South Korea’s defense minister plans to issue an apology over the country’s past secret program around training commandos for North Korean infiltration during the Cold War era, considered one of the darkest chapters in the South’s military history, according to officials Sunday.
Defense Minister Shin Won-sik plans to issue a letter of apology for the so-called “Silmido unit” program during an excavation ceremony set to be held between September and October for the yet-recovered remains of four unit members who were executed and secretly buried in 1972.
The ceremony will take place at a cemetery in Goyang, northwest of Seoul, where the remains are presumed to be buried.
The Silmido unit, also known as Unit 684, was named after the island off the west coast where it was secretly based. It was established in 1968 by the South Korean government following North Korea’s failed attempt to attack the presidential office in Seoul that year.
Silmido commandos underwent intense training with the goal of assassinati
ng Kim Il-sung, the North Korean leader at the time, but their existence soon became useless for Seoul amid the rising mood for reconciliation between the two Koreas.
The then Park Chung-hee government ordered the elimination of the Silmido unit in 1971, but its commandos escaped and headed to the presidential office Cheong Wa Dae. Confronted with the army in Seoul, most of the commandos blew themselves up with hand grenades, and the surviving four members were executed the following year.
The existence of the anti-communist unit was denied by the government until its story became a huge hit with the movie “Silmido” in 2004. Compensation suits were filed and some were settled in favor of the victims’ families.
In 2022, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission recommended an investigation into the burial sites and the excavation of the remains of the former members, as well as an apology to the victims.
Source: Yonhap News Agency