Rhee In-soo, adopted son of former autocrat Syngman Rhee, attempted to apologize yesterday for the killings of antigovernment protestors in the April 19 Movement of 1960, the first offer of reconciliation in 51 years.

He was prevented from giving his apology when 70 members of foundations for the victims and their relatives formed a human wall that blocked Rhee from reaching the April 19 National Democracy Cemetery in Suyu-dong, northern Seoul, where the victims of the movement are interred.

Rhee gave up and held a press conference at his father’s former house, Ewhajang, in Ewha-dong, Seoul.

“It is a great shame that the groups related to the April 19 Movement did not accept the decision that the Syngman Rhee Memorial Foundation and [the late president’s] family made after 51 years,” Rhee told reporters. “I understand what the families who lost children or relatives from the government’s mistake are going through. I beg for forgiveness for the historical mistake and a reconciliation before it is too late.”

The April 19 Movement began after a vice presidential election was considered to have been rigged by Rhee’s government, spurring students to protest. On April 11, 1960, the body of a student named Kim Ju-yeol washed up on a beach in Masan, South Gyeongsang, and the government’s claim that he had drowned was disproved by students who stormed the hospital and found Kim had been killed by a tear gas grenade that split his head open. Roughly 20,000 students gathered in Seoul on April 19, and police fired randomly into crowds, eventually killing 183 and injuring over 6,000 people. They were later discovered to have been given orders to kill protestors. Rhee was forced to step down on April 26, 1960.

The white-haired, 80-year-old Rhee had announced days earlier that he was planning to read an apology at the cemetery.

Rhee told the JoongAng Ilbo over the weekend that it was finally time to “comfort the souls that were sacrificed.”

But members of victims foundations formed a human wall in front of the bus carrying Rhee and roughly 20 others belonging to the Syngman Rhee Memorial Foundation, stopping the bus 2 meters from the gates of the cemetery and Rhee was physically prevented from getting into the cemetery.

“This is not an apology, but a notification out of the blue,” said Oh Kyung-seop, president of the 4.19 Revolution Association. “How can they come to the cemetery without our permission? What victim’s family would accept it if they come without our consent and get their photos taken by the press while reading the statement?”

“I do not deny that former President Rhee deserves credit for the independence movement of Korea, for building up the country and blocking the North Korean invasion,” Yoo Se-hee, an professor emeritus at Hanyang University in Seoul and veteran of the April 19 Movement told the JoongAng Ilbo. “But these do not justify his dictatorship. The mistake of firing into crowds that were protesting against injustice was too big a mistake to be forgotten.”


By Christine Kim [christine.kim@joongang.co.kr]