[EDITORIALS]Collaborators and liars

Representative Shin Ki-nam resigned as the Uri Party chairman. Whatever the reasons, we are sorry for his resignation. Still, Mr. Shin’s resignation address yesterday distorted the issue of his father’s collaboration in the Japanese occupation of Korea.
Mr. Shin claimed that he did not tell any lies. We do not understand his position. Mr. Shin had previously denied news reports of his father’s collaboration, saying that the reports were false and defamatory. If Mr. Shin did not lie, that means his father did not engage in any collaboration, and there would be no need for him to resign. The truth is different from what he claimed.
According to recent news reports, his father volunteered for the Japanese Army and served as a military policeman and tortured Koreans who had engaged in anti-Japanese movements.
Those reports must be verified, as Mr. Shin noted, but it has been confirmed that his father wrote an essay encouraging Koreans to join the Japanese Army. “What is most necessary for Koreans to be united with Japanese is to join the Japanese Army. If you want to become a subject of imperial Japan, then come to the army training camp,” Mr. Shin’s father’s wrote in an essay in a magazine.
It is certainly not necessary to refute Mr. Shin’s claims here; the facts of collaboration and lies are evident. But the controversy still goes on and repercussions expand. It seems that the governing party did not learn any lesson from the current case. Claiming themselves as the “democratic force for reform and peace,” the leaders of the party are attempting to accelerate its efforts to investigate history.
Mr. Shin is acting as if he were a scapegoat. He visited the Korea Liberation Association and apologized, but it looked as if he were trying to compel the association to accept the apology. Other Uri Party members evaded condemning his lies, and claimed without substance that he resigned because of guilt by association.
Mr. Shin said he would now work hard to investigate collaboration cases. Does that perhaps mean that he would dig out his father’s wrongdoings? We are concerned that he may attempt to probe the wrongdoings only of others.
Mr. Shin once said, “I would be more proud of myself if I were born a son of an independence movement activist.” Such a remark perplexed many Koreans who think very highly of family values and morality.