An exhibition featuring photos of Vietnamese victims massacred by South Korean troops during the American War in Vietnam will open this Friday in Seoul.
South Korean journalist Koh Kyeong-tae, former editor-in-chief of Seoul-based Hankyoreh21 current affairs weekly, is poised to inaugurate his exhibition at the Art Link gallery in Jongno District in the capital city.
The exhibition will feature photos of Vietnamese civilians in central Vietnam who were brutally tortured and killed during massacres by South Korean marines in 1968 during the American War in Vietnam.
A total of 320,000 South Korean troops were sent to Vietnam between1965 and 1973, according to Seoul-based The Hankyoreh daily newspaper.
On February 12, 1968 in the villages of Phong Nhat and Phong Nhi in central Vietnam’s Quang Nam Province, 74 unarmed Vietnamese civilians, most of whom were women and children, were massacred by the Second Marine Brigade of the South Korean Marines.
Records of the massacre from reports made by U.S. troops who took over the area were for 32 years kept confidential by the U.S. government before finally being declassified in 2000.
It was then that Koh Kyeong-tae got access to 20 photos taken of the Vietnamese victims by U.S. Corporal J. Vaughn together with over 500 pages of reports made by U.S. soldiers about the conduct of South Korean marines in Vietnam.
In the early 2000s, his newspaper Hankyoreh21 became the first news outlet in South Korea to publish information about the massacre, a topic that until then was avoided by the South Korean public and government.
The South Korean journalist has since visited the villages of Phong Nhat and Phong Nhi six times to meet with surviving eye witnesses to reveal the truth behind the events that occurred on February 12, 1968.
In 2015, Koh Kyeong-tae published a book named after the historic date, in which the journalist wrote on the pain and loss of the Vietnamese victims and survivors who lost their loved ones.
Not a professional photographer himself, Koh Kyeong-tae selected photos for his exhibition based largely on their historical and narrative value.
The exhibition, named ‘Phong Nhat – Phong Nhi: A Rural Hometown’, will open until October 1.
A photo of Koh Kyeong-tae taken at a massacre victims memorial site in Quang Nam Province. Photo courtesy of Koh Kyeong-tae
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