SEOUL: South Korea’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission has found the country’s past military governments responsible for atrocities committed at Brothers Home, a state-funded facility for vagrants where thousands were enslaved and abused from the 1960s to the 80s.
The landmark report on Wednesday comes 35 years after a prosecutor first exposed the horrors at the facility in the southern port city of Busan and detailed an attempted cover-up of evidence that would have confirmed a state-sponsored crime.
From the 1960s to the 80s, South Korean military dictators ordered roundups to beautify the streets. Thousands – including homeless and disabled people, as well as children – were snatched off the streets and brought to facilities where they were detained and forced to work.
Many inmates were enslaved, raped and, in hundreds of cases, beaten to death or left to die, according to dozens of interviews with survivors and a review of an extensive range of government and Brothers documents obtained by The Associated Press news agency.
In the lead-up to the 1986 Asian Games and 1988 Olympic Games, in particular, South Korea’s military government was preparing to showcase the country to the world and wanted “vagrants” removed from the streets and out of sight. –Agencies
