Eric K. Yamamoto (University of Hawaii – William S. Richardson School of Law), Rachel Oyama, & Katya Katano have posted Reconciliation Revitalized Through an Official Apology for the Wrongful Jeju 4.3 Mass Convictions: A Key Next Step Toward Comprehensively and Enduringly Healing Persisting Wounds of Injustice (World Environment and Island Studies, Vol. 8, 2018) on SSRN. Here is the abstract:
2018 marked the 70th anniversary of the Jeju 4.3 “Grand Tragedy” and started, stalled and rejuvenated reconciliation efforts by the South Korea government and people. Even after a truth and reconciliation investigation and some legislative and executive actions, one question remains startlingly significant: how do the survivors, their families, Jeju Island and South Korea as a nation heal from the decades-old injuries that still ache in the present? This essay offers insights into an important potential next step towards Jeju 4.3 reconciliation. That is, comprehensive and enduring social healing through justice-healing for Jeju people who suffered from the 4.3 events, as well as for Korean society itself. One key justice piece of that social healing process – addressed in this essay – highlights the significance of formal apologies for those still suffering from the wrongful mass military tribunal convictions and executions and harsh imprisonment during 4.3 events, particularly for the eighteen survivors (and families) who recently reopened their convictions, seventy years later, in Jeju District Court and succeeded in impelling the court to vacate their convictions after retrial, clearing their names and those of all who had been wrongfully and horrifically incarcerated.