August 23 - Seoul reckons with Vietnam

[yum]

“I have never been free from the nightmare of the day when South Korean troops came to our village,” said Nguyen Thi Thanh, a survivor. Linh Pham for The New York Times

Seoul reckons with Vietnam

On Feb. 12, 1968, a South Korean marine unit killed scores of people in Phong Nhi and Phong Nhut, villages in central Vietnam. Now, survivors of the massacres are seeking compensation from Seoul in the first lawsuit of its kind being tried in a South Korean court.

- reckon with somebody/something

1. ~을 무시할 수 없는 존재로 여기다[대하다]

2. ~을 (대비해야 할 요소로) 감안하다 (=take sth into account)

- scores of ~ : 많은

Rumors have long persisted that South Korean troops fighting alongside U.S. troops committed mass killings of Vietnamese civilians. But under the past military dictatorship, discussions of the topic had been taboo.

Even though South Korea maintains that it has found no evidence of civilian killings in its wartime records, some South Korean lawmakers and civic groups are pushing for a special law to investigate the allegations.

They have pointed to declassified American military records from after the rampage, in which U.S. investigators concluded that “there was some probability that a war crime was committed.”

- declassify : (국가 정보를) 기밀 리스트에서 제외시키다 (↔classify)

- rampage 1. (흔히 파괴 등을 저지르며 한동안 벌이는) 광란

2. 광란하듯 지나가다[이동하다] (=run amok)

Testimony: Nguyen Thi Thanh, 61, was wounded in the massacre and lost five relatives, including her mother, sister and brother. “But the South Korean government has never once visited our village and never once asked us what happened.”