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Lee instructs gov't to consider revoking national merit for late colonel over crackdown in Jeju uprising

Published: 15 Dec. 2025, 11:41 Updated: 15 Dec. 2025, 18:41

President Lee Jae Myung speaks during a policy briefing by the education ministry in the administrative city of Sejong on Dec. 15. [YONHAP]

President Lee Jae Myung has instructed the Veterans Ministry to revoke the designation of a late Army colonel as a person of national merit, officials said Monday, following criticism over his past role in the suppression of a civilian uprising on Jeju Island in 1948.

Lee gave the order a day earlier as the ministry had come under fire for granting the designation to the late Col. Park Jin-kyung, who has been accused of leading operations that involved the violent crackdown against civilians during the Jeju uprising.

In October, the Ministry of Patriots and Veterans Affairs approved a request from one of Park's bereaved family members to recognize him as a person of national merit, citing a military decoration he had received for combat merit. The certificate of national merit was delivered to the family last month.

After the decision became public earlier this month, the ministry apologized to victims and bereaved families of the Jeju incident for failing to properly screen the case.

Veterans Minister Kwon Oh-eul last week visited Jeju to personally apologize, but said the ministry currently lacks the authority to revoke the designation, noting that such action would require amendments to the current system.

The Jeju uprising began on April 3, 1948, and continued for seven years, involving resistance by Jeju islanders during the period of the U.S. military-led rule in the wake of Korea's liberation from Japanese occupation.

The protests left an estimated 14,000 to 30,000 civilians, or up to 10 percent of the island's population at the time, killed in armed crackdowns.

Yonhap