Talk:Seoul National University Hospital Massacre

Page contents not supported in other languages.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

True?[edit]

Is there a non-South Korean source to confirm this?

It seems to contradict what American historian Bruce Cumings has said (Korea's Place in the Sun, 1997, pp 269-270) about the capture of Seoul.--Jack Upland (talk) 09:29, 28 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Emotive POV language.[edit]

Use of the terms 'wrought by' and 'wiped out' with the word 'massacred' is unencyclopedic language and biases the article, in my opinion. Mark McGinty2.26.75.147 (talk) 20:09, 12 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Seriously dubious article[edit]

First of all, I agree with Jack Upland in the earlier thread that this contradicts what Cumings wrote about Seoul. If this happened at all, I suspect it is another one of those massacres once falsely blamed on North Korea that have since been shown to have been committed by the South (Bodo League, Daejon, etc.). The first link just (my Korean is limited but from what I can gather) is a memorial page for the supposed victims killed by North Korea. It doesn't go into detail beyond that. Both the second and third sources are right-wing newspapers in South Korea. The second page/paper is associated with Reverend Moon (a fanatical anti-communist who founded the World Anti-Communist League with Nazis, Japanese fascists, and Chiang Kai-shek, and supported the Nicaraguan contras financially) and is based on reports from the South Korean Ministry of Defense. The third article is based on the account of South Korean Colonel Jang Do-yeong (after reading the entire article, I have no doubt about this), Director of the Army Intelligence Bureau in South Korea, which makes it dubious. Here is an example passage:

내가 보고를 들은 것은 7월 10일, 조재천의 관사로 찾아온 육군 정보국장 장도영 대령한테서다. approximate translation: "I heard about this report [of the massacre] from Colonel Jang Do-yeong, the army intelligence director, who arrived 10 July, coming as [Governor] Jo Jae-cheon's official."

The only information in English conveniently seems to come from Wikipedia. A search for its Korean name ("서울대학교 부속병원 학살 사건") turned up only 46 results on Google, many reprints of the Wikipedia article, passing mentions or appearing to be based on South Korean military sources (the credibility of whom was doubtful, even to the US, as noted by Channing Liem, a former professor at SUNY-New Paltz and South Korean diplomat). Not a single historian, in Korean (even keeping in mind that dissent is stifled by the National Security Law in South Korea, and that until the late 1990s or 2000s the South Korean dictatorship blamed all massacres in the Korean War on North Korea) or any other language, appears to have written anything about this. A search in Korean on Google books gave 4 results (at least two of which were fiction and one from North Korea, but there is only one preview - of a fictional book). As there are issues with verifiability and sources, I believe this article should be deleted. My Korean is limited, but I am confident that the third article is based on the South Korean military. If anyone believes this happened, please provide reliable sources that prove this (preferably in English). Incogreader (talk • 03:51, 11 June 2019 (UTC) (edited 6 July)[reply]

Also, from reviewing the first (which has only a passing mention and is only available as an archived version) and second source cited, the figure of 900 killed appears to include military deaths in battle. Also, the plaque at the Seoul NU Hospital was made in 1963, when the South Korean government blamed all massacres in the Korean War on the North Korean side. It was not until the late 1990s to 2000s that it was possible to write about massacres by the South Korean side, due to the dictatorships. Claims made of massacres by South Korea, especially dating to before the late-1990s, are therefore suspect, so I have noted this in the article. Incogreader (talk) 20:12, 6 July 2019 (UTC) (edited 8 July)[reply]

Edit reverted[edit]

I noticed that my edit was reverted with the summary "Removing references, adding unreferenced information." Which reference did I remove and what was unreferenced? Source 2 makes clear that the figure given includes deaths of the platoon guarding the hospital, and I gave a reference supporting the claim that South Korea falsely attributed massacres to the North Korean side (see Bodo League article, which says in the intro that it was for years falsely blamed on North Korea; or The Korean War by Bruce Cumings). Finally, I did not remove any references, just removed a redundancy.

this instance literally does not exist.[edit]

It's not even mentioned in the south gov's own report: https://web.archive.org/web/20160303171441/http://jinsil.go.kr/pdf/%EC%98%81%EB%AC%B8%EB%B0%B1%EC%84%9C_20MS%ED%8C%8C%EC%9D%BC_0205.pdf

delete this article.