Associated Press
SEOUL, South Korea
South Korean soldiers killed large numbers of unarmed civilians, mostly elderly people and children, during the Vietnam War, a state-run television station reported, quoting survivors and veterans.
Accounts of the killings reported on KBS-TV Thursday have been circulating in South Korea for years, but never have been investigated during the rule of Seoul's past military regimes.
According to the report, South Korean soldiers herded scores or hundreds of Vietnamese people and gunned them down in several villages on suspicion that they harbored enemy guerrillas. In some cases, they slaughtered villagers in retaliation for guerrilla ambushes.
In one incident, South Korean marines rounded up people at Phu Hiep village, in Phu Yen province in May 1966. While searching the village, two guerrillas hiding in a fox hole threw a grenade that injured a south Korean lieutenant and Vietnamese translator, the report said.
"We shot everything that moved," said a South Korean veteran who was identified only by his last name, Chung.
The shooting spree killed 46 people, KBS said. Bui Thi Nong, who was 9 years old during the shooting, told KBS that she and her sister survived the shoots because her mother covered the children and they pretended to be dead inder the corpses. "I still wonder why the South Korean soldiers killed the villagers. The Viet Cong had already gone away, and there were only old villagers and children," Nong said.
Seoul's Defense Ministry had no immediate comment on the TV program. About 320,000 South Koreans fought in the Vietnam War alongside allied U.S. troops. They were the largest foreign contingent after Americans. Of them, 5,077 were killed and 10,962 injured.
"One day, we saw farmers working on the field with farm gear. It was clear they were farmers. But my commander ordered our unit to kill them. He did it to make a false report and promote his career. I am sorry I belonged to the unit," said another veteran who spoke on camera but was not identified.