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The civic group Citizens United for Better Society has analyzed the personnel records of 178 committee members and 149 employees of nine truth-finding groups, including the Truth and Reconciliation Committee. The results show that 88 of the committee members and 82 of the staff can be considered politically progressive. In contrast, fewer than 10 percent were ideologically conservative. One member of the civic group explained the results show the ideological slant of only those people whose past activities are on record, so there may be more left-leaning officials in the truth-finding bodies.
Within the Truth and Reconciliation Committee, which caused a stir by revealing the names of judges who passed sentences under the 1970s emergency decrees, 52.1 percent of 46 committee members were left-leaning, as were 64.3 percent of its 84 staff. The ideological colors of the members of the Commission for Democratization Movement Activists' Honor-Restoration and Compensation were also analyzed. That commission has awarded medals to South Korea¡¯s first underground movement made up of followers of former North Korean leader Kim Il-sung¡¯s ¡°juche¡± ideology, student protesters at Dong-eui University who held riot police hostage in the university library in 1989 and set it on fire, causing the death of nine officers, and the South Korea National Liberation Front, which robbed civilians and stole weapons to fund a communist revolution in South Korea. More than half of the commission¡¯s members and all eight of its staff were leftwing. Past history can be viewed from different perspectives depending on your ideological preference, and the results of a truth-finding committee follow the views of the majority of its members. As a result, a proper ratio of committee members with different ideologies is needed to arrive at a fair ruling.
In reality, however, over half the members of these committees are people toeing the government¡¯s line and only a minority is able to defend the other side. A ruling made by such a committee is a foregone conclusion. Whatever research such a committee conducts is just going through the motions.
It is a pity this administration feels that the findings of these committees are a step toward the future.
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