Subcommittee Demands Apology from Jeju 4·3 Peace Foundation

The 4·3 Additional Fact-Finding Subcommittee under the Prime Minister's Office held its 12th meeting and received progress reports on issues during the investigation process from the Jeju 4·3 Peace Foundation, Jeju Provincial Government, and the Ministry of Interior and Safety. The committee pointed out that procedural flaws occurred during the additional fact-finding investigation period, which ran from 2022 to last June, citing instances such as the failure to undergo prior deliberation and non-adherence to investigation schedules.

The subcommittee demanded that the Jeju 4·3 Peace Foundation issue a formal apology for the procedural problems that arose during past investigations. The committee recommended that the foundation offer a public apology to the residents and bereaved families, with subcommittee chair Yeom Mi-kyung stating that the foundation bore significant responsibility and had violated procedures stipulated in the law and broken promises to the public. Yeom emphasized the need for the foundation to apologize publicly to residents and bereaved families, beyond an apology to the subcommittee.

The subcommittee also pointed out issues of negligent oversight by the Ministry of Interior and Safety's 4·3 Incident Handling Division, which supported past affairs-related work, and by Jeju Province, in addition to the Jeju 4·3 Peace Foundation. They stated that problems during the investigation process would not have occurred had proper oversight been exercised.

The subcommittee decided to operate a review committee and a drafting committee, comprised of experts, for the future report writing process. It was noted that the draft report submitted on June 30 last year, which ran to seven volumes, was essentially at the level of a data compilation.

The government's additional fact-finding investigation into the 4·3 incident was conducted under the entirely revised 4·3 Special Act in March 2021.