up to todays standards 50 years ago and keeping them for themselves.
Another reason I support this is that it just may force some hereabouts to come to terms with their hypocrisy. As I believe someone else noted, a previous attempt at this redress was aborted when it was discovered Uri Party officials would have become targets.
@Darin — More quotes from the cited article.
So there is some possibility of heirs receiving redress.
This does not go as far as what has occurred in Germany and Austria, where museums, for example, are having works they purchased legally confiscated.
Hmm I must have missed those quotes the first few times I read the article, thanks for pointing them out.
But now lets play this through. Two days ago, you Dogbertt, wake up, have your morning coffee and read the paper with breakfast. Half way through you find your fathers name on a list of enemies of the state. You go to work, and are hassled, return home and people are calling you all throughout the night telling you how horrible you are and threatening to kill you. The next day you are fired, you return home to find protesters on your lawn burning Japanese flags and trying to eat your suit, all under police protection. Today, you go to the bank and realize all of your assets have been frozen by the government. You race home and find that your house has been seized while you were out. Later you get a call from the police, your daughter has committed suicide after her classmates learned her grandfather was ‘friendly to the Japanese’ and beat her and harassed her.
Are you going to tell me that’s justice? What’s your crime exactly? You have the wrong DNA?
Obviously this is an over dramatized fictional example, but you are essentially arguing it’s proper and morally correct for that to happen. I think that’s wrong, you’ve committed no crime, yet you have to ‘do the time’. What’s worse, this whole thing is unconstitutional to begin with.
Now had you come home from work on the 2nd day and some people in suits were waiting at your door to collect a painting on your wall, you’re not going to be happy about it but when you learn it wasn’t really yours to begin with you’ll be very understanding.
FYI, I hold the rights to that story above. I plan on making a movie about it. If any film studio is interested, I’ll sell the rights to the movie in exchange for the value of Dogbertts estate before it was seized by the government paid in full to Dogbertt as well as moving costs and guarantee of his save passage to a neutral 3rd nation where he can live in peace.
You are a dishonest debater. I am in no way suggesting that harassment is proper and morally correct.
I am simply saying that there may well be cases in Korea that were analogous to what happened in Germany and Austria, viz.:
1) a Korean’s real property is seized (perhaps because a relative of that person is being held as an anti-Japanese agitator) by the Japanese government in Korea and then sold at a discount to a collaborator, who continues to hold that property post-1945 and passes it to his descendants; or
2) A Korean collaborator covets a neighbor’s landholding, so starts a rumor that that person is plotting against the Japanese. Said landholder gets wind that the Japanese plan to arrest him, flees for his life with his family to Manchuria and the Japanese reward the rumor starter by granting him that land, which is passed down, etc.
In such cases, why should there be no redress?
Do you object to the redress in Germany and Austria on the same grounds as you stated earlier?
Do you think that after the fall of the Kim dynasty in North Korea heirs of South Koreans deprived of their property in the North should have no redress?
Since you insist on the comparison between Austria and Korea, let me also remind you that those attempts at restitution in Central Europe have been by individuals going through the courts, something no one here has opposed; the Austrian and German governments haven’t been making Uri Party style lists of “collaborators” and siccing committees on their descendants. The one being “dishonest” in debate here is you, for refusing to acknowledge that there already exist perfectly constitutional means to achieve the aims you claim to support.
I’m saying you can’t punish people for crimes they did not commit. Now, if the topic of discussion is something physical, like a painting, that one can say “you didn’t steal it from me, but your grandfather did, please give it back”, the painting should be returned. However punishing people and saying, “your grandfather didn’t fight hard enough, or didn’t fight at all, or even helped the enemy, all of your belongings and assets will now be ceased and your life ruined” is not justice in my world.
The original ‘punishment’ for having dirty DNA as I first heard it was a relatively small 10,000USD fine. I don’t think I could call that justice either, but it’s better then ceasing everything. To me, the government ceasing everything, or anything of yours, because you have tainted blood, is a crime in and of itself.
I do not think I am being a dishonest debater, I am putting you to the question, “what if it was your blood that was ‘dirty’?” It’s easy for us to say, “well you should just give everything up because your grandfather was a criminal”, but the people we are saying that to themselves are not criminals, so why should they be treated like criminals, especially when the constitution bans such actions to begin with.
Darin and Hans, it’s dishonest because you have me in support of cross burnings, harassment, suicide and whatnot…all hyperbole of Darin’s, not mine. That’s the George W. Bush method of smearing one’s opponent.
And Hans, it is true that that is individuals going through the courts. However, that presupposes that relevant laws have been put in place to allow such outcomes, no?
Hans, what are the Consitutional means? Korea’s Consitution would seem to prevent such results, according to the excerpt Darin posted.
By the way, Hans, are you familiar with the Treuhand Anstalt? Through this government-established mechanism, Germans were able to receive restitution of property in the former East Germany. This was indeed a government program, not a matter of citizens going to the courts.
Darin, I don’t know what your comprehension problem is, but it is severe.
I have limited my argument to the issue of property unfairly acquired by collaborators and held by their descendants. I am not talking of blood, fines, or whatever other fevered scenarios you are coming up with.
Please keep both hands on the keyboard at all times.
“I have limited my argument to the issue of property unfairly acquired by collaborators and held by their descendants. I am not talking of blood, fines, or whatever other fevered scenarios you are coming up with.”
You are clearly talking of blood lines. Your proposed solution for righting the wrongs of unfairly acquired property is blood lines. You say you want to go after descendants, and in the very next line say you are not talking of blood lines. With the incredibly rare exception of domestic adoptions, all descendants are part of the blood line, their sole crime is being born. I assume you are willing to give up everything for the acts of your father or grandfather then?
From my perspective, something of like this rights no wrongs, it is nothing more then another act of wrong. Two wrongs don’t make a right. Investigating into the matters as to who did what when is perfectly acceptable, punishing the descendants of said previous generations is not acceptable. I would like to know how willingly you would cooperate with punishment for a crime you did not commit. I would not like it one bit.
Do I have to remind you what the constitution says in Korea? “(3) No citizen shall suffer unfavorable treatment on account of an act not of his own doing but committed by a relative.” You’ve created a rather uphill battle for yourself, you have to argue against the constitution.
The problem is that Korea never had its Yorktown, its Ghandi march to the sea or its fall of Saigon.
I guess on some level Rho may be expressing a need to get closure and move on.
First, I will state that I believe it is wrong to punish descendants for the real or alleged crimes of their ancestors as they have committed no crime (or at least not those crimes), and may not have even profited from whatever it was their ancestors did.
Second, in many of the possible scenarios to be addressed in the current witch-hunt, it would be exceedingly difficult to prove that X maligned Y so that the Japanese would persecute them, leaving the way for X to obtain Y’s property.
If there are any clear cases where the Japanese confiscated land from Y and granted it to X for their ‘service to the emperor’ (or whatever – but not someone who merely did business with the Japanese and purchases shares of land during the period), then there would very probably be grounds for giving that property back to the rightful heirs. In Austria, this recently happened to the building being rented to the U.S. government and housing the American Embassy (and the descents who inherited the building are now Americans)! However, unlike many of the cases in Europe, however, pieces of art, etc., are not the types of property being called into question.
And if there are clear cases of individuals properties that were originally legally obtained being confiscated by the Japanese colonial government, which have since been obtained by third, fourth, etc. parties, I see no reason why the original family should not get that property back (if the current owners would sell – some may have current homes, business, etc. and it would not be fair to disrupt their lives for something they did not do) or receive fair compensation from the government. Such compensation should not be considered to be from taxes (although that is where the money would have to come from at this point), but via the reparation funds received from Japan in 1965. Interest is a bitch.
What I’m talking about is simple fairness – if it can be proved the property was taken from the legal owners by the colonial government, the family that lost said assets should get them back, or be compensated (i.e., 1965 reparation funds). That of course does not address the millions of Koreans who suffered but had no property to be confiscated, but that’s a different issue.
Finally, a statute of limitations should be established for initiating (but not concluding) claims related to this so that it’s not rehashed time and again. Stability needs some finality is such issues. A possible exception to this will be when Korea reunifies, and folks on both sides will have claims to properties owned before the war, and before the Japanese.
I will take issue with a different comment of Dogbert’s, concerning, “the George W. Bush method of smearing one’s opponent.” Wouldn’t that better be described as the “Dan Rather” method?
To be fair, there is a distinction in most legal systems between criminal law and property law. In property law, the true owner of something is typically entitled to recover it, no matter whether that recovery is to be had from the person who took it, or from the descendants. However 60-100 years after the fact is pretty extreme, since the average statute of limitations on this sort of thing would probably be about 20 years at maximum. Now, while it’s not unheard of for people to recover something even after the statute of limitations would say otherwise, it’s generally required that they spend at least some due diligence in trying to find and recover their property over the years.
But it doesn’t seem like that is what is happening in this situation at all. In this case, the goverment is the one that is proposing to effect a forfeiture against the descendants of past collaborators. It isn’t completely unheard of for a government for seize assets of collaborators — several of the colonies did it in the Revolutionary War, and the Emancipation Proclamation was, if nothing else, a declaration of forfeiture against traitors — but typically these types of seizure come either during or immediately after a conflict. In addition, the laws authorizing such a seizure are usually already in place before the alleged crime and subsequent seizure takes place. If the laws authorizing the seizure of the assets of collaborators weren’t already in place by the end of World War II, then the South Korean government is forcing the forfeiture of those assets ex post facto, which the Constitution expressly forbids. I suppose the Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea could have passed such a law, but in any case, it seems a bit late to bring what is essentially a criminal case against ‘traitors’ — many of whom probably died quite a long time ago. To do so against their descendants is basically the ‘unfavorable treatment on account of an act … committed by a relative’ that the Constitution also forbids.
At any rate, if I were one of the people who was going to be investigated, I would really consider the possibility of moving all my assets to France and getting French citizenship — at least until the whole thing blows over.
Darin, I am not talking about punishment and fines.
If my grandfather stole the Hope Diamond and left it to me when I died, do I have the right to keep it simply because I did not steal it myself? Your argument appears to lead to the conclusion that yes, I do.
That has nothing to do with “blood”; it has to do with rightful ownership.
If you don’t like the way I say it, read Richardson’s comment.
“If you don’t like the way I say it, read Richardson’s comment.”
Funny, because I thought Richard said almost the same thing as me too
The hope diamond is a single physical item that can be returned, however what it seems the government is going to do is just take ‘properties’ of people who cooperated and profited. (Even more so, because the ‘list’ includes so many people yet only 400 are going to be charged right now, it makes it look like a witch hunt with political motives. Perhaps there will be another round of people charged though. ) Items that can be traced to it’s original owner are different from sending someone to the poor house for ‘thought crimes’ committed by their grandfather.
For your Hope Diamond reference, please jump up to comment #41
Sounds like what I’ve been saying all along. The only difference now is the punishment seems to no longer be a 10K USD fine, but (limitless?) seizure of assets as you corrected me on earlier.
Also, you still haven’t told me what you would do if the government seized everything you had because your grandfather didn’t fight hard enough. I’ve been asking you that since #50.
WTF? Why do you and wjk seem to think I’m your bitch? Answer your own strawmen, otaku.
I notice you do not answer:
All I have consistently said (having managed to avoid the fevered flights of fantasy you willingly succumb to) is that the Korean government has the right to put in place a mechanism to evaluate and do something in regard to the claims of rightful heirs to property that was wrongly expropriated during the Japanese occupation.
Well, it depends a lot on your jurisdiction, but you may be able to keep the diamond under those circumstances. After signifigant amounts of time have passed, the law in many places starts favoring the one who posesses an item or a property, rather than the one who holds actual title, especially in cases where the true owner has given up on trying to get the item back. At any rate though, that’s not necessarily how things work in South Korea (although the 1990 case mentioned in the Herald seems to indicate that it is). This quote in the Times also seems telling:
So not only is the government violating the Constitution by passing an ex post facto law, they’re also violating the Constitution by treatng people unfavorably based on the actions of their ancestors. Nice.
In California, there is a three-year statute of limitations on actions for recovery of stolen property not deposited with a financial institution. There are exceptions for antiquities, Holocaust victims, Armenian Genocide victims, Northridge earthquake insurance claimants, 9/11 victims, and Braceros. Presumably, if the Korean government follows through with its plan, it would find it simple enough to create a similar class and also amend the Korean Constitution if necessary.
No, you’re not ‘my bitch’, I just thought you were a decent enough person to answer a my question. And what does “strawmen otaku” mean anyway?
As for your question, it was answered long, long ago. #53, Hans Castorp
I agree with you on your example of something such as the hope diamond. Since the very beginning I have been saying the same thing thinking of paintings and other things of the sort. I agree with what was going on in Germany/Austria etc, however what seems to be going on with the Uri party in S. Korea is not the same thing, and I do not agree with them. This is not about returning the hope diamond or a painting to the original owner, this is about punishing people financially and socially for what their parents and grandparents generations political beliefs were.
Now, if you could please answer my question as to how willingly you would turn over everything you’ve ever possessed and move into a cardboard box under the highway overpass because your grandfather provided for his children in hopes of a better life instead of getting himself and your whole family killed, I would appreciate it. I would like to know if you truly believe this is right, or if you believe it is right as long as you don’t stand to suffer.
And I responded to this Castorp by mentioning the Treuhand Anstalt, which was a government body set up by Germany to handle the restitution of property under both the Nazi and Communist regimes. So it was not solely a matter of individuals pursuing court action, your bold type be damned.
“Otaku” is a mildly derogatory term for a geeky white guy who casts himself in the role of defender of all things Nipponian. I’m surprised you’re unfamiliar with it.
Neither you nor I will ever personally suffer regardless of what decision the Korean government takes in this matter, so your question is pointless.
Just as I thought, you have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about.
Otaku hardly means “a geeky white guy who casts himself in the role of defender of all things Nipponian.” Otaku just means someone who is so very interested in something that it becomes all they care about and all they think about nearly day in and day out. Perhaps even to the point that if they do work, all their income is spent on this obsession. The most common example would be the Anime Otaku, but people often refer to themselves as ‘Travel Otaku’ because the second they get a vacation, they go traveling, spend many hours when they should be at work researching where to go on their next vacation.
You can confirm in the dictionary (4):
http://dictionary.goo.ne.jp/se.....amp;mode=0
Now, this little diversion has nothing to do with the issue at hand, but what it does show is you will just say random stuff you know nothing about in the hope that the person you are talking to also knows little or nothing about so that you can dictate to them your own meaning that fits your purpose, regardless of truth, factuality, or morality, just so that you can ‘win’.
BTW, I think the word you are looking for is Nipponese, not Nipponian.
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[...] Take a look at this. Funny thing is, I wrote about this last year! Here’s part of what I had to say: As of March 2nd 2004, it’s illegal in South Korea to be friendly to those “Imperialist Japs” (帝強制占領下反民族行為の真相糾明に関する特別法 in Korean 친일진상규명법) and as of December 8th 2005, said “Jap Lover”’s properties and decendents properties can be seized by the government (親日反民族行為者財産帰属特別法) [...]
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