By Ryu Jin
Staff Reporter


South Korea has decided to make public next month several important documents that were exchanged with Japan in the lead-up to the two nations’ normalization of ties four decades ago.

``The government decided to make these documents public to meet the people’s right to know and improve the government’s administrative transparency,’’ Deputy Foreign Minister Lee Soo-hyuck said at a press briefing on Tuesday.

Subject to the disclosure, he explained, will be five files of documents, totaling over 1,200 pages, most of which are government reports and instructions about negotiations with Tokyo, especially with regard to Seoul’s compensation demands.

The documents, declassified but never disclosed at Tokyo’s request, will become available from Jan. 17 in the form of microfilm at the ministry-affiliated Institute of Foreign Affairs and National Security (IFANS) in southern Seoul.

``There are a total of 161 files of documents related to the 1965 South Korea-Japan Treaty, including the five to be made public this time,’’ Lee said. ``We will try to make more of them public in the future.’’

The long-anticipated disclosure is expected to prompt a series of compensation demands from victims of the 1910-45 Japanese colonial rule of Korea, including those forced into labor or sexual slavery.

The 1965 deal made it virtually impossible for those persecuted to obtain compensation individually from the Japanese government. Seoul allegedly favored a lump-sum payment of some $360 million for about 1.03 million forced laborers though Tokyo suggested individual reparation, according to sources.

The late president Park Chung-hee’s military regime, which pushed for the negotiations despite fierce protests by the public at the time, finally received $500 million in soft loans and grants from Japan, including government-level compensation.

But the Park government didn’t give individuals as much money as originally promised, using much of the funds for economic projects such as the construction of highways. Moreover, the number of people who received compensation from the government reached just over 8,000, leaving the remaining 1.02 million _ at the government’s own calculations _ empty-handed.

In 2002 a group of 99 victims of the Japanese occupation filed a lawsuit calling for the disclosure of 57 documents and the Seoul Administrative Court in February ordered the government to make five of them public.

After the South Korean government refused to do so, it was found in August that Seoul’s reluctance was because of a request from Tokyo not to release the details of the agreement before Japan finalizes talks for the normalization of ties with North Korea.

Lee said Tokyo did not, however, object to Seoul’s move and added that he does not believe the disclosure will cause diplomatic friction.

He said the government is in the process of setting up an inter-ministerial team to deal with the repercussions of the disclosure, possibly focusing on efforts to find ways to compensate the victims of Japan’s colonial rule.

jinryu@koreatimes.co.kr