The Vietnam War was one of the deadliest conflicts of the Cold War that saw millions of casualties, which have led to lasting scars for Vietnamese people today. South Korea participated as part of the U.S.-led coalition and suffered 5,000 dead with close to 11,000 injured military personnel.
South Korea gained valuable combat experience, enhanced the capabilities of the ROK Armed Forces, and deepened bilateral ties with the United States, but also laid a haunting legacy that remains unaddressed to this day. ROK Armed Forces were intertwined with human rights violations, war crimes, and denial of atrocities that caused a rift with Vietnam that is still not mended to this day.
South Korea itself knows the horrors of war and military occupation, as Koreans suffered immensely under Imperial Japan. Now, with a new progressive government and citizens who are more politically active and regional realignment, South Korea should mend relations with Vietnam by acknowledging the dark actions taken during the decade-long war.
South Korea’s Deployment in Vietnam
During the Vietnam War, the United States found itself intertwined in a regional quagmire that required a broad coalition of nations, along with a U.S. draft. Initially, both President Eisenhower and Kennedy politely declined troops from South Korea due to various factors related to U.S. public opinion on the status of forces on the Korean Peninsula and the attempts to end the war quickly before it escalated, which the latter attempts ultimately failed.
Seoul at the time was still a developing nation with a stagnant economy, and fears that the United States would withdraw a sizable contingent of U.S. forces from South Korea could’ve very much materialized under the Johnson Administration, which had trouble forming a broad coalition.
Park Chung Hee, then president and military dictator of South Korea, implemented policies to modernize the Republic both economically and militarily and saw the opportunity to deploy forces alongside the U.S. to achieve this goal. Furthermore, Park wanted to show South Korea’s commitment to fighting communism, as the Viet Minh was armed and supported by the Soviet Union, China, and North Korea.
Then, President Lyndon B. Johnson would help subsidize the deployment of ROK forces in Vietnam and approve major development loans that helped kickstart Seoul’s growing economy, as the funds were directed toward industrialization. Furthermore, the U.S.-ROK alliance reached new heights, and Park’s rule over South Korea was consolidated as the “Miracle on the Han River” took effect.
During the nearly nine-year deployment, South Korea allocated and rotated 320,000 military personnel, with 5,000 troops killed and close to 11,000 injured. The United States praised the ROK Armed Forces as capable and more organized than other militaries during the war, and South Korea started to transform its military into one of the most elite in the Indo-Pacific.
Atrocities and War Crimes by the ROK Armed Forces
Despite taking part in military operations to gain valuable combat experience and enhance relations with America, South Korea is intertwined with some of the biggest horrors and massacres of the Vietnam War. ROK forces committed massacres in Binh Tai, Binh Hoa, Ha My, Binh An/Tay Vinh, and others.
The ROK massacres claimed the lives of over 1300-1700 civilians during the atrocities, with over 9,000 Vietnamese killed overall from indirect and direct fire conducted by South Korean units. U.S. Marines noted that deployed ROK forces used escalatory tactics and collective punishment against Vietnamese villages suspected of hosting Viet Cong or the Viet Minh.
Sexual assaults from deployed ROK units were so notorious that Vietnam used the term ‘Lai Dai Han’ to refer to Vietnamese born from a South Korean father from wartime sexual violence. There are at least 5,000 cases of Lai Dai Han, with 800 sexual assault survivors alive in 2015 that called for an apology from Seoul.
Despite the massacres and eyewitness testimonies from Vietnamese and U.S. forces, there were several factors as to why the war crimes committed by South Korea didn’t truly gain traction during the war. The U.S. military was even more enshrined in war crimes such as the My Lai Massacre, carpet bombing of villages, and chemical weapons usage such as Agent Orange.
As mentioned before, South Korea was ruled by the military junta of Park Chung Hee, and the Republic went into a media blackout for its citizens, which made it easier for the government to cover up atrocities in Vietnam from South Korean citizens discreetly. It wasn’t until May of 1999 that the first report of war crimes of the ROK Armed Forces in Vietnam came out in South Korea by the Hankyoreh 21.
How South Koreans and Vietnamese View the Atrocities
South Korea and Vietnam established formal diplomatic relations in December 1992, as Vietnam transitioned to a free market economy. Admonishment of South Korea from the scars of the war didn’t directly come from Hanoi, but instead, from Vietnamese civilians affiliated with civic groups who hold the wounds of the atrocities.
Against the backdrop of the unification of Vietnam as the communists captured Saigon, mothers of the Lai Dai Han were ostracized and discriminated against for allegations of being ‘collaborators’ for the sexual abuses they faced from ROK forces. Neither Seoul nor Washington did much to help the community from the discrimination faced by Hanoi, and calls for formal apologies have grown amongst Vietnamese human rights groups over the past several decades.
Former South Korean Presidents Kim Dae-jung and Moon Jae-in made apologetic statements, but both stopped short of full acknowledgement and apologies over ROK war crimes. Vietnamese rights groups continue to press Seoul over full formal apologies and acknowledgement, and South Korea’s rising activists have commemorated Vietnam War victims with a memorial on Jeju Island.
Seoul Should Mend Relations with Hanoi over Wartime Atrocities
Amidst South Korea’s efforts to save its democracy from an attempted coup by former President Yoon Suk Yeol and the subsequent election of the more progressive Lee Jae Myung, who enjoys popular support among the people, Seoul should officially mend the scars of the Vietnam War. Akin to Vietnam, South Korea suffered greatly from WWII, the divisions of their country, atrocities, and decades of denial of such.
One of the major drifts in relations between South Korea and Japan was from the horrors of colonialism by the latter, such as forced labor, sexual violence against Koreans (comfort women), and various massacres committed by Imperial Japanese troops. Seoul has pressed on this issue with Tokyo, which has had a history of passively ignoring war crimes, which caused animosity throughout the Indo-Pacific.
Today, the Republic of Korea faces the same situation for apologies and recognition of war crimes committed by the ROK Armed Forces. Where South Korea has pursued reparations and formal recognition for atrocities from Japan, ignoring the horrors of Vietnam could cause further decades of resentment from the Vietnamese towards South Koreans, and now, with a stable democratic government, Seoul has the chance to reverse the denial of the past.
South Korea and Vietnam represent two growing economies in the Indo-Pacific that are valuable trade partners that fought for freedom under Imperial Japanese occupation. However, to continue mending cultural ties between South Korean and Vietnamese citizens, Seoul should now formally move forward with recognizing atrocities from the Vietnam War to close a dark chapter between both countries.
