[ADRN Online Seminar] Democracy Cooperation Series 14: History of Human Rights Violations in Asia

YouTube 링크 : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQRq_Ljhd_o

The East Asia Institute (President Yul Sohn), as a secretariat of the Asia Democracy Research Network (ADRN), hosted the fourteenth online seminar of the [Democracy Cooperation] series, titled "History of Human Rights Violations in Asia.” During this seminar, ADRN members from South Korea, Sri Lanka, and Taiwan discussed the history of human rights violations and efforts that were made to ensure justice for the victims. The panelists shared each respective experience to offer lessons other democratizing countries could learn from.

Date/ Time: April 29, 2022 (Friday) 14:00~ 15:30

Panelists:

Chin-en Wu (Associate Research Fellow, Institute of Political Science at Academia Sinica)

Hun Joon Kim (Professor, Korea University)

Paikiasothy Saravanamuttu (Founding Executive Director, Centre for Policy Alternatives)

I. Overview

Many countries in Asia have faced similar experiences of being under authoritarian rule in the past. During this rule, there were many cases of human rights violations. With the introduction and implementation of democracy, states have tried to bring justice to the victims and their families. Efforts include, but are not limited to, official apologies, recognition of the past, reparation, and punishing the perpetrators. However, many challenges exist in achieving full justice and reconciliation.

The Asia Democracy Research Network (ADRN) gathered experts from South Korea, Sri Lanka, and Taiwan to exchange ideas and expertise on transitional justice and reconciliation measures that were taken in each respective country. During this webinar, experts gave a brief background on the human rights violations that occurred in the past, explained the different transitional justice measures the government implemented and outlined the challenges that exist today.

II. Case Studies: Sri Lanka, Taiwan, South Korea

Sri Lanka

The Sri Lankan civil war ended with the military defeat of the Liberation Tigers for Tamil Eelam (LTTE) by the forces of the Government of Sri Lanka. The previous attempt at a political settlement was ushered in following the Indo-Sri Lanka Accord in 1987. Transitional justice for the alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity that were committed by both sides is part of the current regime's attempts at constitutional reform. In 2009, Sri Lanka pledged to investigate allegations of war crimes and violations of international humanitarian law. However, as this did not happen, the UN Secretary-General established a Panel of Experts on Accountability in Sri Lanka. The panel found that there was evidence to further investigate this issue. The Consultative Task Force (CTF) conducted hearings throughout Sri Lanka to ascertain public views on the four transitional justice mechanisms introduced in Geneva. This brought on domestic criticism on the grounds that this was a violation of Sri Lanka's sovereignty. Despite initial suspicion and distrust that the CTF was yet another government body to seek public support, the response improved over time. The government issued Certificates of Absence (COA) to the families of disappeared people. This has not been welcomed by the families because the COA could constitute acceptance that their loved ones are no longer on this earth. An additional concern for the appointment of individuals to the Office due to their past associations.

The key mechanism that aroused the most amount of uproar and outrage was the provision for the proactive participation of international judges and prosecutors. The objection was framed based on the violation of national sovereignty. In order to hold their Sinhala Buddhist constituency together, the Rajapaksas, a politically prominent family in Sri Lanka, have taken a hardline stance. However, Sri Lanka still remains on the agenda of the UNHRC. Another key measure was that the Prevention of Terrorism Act of 43 years was to be amended. Critics and other states pointed out that the proposed amendments did not go to the heart of the draconian legislation.

There are several reasons for the impediments to transitional justice in Sri Lanka. Some have already been mentioned such as the Rajapaksa family's identification with the Sinhala Buddhist nation that defeated the LTTE. The Sri Lankan government and security forces have also refused to accept the possibility of accountability for war crimes. The argument is that accountability will only rake up old wounds and be divisive when the overarching objective is to heal and reconcile. Another obstacle is the cultural issue of whether full confession will be possible in a society based more on shame than guilt. Sri Lankan demand confronts the barrier of impunity that has been erected over the years and cloaked in a notion of narrow patriotism and nationalism. The Human Rights Council is the only forum in which arguments for transitional justice are taken seriously and, if possible, advanced in terms of implementation.

Taiwan

It can be said that relations between the local people and the Kuomingtang (KMT) government were extremely tense in 1947. A prominent issue called the "228 Incident" was triggered by the mishandling of a cigarette-smuggling case by police officers which led some Taipei citizens to go out to the streets and protest on February 28, 1947. Taipei City was the epicenter of this political storm but this movement spread to almost all counties. The number of victims has never been accurately counted but the estimated range is from 1,000 to 100,000 people. Though the 228 Incident, lasted only for a short period, another incident called the White Terror lasted 38 years.

Taiwan's transitional justice mainly began after the lifting of martial law in 1987. In response to the demands from social movements, President Lee Teng-hui pushed for a series of reforms. The Lee Teng-hui era can be characterized as the transition period from an authoritarian regime to full democracy in Taiwan. In response to the pressures from civil society, he launched a transitional justice measure for White Terror victims. It was only toward the later stage of his tenure that he apologized to the political victims of this incident. During Ma Ying-jeou's administration, there were several important developments in Taiwan's transitional justice. In 2009, the government expressed its willingness to re-open the investigation into the Lin I-hsiung's Family Massacre case and the Dr. Chen Wen-cheng's Murder case. The former President repeatedly apologized on behalf of the KMT for the 228 Incident and the White Terror victims. In 2015, the NTU officially approved the name of the campus square to the "Dr. Chen Wen-chen Incident Memorial Square." Taiwan's Transitional Justice Commission was officially launched in May 2018. In July 2019, the Legislative Yuan passed the Political Archives Act. President Tsai Ing-wen proposed the next three tasks for Taiwan's transitional justice. This included investigating political archives, disclosing historical truth, and making institutional corrections.

Though the initiation of transitional justice efforts can be said to have started in 1987, it was not until May 18, 1992, that two laws that define political crimes, the "Betrayers Punishment Act" and "Article 100 of the Criminal Law" were officially abolished. This move ushered in the end of the White Terror and ushered in the agenda for transitional justice. However, challenges still existed in the implementation of fair measures. The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) government chose to prioritize holding institutional perpetrators accountable and postponed pursuing individual perpetrators to avoid social unrest. In 2018 the DPP government set up the Transition Justice Commission to deal with the transitional justice issue. However, in the case of individuals, the authoritarian strongmen have long passed away and their descendants do not participate in politics. Additionally, the high-ranking officials who are acclaimed for stringing economic development are less relevant to the two political events and have also passed away. It should also be noted that in the 1990s and 2000s, the idea of transitional justice did not resonate strongly with many people. Chen Shui-bian's transitional justice plan did not receive much political and social support. In the future, the legacy of authoritarian rule such as monuments, organizations, symbols and will face greater pressure to be demolished or transformed.

It is also crucial that the international political context be part of the conversation. The White Terror took place during the Cold War. In the 1950s, the political and military threats posed by communist China were immense and imminent. However, after the 1960s, the tension between the communist camp and the non-communist camp was less severe. The necessity of imposing political repressions to ensure the security of Taiwan was reduced. In short, when pursuing transitional justice, the levels of external threats Taiwan faced in different periods should be taken into account.

South Korea

The modern history of South Korea follows the periods of liberation from Japanese colonialism (1910-1945), rule of the US Army Military Government in Korea (1945-1948), the Korean War (1950-1953), Rhee Syngman regime (1948-1960), the Second Republic after the April 19 Revolution (1960-1961), the assassination of President Park Chung-hee by his subordinates and Seoul Spring (1979), December 12 Military Coup of Chun Doo-hwan and Roh Tae-woo, June Democratic Struggle in 1987 and finally, democratization. Throughout this period, there have been innumerable cases of human rights violations such as torture, disappearance, arbitrary detention, and extrajudicial killing. In 1919 a nationwide independence movement led to 7,500 Koreans killed, 16,000 wounded, and 47,000 arrested. The Japanese forces brutally killed innocent civilians and burned down their homes and churches. Thousands of Korean women were forced to work as sex slaves for the Japanese military and some 140,000 men and women were victims of forced labor.

The Committee for Investigation of Pro-Japanese Collaborators' Property was established by Special Act 7769 in 2004. The Commission investigated 168 collaborators and ordered them to return 1,114 square meters of property worth 211 billion KRW. In 2010, the Committee published its twenty-five volume report naming 1,005 collaborators; many of the former collaborators were already deceased by the time the report was published. The Committee to Support the Victims of Overseas Forced Mobilization and Investigation of Forced Labor under the Japanese Rule was set up by Special Act 10143 in 2010.

Jeju 4.3 Incident and Yeosu-Suncheon. Incidents are the most representative cases of human rights violations that occurred after liberation and during the U.S. Army Military Government in Korea. More than 80 percent of the human rights violations were committed by the military, police, or right-wing organizations such as the Seobuk Cheongnyeondan (Northwest Youth League). Massacres of civilians were committed on both sides of the 38th parallel by North Korean, South Korean, and American armies. Although the Jeju 4.3 Incident lasted only two days, a proper investigation did not take place due to a claim about the statute of limitations. The Geochang Massacre was the only case in which a joint investigation committee was formed by the National Assembly, Ministry of Home Security, and the Ministry of Justice. This led to the formation of a general court-martial five months after the incident, which sentenced military officials Oh Ik-gyeong, Han Dong-seok, and Kim Jong-won on the charges of participating in the massacre of civilians and concealment of the truth. The three convicted were pardoned by President Rhee Syngman but this did not stop the association from excavating the site of the slaughter, which was located based on the testimonies of the military and police personnel at the time. As a result of the continuous effort, the Special Investigation Committee for Civilian Massacres was established at the 4th National Assembly. However, the bereaved suffered disappointment as the Special Committee carried out poor investigations and disbanded without any accomplishments.

During his presidential campaign, Kim Young-sam pledged for an investigation to provide truth and the restoration of honor for the Geochang Massacre. However, bereaved families were hesitant to push forward their agenda and it was only after the year 2000 that bereaved families were able to form a National Bereaved Family Association. In Korea, the dictatorial and authoritarian states committed various violations of human rights. The most symbolic case is the 1980 May 18 Gwangju Democratic Uprising which left 223 killed, 5,928 wounded, and 2,146 detained. The numbers also included deaths under suspicious circumstances, disappearance, torture, collective detention, and extrajudicial killing. Throughout Korean history, the different administrations created different organizations for truth-seeking but improvement still needs to be made. ■

Speaker Biographies

■ Chin-en Wu is an associate research fellow at the Institute of Political Science at Academia Sinica, Taiwan. He received his Ph.D. degree from the University of Michigan. His main research interest includes the impact of economic development on political regime dynamics and how regime type influences economic performance.

■ Hun Joon Kim is a professor of Political Science and International Relations at Korea University. His publications relevant to this field include The Massacres at Mt. Halla: Sixty Years of Truth-Seeking in South Korea (2014), Transitional Justice in the Asia Pacific (ed. 2014), “Are UN Investigations into Human Rights Violations a Viable Solution? An Assessment of UN Commissions of Inquiry” (2019), and “The Prospect of Human Rights in US-China Relations: A Constructive Understanding (2020).”

■ Paikiasothy Saravanamuttu is the founding Executive Director of the Centre for Policy Alternatives. He was the Secretary of the Consultation Task Force on Reconciliation Mechanisms and the first winner of the Citizens Peace Award presented by the National Peace Council of Sri Lanka. He was a founder of the Transparency International Sri Lanka Chapter and has been nominated for numerous peace awards. He is quoted widely in the local and international media on Sri Lanka.

영상 스크립트

welcome uh to uh the transitional justice workshop on the adrn online seminar uh today's seminar is on the history of human rights violations in asia bringing justice and accountability to the present so the healing wounds of the historical atrocities the main question we are going to address is what kind of efforts have been made by asian democracies to ensure the justice for the victims so today's workshop we have the three presentation so let me just introduce myself i'm han jun kim i'm a professor at the korea

university i study international human rights and international norms and then transitional justice i major in south korean case and then i study the history of human rights violation and then the transitional justice in south korea and then i'm also tracing uh the development of the democracy and then human rights in the in the region okay so today we have three uh panelists and then the presenter um the first uh presenter that i'm going to introduce and then we have a three con country case the sri lanka

taiwan and then korea so for the sri lanka paper we have dr paityasoti saravana mutu is a founding executive director of the center for policy alternatives he was a secretary of the consultation task force on the reconciliation mechanisms and then the first winner of the citizens peace award presented by the national peace council of the sri lanka he was a founder of the transparency international sri lanka chapter and has been nominated for numerous peace awards he is quoted widely in the local and then

international media on sri lanka and then dr sarah vanamoutu will present on the single on the sri lankan case and then we also have dr chin wu is a associate research pro fellow at the institute of political science in academia taiwan he received his phd degree from the university of michigan and then his main research interest includes the impact of the economic development on the political regime dynamics and then how the regime types influences the economy performance today as mentioned we will be addressing the

question of the human rights violation and then transitional justice in the region and i think this is a very timely issue not only because of the widespread human rights violation that still is in the region i think about myanmar and then in case of myanmar many people are also considering the many reconciliation or the transitional justice measures as one of the important topics that should be implemented in the country and many people have been looked in those countries which have gone through uh the

human rights violations and then transitional justice in the past south korea and then the taiwan and then sri lanka we also have some other models in the region like indonesia east timor or the cambodia cases but those are sometimes related to the many cases in international or hybrid form of the transitional justice so by looking at three countries i think we will get some good uh and then very important insights about the human rights violations and transitional justice the today's seminar will first

have a uh first round of a presentation uh on sri lanka and taiwan and then south korea 15 minutes each for each presenters and then we'll leave about 40 minutes of the discussion uh related to the presentation okay so uh without further ado i'll just pass to uh dr um uh for the sri lankan case thank you professor kim thank you for this opportunity to talk about the situation in sri lanka pertaining to transitional justice as most of you may know sri lanka is currently undergoing its worst economic crisis

ever and it's a crisis of governance in particular which has an economic dimension and a political dimension the economic dimension relates to the gross profilicacy of the rajapaksa government the dwindling foreign exchange reserves the spiraling inflation and the grossly adverse exchange rate vis-a-vis the dollar there are power cuts there are queues there's a scarcity of food a scarcity of essentials people are protesting all over the country and they're demanding that the rajapaksa government

get out of politics and bring back the money they allege that the government and this particular family has stolen from sri lanka so in such a situation where the emphasis is on accountability and the fight against impunity one would have thought that transitional justice would be at the fore however going back to 2015 which was the first time that mahindra rajapaksa the president who won the war against the liberation tigers of tamil elim when he was defeated in his bid for an unprecedented third term as president

again accountability was the issue in the majority community south the accountability meant accountability for the corruption the financial corruption of the rajapaksa regime in the north and east of the country it was accountability for the allegations of war crimes and crimes against humanity that the rajapaksa administration were accused of this is now returned in that across the country the argument is about accountability where the argument about accountability is much more about the financial

corruption than it is with regard to the allegations of war crimes and crimes against humanity so in that respect the current climate is not particularly propitious promising to bring up the question of accountability for war crimes but one hopes that if there is going to be not just regime change in sri lanka but systemic change the issue of the importance of human rights its integral part of dominance in the country will once more come to the fore and the question can be revisited now the allegations of war crimes and

the crimes against humanity have been made against both the government of sri lanka as well as the liberation tigers of tamil eela the argument nevertheless in the country at large and this is an argument in the majority community singular buddhist south is that when you talk about war crimes and when you talk about crimes against humanity when you talk about transitional justice this is a way of trying to get at the government get at the majority community punish the armed forces because there is no ltte to answer for these

crimes they were militarily defeated they have been politically dismantled and therefore there is no one to answer for these war crimes but that's not entirely correct because there are ex-ltt carder and leaders who have joined up with the government and they can be held responsible for war crimes but the chief accusations against the government of sri lanka are of course what caused the key issue of transitional justice now transitional justice in that respect pertaining to particular crimes with

regard to the circumstances in which the final days of the war was fought the allegations are with the bombing of hospitals the bombing of self-proclaimed no fire zones the disappearances that took place during the war as well as of those people who surrendered to the armed forces at the end of the war nothing has been accounted for there are organizations the families of the disappeared who now fall since 2009 or even earlier have been campaigning have been going from army camp to prison cam to

government institutions trying to find out as to what has happened to their loved ones but they have got no answer the argument against anything being done was that look our war heroes in the security forces must not be turned into traitors and war criminals the government of sri lanka in that sense and irrespective of whatever political party has given a blanket assurance that no members of the security forces will really be tried for any of the war crimes because that would be to say that the people who won the war

won it in a very unfair and brutal fashion and furthermore that if we are not going to do it domestically take up cases with regard to allegations allowing any kind of international investigation would be a violation of our sovereignty so despite making a joint communique with ban ki-moon in october of 2009 after the war ended to investigate the issue of war crimes etc nothing has happened the government has done only the act of setting up commissions to look at it the most famous one was the lessons learned

and reconciliation commission which said that look the sri lankan army the sri lankan government did not engage in war crimes as their as a matter of policy however there might have been instances where this happened and therefore those instances must be investigated but no investigations have actually taken place as a consequence of that the issue has moved to the human rights council in geneva where in 2012 we came up with resolutions on sri lanka urging the government to implement the recommendations

of its various commissions the failure of the government to do that led to in 2015 with the change of government in colombo an unprecedented situation where the government of sri lanka went to geneva and promised to set up four mechanisms of transitional justice and reconciliation one was the office of missing persons two a truth and justice commission three are commissioned with regard to rehabilitation restitution um and for an international tribunal with a sorry a domestic tribunal with the international with the participation of

internationals as prosecutors and even as judges to look into the question of war crimes now that was made by the foreign minister of sri lanka in 2015 in the meantime there have been two instances where international probes have been done and have come to the conclusion that there have been instances where this could possibly have happened and there must be investigations what we have as a consequence of what was said in 2015 is an office of missing persons has been set up an office of reparations

has been set up the truth and justice commission has not been set up and the government and there again irrespective of whichever party we are talking about has rejected the notion of setting up an internet uh sorry setting up a war crimes accountability mechanism to look at war crimes with the participation of internationals now the question with regard to that is very simply this is is that if the criminal justice system in sri lanka was working according to the way that it should we would not have to be talking about

war crimes and crimes against humanity it's precisely because the criminal justice commission system has failed to do that that we have to bring it to international attention and the suggestion is that you could have one judge who is a foreigner whether it comes from africa asia the commonwealth wherever and there could be a sunset clause saying that once the trust and confidence in the domestic judicial system has been restored there will be no need for internationals but that has been completely rejected

in fact after the announcement in geneva at the human rights council of these mechanisms the government did set up a consultative task force on these reconciliation mechanisms to find out from the general public what he thought about the government's proposals i was secretary of that commission and we told the government look you need to explain to the people first what do you mean by reconciliation what do you mean by transitional justice they don't really know what you're talking about the government came back and said would

you write the speech for us so that the president can go and make it we wrote the speech the speech was never made but we continued with our consultations both in terms of town hall type meetings as well as you know focus discussion focus group discussions and we had about 7500 submissions made overall the point that was made by the people both in the north as well as in the south of the majority community and the minority community was that we want an acknowledgement by the state of what has happened to our loved ones

we want the state to acknowledge it what happens thereafter whether there should be cases whether there should be punishment etc was not the issue they wanted to be acknowledged and they felt that their recognition as full citizens of the country rested on the acknowledgement of what has happened to their loved ones that of course has not happened the office of missing persons has been set up there are something like 22 000 files that various previous commissions had also collected the government has decided nevertheless

to give out what is called certificates of absence to the families so that they can access bank accounts and other financial resources but there is an unwillingness a resistance on the part of the families to accept certificates of absence to accept that their parents that their loved ones have been are dead they want to know instead what has happened to them the office of reparations too has continued to make payments financial payments the truth and justice commission the government was interested in

they talked to the south africans they were hoping that they could establish that in exchange for notions of amnesty but i think the issue of a truth and justice commission of people coming and talking about the violations that they are responsible for may not work culturally in our societies because where they have worked i think it's with societies that have a strong christian tradition based on the notions of guilt rather than in our societies where it is based on the notion of shame yeah so what we've had since 2015

is this proposal where two of the institutions that were proposed come into being and complete silence or rejection with regard to the other two in the meantime though what the government what the rajapaksa regime did was instead of talking about transitional justice and reconciliation they focused on economic development as they understood it as a means of bringing everyone together that did not work either in the north and east where the war was mainly fought there is the largest concentration of

the armed forces in the country furthermore it is a civil society and friendly government and the space for any civil society activity has been shrunk considerably as a consequence one had to go back to geneva to get yet another resolution passed on sri lanka calling for accountability and now what we have is an institution a mechanism set up within the office of the high commissioner for human rights to collect and collate information with regard to alleged human rights war crimes and crimes against humanity

committed by both sides in the sri lankan civil war so we are at somewhat of a deadlock if you like the government is hoping that economic development will make people forget about the human rights violations but the people are determined not to forget about it and as i said currently they are now all engaged in island-wide protests to get rid of the raj boxes yeah so i don't think we are going to move very far on transitional justice and certainly not until the current question is resolved what are the real stumbling blocks

transitional justice in sri lanka one of course is is that the argument of we can't turn war heroes into war criminals and that is tied to the fact that the army the armed forces are drawn predominantly from the majority singular buddhist community and that community is unwilling to come to terms with the injustices that have been made with regard to the minorities because apart from the issue of human rights in terms of war crimes and violations etc there is also the question of their political rights and freedoms that

have to be granted and that has yet to be done secondly the rajapaksa regime draws its legitimacy from the rajapak from sorry from the armed forces and from the buddhist clergy unfortunately in the sri lankan situation the buddhist clergy have not come out and talked about reconciliation they have come out and talked about the justice of fighting against terrorism but they have not come out and talked and taken an active part in the arguments about reconciliation and so they are a major determinant

of popular opinion and sentiment and they need to be changed in that respect yeah a third point i suppose is is that allegations of war crimes and allegations of crimes against humanity are also leveled in particularly at the current president of sri lanka gautam who was the defense secretary under his brother mahindra the current prime minister but then the president the rajapaksas need to stay in power in order to see that their dynasty is fully institutionalized in the political fabric of the country

they recognize that if they leave power they will probably be open to prosecution universal jurisdiction all of that president gautabiraj paksha until he ran for the presidency was a dual citizen of sri lanka and also of the united states and it's possible that he can face civil prosecution the united states has put travel bans on the commander of the army who is a close associate of president raj paksha etc you know so the stalemate continues the determination of the families to seek justice also

continues what we need is in sri lanka a kind of paradigm shift to recognize that there is not just one nation but many nations in the country many peoples in the country who can be accommodated within the general rubric of being a sri lankan but being a sri lankan tamil sri lanka singapore muslim instead of moving towards reconciliation and any kinds of notions of justice arguing that justice should be restorative justice rather than punitive justice what the rajapaksas did is to open up a new front of conflict

with the other community other minority community that is the muslim community now this came to a head with the april 2019 easter sunday bombing atrocity whereby allegedly muslim extremists were responsible for killing christians largely christian sinhalese but not just sinai's alone in churches and in hotels the catholic church alleges that there is a much deeper conspiracy and suggests that members of the current government high-level members of the current government could well have been involved

in that attack but the focus in terms of popular opinion and sentiment has been against the muslim community and you've had extremist buddhist organizations spreading hate speech and inciting the singular community to violence against the muslims and there been instance of violence in the context of the corvid pandemic the government decided that anyone dying of corvid had to be cremated and could not be buried this of course went against the fundamental tenets of not just the muslim community but

other communities as well but it was particularly focused against the muslim community and they were told that they could bury their dead only in one location despite local and international scientific opinion saying that there was no danger from bearing people who died of kobe now of course all of that has been submerged if you like under the general campaign to get rid of the raja boxes so to come back to it transitional justice must be seen as an integral part of governance in a multi-ethnic plural diverse society

that is what sri lanka has always been we have whether we formally acknowledged or not practiced a notion of unity in diversity but what we need is strong institutions and a proper vibrant popular culture to animate that idea the raj boxes are talking about one law one country and the fear of the minorities is that that one law one country will be a singular buddhist hegemonic state where the constitution says that it will be unitary and where it will make buddhism if not the official religion of the country

it will make it as it is article 9 of our constitution states it will have the foremost position so a lot is set up that is opposing and resisting the moves towards transitional justice but the push towards it has not died down and i doubt it ever will thank you all right okay thank you very much uh by reading your uh draft article i learned a lot about sri lanka and the transitional justice because everyone was wondering what would happen after 2009 when the war ended and then afterwards there hasn't been much

studies about transitional justice but i think what you have uh summer summarize and then let us walk through especially in terms of the relationship between the political complexity you know how the transitional justice is related to not just the regime and then you know national identity issues and then but also you know how the current situation in sri lanka would go along with the trench of justice and then i think i think this very insightful i think there will be some questions and then some comments i think

after this section thank you very much now we move to dr wu on the taiwan case you are muted oh good afternoon uh so i'm first i'm going to share my document so okay okay okay thank you for the opportunity for me to share the experience of taiwan first of all i'm going to share with you some political history history background in taiwan taiwanese nowadays are most the offspring of the chinese immigrant who moved to taiwan in uh 18th and 19th centuries and in the late 19th century the the japan defeated the qin dynasty so

taiwan was become a japanese colonial rule and at that period they have some human right violation to local and indigenous people and there's a comfort woman issue and then in the end of world war ii after defeat of japan the taiwan was returned to china and the candy become the rulers and there's a accident two main events first is the um two to eight incident another one is the white tarot era during the martial law period and in 1987 taiwan experienced the democratization and since then we have

four power turnovers actually three power turnovers and now we pass the hunting test the two turnover tests become a democracy consolidated democracy so the two main issue in taiwan's uh transitional justice is the first is about a 228 incident it took place in between february and may 1947 and about 8 000 to 11 000 victims and the since 1995 there's some major to uh to address this address this issue and there's a compensation act and hundreds of victims have been compensated the background of the

the two to eight incident is the conflict between native taiwanese and the mainlander during the that time the the kennedy government moved to taiwan and there is a gap between the taiwanese and the mainlander about the governance because taiwan is relative peace for the past 50 years and china is under go underwent the civil wars and the the japanese invasion so the governance level is not really good and uh let's the su that time there is a civil war in mainland china so there's inflation in taiwan also the identity of

local people began to change some people do not strongly identify with the with china so there's a there's a riot erupt across taiwan and about the governance issue and about the economic condition and the the 19 government send troops to taiwan and to suppress the riots and another issue is the white tarot era is is a lot much longer it's under the martial law from 1949 to 1987 about thirty thousand to seventy thousand military court cases and in from 1998 this government set up a compensation fund

and since then more than 10 000 cases were compensated the background is the uh cold war era there is still there is a strong antagonism across the taiwan strait and the china the men and china wants the communist china try to take over taiwan so taiwan government has to impose some harsh majors that try to to prosecute the spied from men and china but at the same time the government also prosecute those people who are sympathetic to communism and there are other people who promote political freedom

and so they will also be be targeted by the government and become the victims so the transitional justice in taiwan the beginning of the transition justice is the end of the authoritarian rule and during the 1988 and when didn't we the first taiwanese president in power took power after the the death of the the authoritarian strongman john jingle and so there's some major to to address the transitional justice problem the transmission issue so there's some compensation and some report about the truth of the

historical event and uh there's a apology for the the historical events and then after 2002 and to to until 2000 to 2008 the dpp took power the is 2000 the year 2000 is the first year of the power turnover between the in taiwan and uh but at that time the dpp only controlled the executive branch and do not control the parliament so this is a eight-year minority government so he tried to implement son the major to restore the two to end and the white terror victim's reputation and but uh on the other hand he tried to

deal with the ill-gotten property by political party by camp actually by kmt during the authoritarian era the county accumulated a large amount of whales and become its own party assets and that party assets were is spent during each election and the make the election unfair so the dbp tried to deal with that issue but uh because it's a minority government he cannot get the law passed and at that time the the popular attention from the public is also low and then is the president martin joe's period from 2008 and 2016

and he reopened some the investigation into two cases but did not find uh convincing conclusion and he established the national human rights museums and he apologized again again about the 2 to 8 accident and the white tarots but the the family the the family member of the victim do not quite appreciate his apology because the county still worshipped the authoritarian rulers and there's some this issue began to deal with the the japanese colonial rules like the comfort issue on the the takasaga volunteer who is a

taiwanese minority who sent to the south east asia to fight during the world war ii and then the tainguan come to power in 2016. it's the first time the opposition party who control both the executive and the legislative power and the new legislation were able to be passed like the ear garden party asset the target the kmt's party asset and the promoting transitional justice and and assessing the political archive he opened the political archive for public to to to read and to to do some analysis

so in this way it can people can realize uh the what the perpetrator really do during the authoritarian era and uh he established the two commission the transitional justice commission and the eogarten party asset settlement committee to deal with the transitional child justice and for indigenous people they he do some apology but they do not do much beyond that so there's uh because the the uh white arrow uh quite quite the tarot eras cases were open to the public so people can do some statistics about the distribution of the

cases in different period as we can see most of the cases uh uh concentrate during the earlier period especially during the 1951 to 1960 the beginning of the cold war and later on there's still a lot of cases but they register gradual decline and the improvement of the transitional justice so taiwan's transition transitional justice was um many concentrate during focus on the county's rules and because county during the church during the authoritarian rule they have a two act and they use the to the betray

punishment act and the article 100 of the criminal law to prosecute and punish those who people who do not follow his rules and until now the the complete uh final report about the white tarot has not been published so the current trend regarding transitional justice the taiwan's transitional justice can be characterized by compensating consenting the victims but forgetting the perpetrators the one main reason i think is that this huntington's argument if the the former authoritarian government is still

able to stay in power after democratic transition you will not agree a quick uh complete transitional justice so that because the kent is still in power uh either in control of presidency or it was still a powerful force in the parliament so it could yeah it's it can block the proposal to to make the transitional justice go quicker and the dpp government also choose to prioritize holding institutional perpetrator accountable and postponed deal with dealing with the authoritarian ruler to avoid the social

unrest because the authoritarian ruler have some symbol like in especially in taiwan there's some ethnic division between the mainlander and the native taiwanese and the dpp supporter are mainly the native taiwanese and county elite are composed of mainly the mainlander and so the their people's view about the transitional justice are really a with their party identity so the transitional justice is is involved or correlated with the ethnic cleavage so it's more make it somewhat sensitive a sensitive issue so the dbp

first choose to hold in the institutional perpetrator like kent's party asset and the organization they they they joined the county but they do not they try to postpone the issue about the the two former president and they also do not hold the individual perpetrator accountable like those judges or prosecutors they are still in office but they are the they are committed some injustice during authoritarian rule but they are still in office and the last three um so but the on the other hand in taiwan the

the social atmosphere has changed because the the younger generation they are more identified with taiwan and the less sympathetic to kmt's position and they are not they do not have authoritarian nostalgia and they tend to expose more liberal ideas so in the long run we will see more pressure on the government to to erase those those authoritarian symbols like monuments or sorry organizations and uh but we also have to know that not the issue about the political context it has has less addressed

in the discussion because the in the high terror era the us took place during the cold war so in the 1950s the political threats posed by mainland china was immense and imminent and the people many people of government at that time didn't believe taiwan will survive so at that time we have also korean war and the king bombs and some international events so the given the background sound the harsh major to stabilize the region on the island are likely to be understandable but of course there is not there is no due process for the

child at that time and the many of the victims are innocent but the international political context should be part of the conversation and also in after 1960 the tension between the two camp declined and taiwan has stabilized and still they have some international conflict but the necessity of imposing political repression to ensure security of taiwan was reduced significantly so the repression in this period served to significant degree only to secure authoritarian rules so we need to differentiate the political context

and then we are able to to assess the responsibility that the government the decision maker should bear and until now the the the dbp government the ruling party doesn't want to talk much about this and uh for japanese colonial rules that uh there's another issue but in taiwan uh the discussion was not uh was was not widely discussed and uh so that but there is some issue like a reparation of taiwanese who serve in the military during the world war ii and the comfort woman issues and but a few political party or civil

society organization seems to be very interested in point out the issues and the main reason i think is to avoid irritating japan and who is an important ally of taiwan the the most the punchline is that china's military trade was so immense and to counter such trade we must have not irritating our important allies so political party to a different degree choose to omit this issue so but most of the victims are agents so this issue needs to be addressed soon so that's my report thank you okay thank you very much uh

dr wu then by reading your draft i also learned the many issues about the taiwanese case especially compared to um the sri lankan case especially syrian conquest out of civil war uh intense period was there and then in the taiwan case you know there was a 228 which is a very intense phase but afterwards it was a very long time of the white terror which lasted a long time and then more systematic you know and then it shows a little bit of difference how the government could react to a different kind of human

rights violation so and then i think the something that you mentioned about the international uh political context is also an important thing which also affected you know uh could affect sri lanka in the korea and then i think uh uh it's very important issue okay thank you all right so uh as now i move to my presenter role and then i'll present make a presentation okay okay so let me start uh my presentation on the korean case uh the transitional justice in korea first let me show you uh the political

uh hit the transition of the political uh uh the political transition in south korea and then as you can see the history of a political transition in south korea from 1910 to 2012 involves uh different regimes and then some uh japanese colonialism and then some brief moment of the u.s rule and then the korean government which starts with the dictator is man and then military uh general pak chonghi and then chon duhan and then afterwards a democratization uh throughout the phase of uh political transition we had a

severe uh major unrest uh which sometimes led to the human rights violation and then uh major issues for example uh the u.s rule was the jeju event which was happened in the chenju island and then yahshua events which has many people killed and then also the korean war was there and then we had the two uh the coups and then every political moves ended up with some kind of political transitions so for example the first transition we had was about the liberation from the japanese colonial rule and then

with a brief moment of the u.s military occupation it ended with a real independence in 1948 and the creation of the republic of korea and then of course uh right after that we experienced the korean war three years and then we also experienced the transition from the war to peace in 1953.

however after that the dictatorship lasted by eason man which is a patriarchal dictatorship and then that was overthrown by the student revolution in 1960 however immediately you know there was a coup and then which is another political turmoil and then uh because uh after that uh president uh the military general was in power and then the later phase he tried to have a dictatorship and then that also ended in assassination and then the coup and then we briefly had a moment called the whole spring at the time but it

didn't last because of the coup but the full democratization at least in institutional fashion came after the the the chanduan in 1987. so the long history and then the a lot of upheavals and then many events shows that there was a many uh political transitions and then human rights violations i categorized the human rights violation in korea into four types of uh human rights violations the first one is the human rights violation during the japanese colonial regime and then the second under the military occupation

of the u.s and then internal unrest between 1958 1945 and 1948 and then the human rights violation during the korean war and of course because this was a time of the war and then a lot of people who were uh killed by the enemies north koreans and then the chinese army but many people were also killed by the korean military uh by the korean military police or the military or the police in order to secure the rare front of the war so that also caused a lot of the civilian death especially people with the socialist

inclination or some kind of a previous communist or the socialist activities and their families were rounded up and then they were murdered not at the front line but at the rare end of the war and then many civilians were killed by the korean military and then also some cases like nobunli which is killed by the us military and then after that we had a very similar period of white terror as the taiwan which is a long period of very systematic uh but uh small not not the largest scale but the compared to that you know war and the

unrest the human rights violation the number itself was lower but continued systematic uh human rights violation including the torture mass torture and killing and then the disappearance and then the arrest and detentions illegal so those happen afterwards the korean government after the formal democratization in 1987 have created many many commissions and then many trials and then sometimes reparation commissions in order to address the past human rights violation so these are the examples of the three commissions

which shows that the one of the biggest ones the jeju commission and then truth and reconciliation commission of korea and then the commission on the suspicious death which is the among other commissions which are the largest one let me show you what kind of efforts the korean government made after uh after uh the transitions uh so i don't expect you to read you know all the uh measures that the korean government have done but i just want to show you what kind of measures were adopted and then devised

in order to address the past human rights violation so in terms of the japanese colonialism immediately there were commissions and special courts in order to address the past human rights violation and then it also continued after 2010 uh regarding the the forced labor and then regarding the victims of the overseas uh you know the military conscription by the japan and then the industrial conscription and then for the internal unrest also something was made in 2000 2020 and then the korean war also there was a measure

during the korean war in 1951 but also afterwards until 2005. um and then also here uh the repression by the non-democratic regimes where there was various measures here let me show you the three characteristics of these korean measures the first one is that it was heavily dependent on the truth commissions so professor wu mentioned that the taiwan model which is a combination of the compensation and then forgetting the perpetrator the south korean case probably is the truth seeking and then the forgetting of the perpetrator so

many of the the red marked ones are all truth commissions you know one that focuses on finding what happened or trying to find how the person died or whereabouts persons or sometimes you know finding out the remains of the person okay so truth commission heavily depended on truth condition the second uh aspect is that uh there have been earlier uh uh efforts of transitional justice usually immediately after the transition or immediately after the human rights violation occurred so for example for

the japanese colonialism something happened in 1948 and then for the korean war during the korean war and then after the after about 10 years there was a commission created but these blue marked ones were all failed at that time regarded as a failure and then because of the failure later you know in 2004 5 2008 and then 1993 and 1993 all those are the later uh efforts to address the exactly the same issue that has been uh attempted but failed okay so it is kind of a lot of you know trial and fail and then

redone of the truth commissions the third uh categorization is that about the timing so south korea recently had three truth commission initiated so 2020 the truth commission on the may 18th democratic move democracy movement which is about guangzhou and then in 2021 uh the truth reconciliation commission the second phase of the truth and reconciliation commission and then uh this year uh the yoshu sunchon incident juice commission has been started interestingly what these degree marks ones shows is that

it depends on the regime so which kind of regime which is currently the moon government which is uh currently will soon end is tenure but the moon government which is more sympathetic to the past the victims and then the addressing of of the past human rights violation they continuously uh create the new commissions but if you compare that the the green ones and then if you try to find the you know anything that happened in 2010 it's very difficult to find so from 2009 uh nine to 2017 there was a

very few efforts to address the past human rights violations that is because that was the time when the myeongbang and then pakuni regime which is a conservative regime which is more close to the military and police and then the previous authoritarian powers were in charge in the administration so at that time there was no effort of almost no efforts to address the past human rights violation so this kind of shows that the korean the path okay so in the remaining time uh rather than going into you know what these details

about what the human rights violations are and then what kind of efforts they were made i'll address uh some implications and then let me show you the first one the first one implications that i want to emphasize in my final paper is about the achievement of the transitional justice measures it is very difficult to uh because a lot of truth commissions were made and a lot of efforts were made it is hard to deny that there were some uh uh consequences there were some uh achievement of these transitional

justice measures so i think you know i organized the efforts uh this achievement into the three kinds of the criteria uh three categories the first one is of course because south korea focuses on truth conditions the finding the new truth was the one and then the second one is a police policy and then pre uh practice reform some changes some positive changes and then last one is very slow but it's still ongoing is seeking accountability the accountability is not going in the direction of punishing the perpetrators

but it is going of having a more retrial of the past or clearing a summon out of the previous false convictions okay but still this is a form of accountability so for truth uh truth cases the fact-finding and confirmation has been made so for example the many of the cases ended up with the government recognizing and then acknowledging the past human rights violations and then providing the official status to the existing effect and then sometimes the executive excavation of the remaining of the victims so for example these kind of

efforts were made uh in order to address and then these are the government apologies by president recognizing okay and then uh the civic education was also made so the people are more sensitive about the human rights and democracy so he contributed to the the societal efforts the policy and practices are more about the governmental apologies memorial services or the official government revision history textbooks and the government and then the politicians are more cautious about addressing the past issues and

then institutions and memorial parks so some of them i show you here is that memorial institutions that is created on chat room so all these kind of things have been made uh some for some other human rights violation and the last one the accountability uh some of them have so uh uh uh clear their names of the past false uh convictions uh and then many trials are still ongoing and then the retrials are happening so in the form of accountability of course we had former president chanduahan rutel stood

on the trial and then convicted but the main charge was not about the human rights violation per se but it was more about the the the crew the illegality of the coup and the illegal assets or the corruption issues that was at the focus yeah so but still the accountability issues i came later especially after the investigation the truth commission reports were out and then sometimes these reports were used as evidence in the court uh that these people were able to clear their names of uh you know being a communist or the

being a spy or the being a social um activist who were trying to uh trying to make a revolutionary effort against south korea so all those kind of false accusations or the false condition has been cleared based on the truth commission report that doesn't mean that the south korean efforts are without any you know difficulties we still have a challenges and then as you as you have seen depending on the regime so whether it's a conservative regime which is close to military and police and authoritarian

past and then the progressive regime which is more uh victim-friendly and then human rights uh focused depending on who are in the power uh the destiny and then the history of human uh transitional justice has been uh there has been many ups and downs okay so i think that will also um repeat in the past as the new government which is a conservative government comes in a lot of activities that has been started in the moon administration which is a progressive regime will have a very difficult time uh for sure okay

let me sum up my presentation with the three kind of uh kind of observations or the implication i can i something i found from the south korean case the first one is that as you have seen the more cases are failure rather than the success themselves okay so in many cases uh the more failure cases are worse there than the success cases in general so this whole transitional justice was never a easy or the smooth or the natural processes and then as i mentioned it was innately contentious and conflictual and then

contested processes but in the long term because south korea started transition justice in 1987 and then if we trace the long history in the end we saw some convergences and then some reconciliation so at certain point even the conservative regime or the representative technology a very minimum fact about human rights violation and then state responsibility so it is not without any achievement but it is contested but it is converging into a certain understanding i think that is important lesson the second one

is that the korean transitional justice is not just a uh isolated or something that happens in a vacuum it also happens within the development of the international human rights and then also the human rights in south korea so as the korean government become more mature in terms of the democracy and then also korea becomes more open to looking at the global democracy and then have a more interaction with the global democracy i think it there has been more demand for the truth commission and then trial so i

think the generation effects are certainly a important ones so as citizens become aware of the human rights development of in other countries and they are more aware of the traditional justice in other countries you know i think about you know what is happening in the u.s you know think about universities and the society going back over their slavery history i think all those things have some interaction with the south korean efforts now about addressing their past and then what is normal and then what is good in terms of

the human rights the last one is that because of the the regime changes the frequent regime changes in south korea the victims are highly sensitive to re-traumatization because whenever there was a conservative regime which is not friendly to the human rights violation in the past or transitional justice they certainly sometimes deny about the past efforts or the sometimes cut the funding or sometimes when the new conservative governments come in the societal actors who are against transitional justice

become more vocal and then in that certain processes the victims become re-traumatized and then sometimes victims are more hesitant to come forward to address the past issues so all these things have were existed in south korea so the south korean case shows that the transitional justice cannot be once and for all or the process it is a continuing continuing process but the one thing i think the similarity with the sri lankan case i think one thing i realized in korean cases our victims or the activists who are

sympathetic to the victims are so resilient because they have a grievances on the unturned until those grievances and then the ranker and sometimes anger is diminished or disappeared they will be politically active and they're socially active and they will be demanding whenever there is a chance to so i think this is a one uh power or the one momentum that moves uh the transitional justice in south korea so i'll stop here uh and then i'll now go back to my moderator uh function and then i'll leave the discussion so i think we are a

little behind but i think the remaining 20 minutes time i think we can have a certainly a good discussion comparing you know the south korea taiwan and the sri lankan cases so i don't think there is any question from the audiences but i think this is a time if you have any question you can uh send uh the staff the question we can address those questions with you i think that would be great otherwise uh while waiting for some questions as a moderator and then i also had a very interesting time uh hearing uh

the two other presentations so if you have any questions say comments you can raise your hand okay oh yes uh dr wu yes i want to ask about the compensation in your transitional justice made scheme because it's important in taiwan the first thing we think about transitional justices is compensate the family of the victim with money and i didn't see you mention about this part yeah thank you okay so um i think the compensation i think there's a compensation uh something that i also was going to ask you about the taiwan

case because you said that the taiwan case is a compensation and then not focusing on the perpetrators but the south korean case was more truth and then we move on to the compensation well uh in south in korean case i think some cases were uh started with the 228 model uh focusing on the reparations or they didn't refer to it as a reparation but compensations um but the um the the puangju cases that they started with the giving reparation to the individual victims okay and then i think as early as 1987 and

then they started with the reparation committee and then they investigated who the victims are and then after uh finding out screening out the victims and then they gave a individual members uh some some money for the reparations okay um but in other cases i think the korean government and then then activist for example good did not focus on compensations they were focusing more on the collective compensation in the first meaning that you know the the victims get their memorial site or research foundations or

you know or memorials or the museums i think as a compensation for the collectives but i think the korea at this point especially i'm moving toward the individual compensation because after they find the truth and then got the collective compensation and then the last frontier a lot of activists think is an individual compensation so the government passed the law and then i think the administration process has been started to giving out the individual uh victims a compensation i think they are receiving those

monetary compensation at this point so i think the kind of sequence is very interesting in terms of especially comparing with uh the taiwan and and can i just ask in both the korean cases and the taiwanese case the compensation issue seems to have had some salience whereas in our case in sri lanka compensation has never been the real ask it has been much more the question of the acknowledgement of what happened and the state's acknowledgement in particular of what happened can either of you shed any light on why

that would be the case as to why you know compensation has taken much more of a salient role in your experiences than in ours dr wu i think the because taiwan case started with the compensation process first i think is a bit more because south korean case was more about acknowledging first and then the collective compensation okay and individual conversations so the truth has to be there in the first yes i think in the in the taiwan case i don't know dr wu could answer uh i i guess i think the this this has to be

make a bit uh make a thorough research to answer the question but i think the one likely reason is that the number of victims are relatively limited in taiwan like the 22as incident they are less than 1 000 people of which are traits can be traced actually victim might be higher than that but until because 70 years ago so it's long time ago so it's less than 10 000 people and for the white tarot is less than 10 thousand people so i think it's manageable another reason is that uh i think the because

knt was in power for most of the time and uh it's a sensitive issue to really make to judge the authoritarian rulers or to to make to make some monuments to the reveal the misconduct of the their former leaders so they rather spend some money and to to compensate to make to close the events i think closely that's what i think yeah so in the taiwanese case the payment of compensation constituted a kind of closure there was no question of prosecution or anything like that after compensation was paid that was the conclusion

of the case as it were yeah i think the kmts was thinking about that but the deep the opposition party just he wants more they want more they want to they want the truth who do the who did all the things yeah so so they are they have a different uh demands yeah okay okay we have a one question from the audience uh kangna young uh asked let me read the question i think this is about the south korean one so uh thank you so much for the present interesting presentation i have a question on the korean case why did the also tj

commissions which was created in 2022 long after the incident does it have an impact on the tj process okay let me answer that question uh because uh the yoshi case is very important case victims uh when it happened in 1948 the victims continuously made an effort to create the truth commission even within the regional government not the national government but the regional government the local society but because this event was a event that started as a mutiny by the military the communist uh you know

uh or oriented uh some uh soldiers uh was say uh uh have started a mutiny and then in order to have that insurgency uh killed the national government and the national military came in and then killed not only you know those military but also many innocent victims but so continuously they have tried to victims try to raise their voices but because of the issue itself it was very difficult to to have a uh the unified voice about how to deal with the past and then many people didn't sympathize with this issue because they thought

this is a rebellion especially known as yo susun coming to rebellion so i think it because of that strong ideological you know shackle that it has with the uh with the events itself although it has a lot of the civilian death uh that it took a long time but because of the local activists efforts it it was possible to create the church the traditional just truth commissions and i think it is right that you as you mentioned it is the impact of the other truth commissions they have seen what the church you have done they have seen

what happened the korean war victims and then they have seen what the guangzhou you know after 30 or after 40 years create the truth commission and then they been more actively participated in advocating for the truth commission okay thank you thank you for the very interesting question is there any uh other questions or comments among if not can i ask you uh setup uh about sri lanka and then especially you that you mentioned about the religion was very interesting to me so uh learning from the other country model

like rwanda or the europe cases you said it might not be good because in the sri lanka it is not they they are focusing on the culture of the guilt but in sri lanka it's more about shame right can you elaborate any more about this uh this culture behind the shame and then why it is blocking the transitional justice well i mean the thing is this is that you know if the model of the truth commission is allah south africa for example where people come and make full confession of the wrongs that they did

in the sri lankan cares an individual coming in making that full confession will then cast a blight on his family that a member of this family has come out and said that they have done such and such and as a consequence there are all the implications of can the members of his can his sisters be married off do you want to get married to the you know the the sister of a war criminal or a self-confessed person who did such a horrendous thing there is all of that whereas i think the christian notion of sort of guilt and

the you know about confession and all of that makes for a greater motivation to come out and say yes i did this wrong i am now confessing and i ask for forgiveness it's a kind of thing because i can't think of a situation in which a country where this has happened has had a sort of non-christian culture yeah so there is that issue i see i see okay thank you very much and now i understand uh what you mean by the culture of shame and how it blocks the transitional justice it's much more sort of collective whereas the build is

individualized okay i see any dr wu but what you have said about the the new generation i think i found that very interesting i think that is relevant to korea and then also sri lanka and as you mentioned that because the victims have been uh you know they will not stop and then because if the human rights and then these ideas will become more and more prevalent they will demand more for the government exactly so in terms of taiwan uh dr wu uh you know the this kind of the removing of the authoritarian symbols like the

statute of change and then you know renaming of the museum um was the young generation particularly behind this demand to remove the authoritarian symbols or was it more a traditional the progressive dpp politicians were at the forefront uh i i i can't really tell the i think both of them i think the young people are more likely to make big progress but the dpp government was uh more a little bit conservative about this issue because if you quickly change or even tear down the the memorial hall then there will be

some social conflict because the some mainlanders who are followed zhang kai say to taiwan and the lay and layer of sprinting the chiang kai say was the one who saved their lives so they i don't think i don't think the kmt the dbp will rush to deal with that issue and on the other hand the kentis are beginning to think about the the proposal they they propose some uh changes to the the the junkies memorial collect turn into it uh into a library presidential library or something yeah so but the young people i think are the

forefront as you said of the issues yeah thank you is there any uh comments um i'm still waiting for the the audience you know whether they have a question but meantime we can uh still discuss yeah and is there any question about the final products that we should engage with uh yes uh dr wu yes i have a question because i heard the korean cases but i did not uh find much discussion about japanese i think uh you is to me it's like an important issue in korea but you do not mention the japanese rule and uh so i'm

wondering i am curious about the different party's position toward the issue yeah i think that's a good point i think the reason i uh left out the the japanese part is more diplomatic uh issue you know between korea and then uh and that and then the japan and then in this case who are accountable and then who should take action is is japan uh so the korea have to demand uh for the the matters uh but in this paper i focused on the korean government's transitional justice measure so that's the reason why but i

think what you are saying and then hearing a lot about this korean japan conflict about the past human rights violation i think is very important issue and i think the korean government has been um roughly divided between uh the conservative regime and then the progressive regime the progressive regime is more toward a the cherishing the value of the principle of human rights so they think that the anything that has done especially the comfort women issue which is a women uh the women's rights issue and then the

forced labor that should be resolved and then we should get the formal apology from japan uh official you know apology from japan and then also the reparations okay um and on the other hand the conservative uh have been more lenient in terms of the you know the japanese guild and then they look at the japan career relations and then the kind of futuristic vision so i think there's a clear divide in terms of the police side but interestingly what happened what triggered the most recent uh the the

uh the the big news between the japan is the not the government action it was more about the court decisions so the you know the korean government has a strict division between the administrative and legislative and then uh judicial branches and it was the judicial branches because the victims brought the issue into the korean court made the decisions and then they come up and they're reflecting the many of the international human rights principles they have made the decisions and then they have to carry

sometimes demanded that you know japanese companies have to you know direct compensate for the the forced labor so i think in in a sense there is a because of the division between administrative and then the judiciary i think it is true that there's not much that the government can do but i think it's something that initiated by the judiciary and then that causes a uh the problem at this point yeah thank you interesting okay so i think there's no more question from the audience and i think i have to wrap up and i

think you know this was a good discussion especially you know three very different countries to sri lanka taiwan and then the south korea looking at the human rights violation transition justice i think this was a very meaningful discussion of the past there is certainly the similarities among these three countries you know international political context and then also the past human rights issues is tangled with the current human rights current the political uh conditions depending on the different

political parties i think it is a very universal issue about the transitional justice but individual countries also have their different characteristics so sri lanka has a inner stalemate and then have a long way probably it will probably wait until 10 or 20 years to resolve the issue in certain form and then the taiwan which started earlier in 1992 but renewed attention after the dpp was in power so they have their own problems and their emphasis on compensation and then the korean government with the

different kinds of the issues and also which i didn't mention is about the north korea you know we have to resolve the issue with it so each individual have a different particularity and then the specific aspects so i think we will continue on the discussion and then for that matter i would like to thank all the participants of the seminar and then the audiences for their valuable time and then sharing your expertise so thank you very much so i will wrap it here thank you thank you thank you bye-bye

thank you