 |
Lyuh Woon-hyung (right) and Pak Hon-yong who quarreled with each other just before Lyuh Woon-hyung was assassinated. /Chosun DB
|
 |
|
Mongyang Lyuh Woon-hyung (1886-1947), a center-left nationalist leader, was assassinated on a street in Seoul 60 years ago on July 19, 1947. Now, a senior Korean-American political scientist has thrown new light on the incident, saying Lyuh¡¯s assassination may have been instigated by the Workers Party of South Korea led by Pak Hon-yong.
Lee Chong-sik, professor emeritus of political science at the University of Pennsylvania, makes the conjecture in a paper sent to the organizers of a seminar in honor of Mongyang Lyuh Woon-hyung, to be held on the 60th anniversary of his death at the auditorium of Seoul Museum of History on Thursday.
It was so far believed that Lyuh was assassinated by an ultra-rightwinger. "In 1981 when I visited North Korea, Lyuh Yon-koo, Lyuh's second daughter, told me that her father was assassinated by Pak Hon-yong and his followers,¡± Lee said. ¡°At the time, I thought her guess was a shot in the dark. But based on recently declassified documents from the Soviet Union, I can no longer rule it out."
Based on his analysis of the documents, including a diary by general Terenty Shtykov, the commander of the Soviet occupation forces in North Korea, Lee says Lyuh quarreled with Pak Hon-yong right before his assassination. On instructions from the Soviet military government, Pak opposed Lyuh's campaign for a Right-Left collaboration. Without consultation, Pak also tried to absorb the Lyuh-led People's Party of Korea into his communist camp. Lyuh started criticizing the communists in early 1947, when his house was hit by a bomb attack believed to have been carried out by the communists.
Citing memoirs by Edgar Johnson, the civil administrator in the U.S. military government in South Korea, Lee said, "At that moment, Lyuh Woon-hyung decided to cooperate with the U.S. military government. But he was assassinated in his car on his way to meet Johnson."
(englishnews@chosun.com )
|
