Quotes of the Day

When Hur Yong Chun saw his son's corpse lying on a wooden stretcher on the morning of April 3, 1984, it had two bullet holes in the chest and one in the forehead. According to a forensic expert at the army base where Hur's son was doing military service, it was a case of suicide. But Hur wondered if it was possible to shoot yourself three times with a rifle. Then Hur asked why blood around the wound on the right side of his son's chest was black and coagulated, while blood around the other two bullet holes was still red, as if the wounds were fresher. Two different blood types, the forensic expert told the rural farmer in a dismissive tone. "Do you take me for a fool?" Hur exploded.

Hur then heard from privates at the base that his son might have been killed by fellow soldiers at a drunken party. Further inquiries ran into a wall of silence—which 16 years later, the still grieving father hoped would finally crumble when President Kim Dae Jung set up a presidential commission to investigate suspicious deaths under Korea's authoritarian regimes. Like similar panels set up in post-apartheid South Africa and post-junta Argentina, the commission was supposed to set the record straight and heal the wounds of the past. From Park Chung Hee's coup in 1961 until the transition to democracy in the early 1990s, South Korea's authoritarian governments regularly violated human rights in the name of protecting South Korea from the threat of the communist North. Hundreds of students, church leaders and others who opposed military rule died in suspicious circumstances in jails and military prisons or were executed after summary trials. Kim himself came close to becoming one of the victims: he was kidnapped by government agents from a hotel in Tokyo in 1973, beaten and nearly executed.

From its inception, however, the Presidential Truth Commission on Suspicious Deaths faced powerful opposition. Conservative lawmakers, some of whom worked as police or prosecutors under former military strongmen, successfully watered down the legislation establishing the commission, denying it the right to subpoena witnesses, conduct searches or even demand access to official documents. With the commission due to release a final report by Oct. 16, it now seems the body has been less than thorough even within its purview. It investigated only 83 cases out of hundreds of unexplained deaths because many of the victims' families were suspicious or too discouraged after years of failing to get answers. It solved only 34. "Too many cases were left unsolved," admits commission president Hang Sang Beom. "This is a blow against democratic reform." (The infamous 1980 Kwangju massacre was investigated by another body that ended its work last year. The government paid compensation of $190 million to victims and victims' families, although critics say the official death toll of fewer than 200 people is grossly understated).

This commission did get to the bottom of a few high profile cases. It concluded that eight men convicted of belonging to a communist party in 1975 and executed less than a day later had been framed by the Korean Central Intelligence Agency (KCIA). In another case, the commission found that Pastor Im Gi Yun, called in for questioning by military intelligence in 1980 because he was involved in a pro-democracy group, died from beatings and torture, not high blood pressure, as the military maintained. Another tragedy involved Choi Jong Gil, a law professor at the prestigious Seoul University. According to the KCIA, Choi jumped out of a seventh floor window at the agency's headquarters in 1973 rather than disclose details of a spy ring in South Korea. The commission determined that Choi died under torture or was thrown out of a window. For Hur Yong Chun, the process provided some of the answers he's sought for more than 18 years. After hearing closed-door testimony from men who were at the base, the commission found that a drunken sergeant identified only as Roh—a common surname in South Korea—accidentally shot Hur's son once in the chest at a party in the early hours of April 2, 1984. The next morning—when the wounded soldier was still alive—he was shot again and killed. The commission didn't determine who actually murdered Hur's son or why. Understandably, the father isn't satisfied. He says he won't bury his son's ashes until the killer or killers come forward. With the commission closing the book on his son's case and so many questions still unanswered, Hur wonders "Who are we supposed to turn to now?"

• donald macintyre / seoul
• South Korea tries to confront its brutal past. But a commission comes up with less than half the truth