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Drawing on the results of forty-eight case studies completed by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Republic of Korea (TRCK), this article analyzes the characteristics of 'mass killings of Korean civilians' committed in South Korea (south of the 38th parallel) from October 1948 to March 1952. First, the author identifies four groups of perpetrators who committed the mass killings: the army/police of the Republic of Korea (ROK), ROKpolice and army intelligence agencies, ROKpolice and security agencies, and the U.S. military. Second, the author shows that the political circumstances at the time of each mass killing had profound effects on the ways in which these mass killings were carried out, how victims were selected, and how the perpetrators mobilized. Immediately before the outbreak of the Korean War in 1950, the ROK army/police were mobilized to suppress rebels within the army and civilian opponents to the government. This resulted in mass killings. Immediately after the war started, potential collaborators with North Korea were summarily executed by army intelligence agencies/police. Finally, collaborators, or suspects, with the North Korean People's Army were vengefully punished after United Nations forces recovered Seoul. Also, the U.S. military was engaged in killing refugees and civilians in enemy territory throughout the war. The series of mass civilian killings demonstrates, in the most grotesque way, that the Korean War was the final outburst and culmination of conflicts that arose from the high political tension caused by the establishment of the two governments after Korea's independence in August 1945. To substantiate these claims, this article details some of the civilian mass killings whose veracity has been confirmed by the TRCK. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although South Korea's Truth and Reconciliation Commission has investigated many of more than 200 alleged cases of what it categorizes as civilian massacres committed by U.S. soldiers during the Korean War, the U.S. government has investigated only one, the refugee killings at No Gun Ri. The U.S. government's 300-page report on that inquiry exonerated the U.S. military of wrongdoing. Then president Clinton said the evidence was not clear that there was responsibility 'high enough in the chain of command.' In reporting their findings, however, the U.S. Army investigators ignored and left undisclosed many of the most relevant documents and testimony. The most significant example is the 'Muccio letter,' in which the U.S. ambassador to South Korea informed the State Department that the Army, fearing infiltrators, had decided to fire on South Korean refugees approaching U.S. lines despite warning shots. The No Gun Ri carnage began the next day. Only in 2007 did the Army acknowledge it knew about and deliberately omitted the Muccio letter from its 2001 report. Archival research and Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests found many other examples of crucial material unreported or misreported by the Army, including fighter-bomber mission reports that discuss attacks on refugees, a high-level communication confirming an Air Force policy of strafing refugees, and more than a dozen other documents showing colonels and generals ordering or authorizing attacks on civilians. Such undisclosed documents were found in the Army investigators' own files. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Korean War is multiple wars. Not only is it a war that began on 25 June 1950, it is also a conflict that is rooted in Korea's colonial experiences, postcolonial desires and frustrations, and interventions and partitions imposed by outside forces. In South Korea, the war is a site of contestation: Which war should be remembered and how should it be remembered? The site has been overwhelmed by Manichean official discourse that pits evil communists against innocent Koreans and that seeks to silence other memories that do not conform. But the hegemonic project remains unfinished in the face of the resiliency embodied in the survivors who have withstood 'triple killings' by the state. The historical significance of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Republic of Korea (TRCK), lies in its success in bringing back to life the voices of the silenced that complicate the hegemonic memory of the war as yugio, the 'June 25th war.' At the same time, the Commission embodies the structural dilemma that the effort to give voice to the silenced has turned to the state to redress the state's wrongdoings. The TRCK as such stands on the problematic boundary between violence and post-violence, insecurity and security, exception and normalcy. Truth and reconciliation, and human security, are perhaps located in a process of defining and redefining the boundary. The historical contention over the Korean War constitutes such a political struggle for the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]