(LEAD) Surviving forced labor victim accepts gov’t compensation package

An elderly South Korean survivor of Japan’s wartime forced labor has accepted a disputed government-led compensation package, people familiar with the matter said Wednesday, joining others who have chosen to receive the payout despite a 2018 court ruling in their favor.

Lee Choon-shik, 104, became the third and last surviving victim to collect the compensation and the delayed interest under the “third-party” solution adopted by the Yoon Suk Yeol government in March last year, according to the victims’ advocate group and other sources.

Lee’s decision came about a week after Yang Geum-deok, another forced labor victim, took the package from the government-affiliated public fund handling the reparations.

But hours after the decision was made known, Lee’s son issued a statement objecting to the payout, claiming that his father would have never agreed to the compensation.

“My father is not in a condition to express his intentions clearly,” Lee Chang-hwan, the eldest son, said in the statement, implying that hi
s siblings may have played a role in the decision.

Lee said his father has been in a nursing home due to age-related issues and delirium, which makes it hard for him to communicate normally.

“Given these circumstances, I can’t believe that he would have agreed to the third-party compensation,” Lee said, adding that he plans to seek its cancellation.

Lee and Yang were among the 15 original plaintiffs that won the 2018 Supreme Court ruling that ordered Nippon Steel and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries to pay compensation to the Korean victims for forcing them to toil at Japanese factories and mines during World War II.

Korea was under Japan’s colonial rule from 1910-45.

Kim Seong-ju, now deceased, was the first surviving victim to accept the third-party package in May last year.

Lee and Yang had refused to accept the compensation offered by the current government, protesting Yoon’s decision to exclude the responsible Japanese companies from contributing to the payout.

Lee and Yang’s reversal is now drawing at
tention to whether their decisions will influence the stances of the remaining plaintiffs, all of whom are family members of deceased victims.

Yoon, with a strong policy drive to improve ties with Tokyo, announced that South Korea will compensate the victims with donations from South Korean companies that had benefited from the 1965 post-war bilateral treaty with Japan, and any contributions from Japanese companies will be voluntary.

Despite Seoul’s call for voluntary involvement from Japanese companies, no donations from Japan have been made and the public foundation handling the compensation remains underfunded.

Japan has refused to comply with the court rulings, insisting that all matters of compensation were settled under the 1965 treaty that normalized bilateral ties.

Source: Yonhap News Agency