Korea asks France to return Joseon relics

Memory damaged or just populist politics?

Korean martyrs. Faith and war, when Koreans massacred their own

Christians and French missionaries.

The French campaign against Korea of 1866, known as

Byeonginyangyo (Korean: Western Disturbance of the

byeong-in year (1866), refers to the French occupation

of Ganghwa Island in retaliation for the execution of

French Jesuit priests and thousands of the converts.

The Confucianist establishment, including the Joseon

Dynasty rulers, did not embrace Christianity. The

largest massacre of Catholics was carried out in 1866,

under Daewongun, while he served as regent for King

Gojong. In the Catholic Persecution of 1866, nine French

missionaries and Korean converts, numbering in the

thousands were killed. The killings in 1866 attracted

the attention of the French, who began to visit Korea

seeking retaliation for the murder of their priests.

French campaign against Korea, 1866

The first French missionary to Korea, Father Philippe

Maubant, arrived in the country in 1836. After that

date, missionaries would continue to come to Korea from

China, often at great risks. In September 1846, the

French Admiral Jean-Baptiste Cécille sailed to Korea in

order to obtain the release of an imprisoned Korean

priest named André Kim, but Kim was soon executed. In

1847, after various involvements in Vietnam and Okinawa,

Cécille again sailed to Korea to try to infiltrate some

missionaries, but his ship ran aground and he had to be

rescued by a British ship.

In 1866, reacting to greater numbers of Korean converts

to Catholicism as well as the humiliations suffered by

China at the hands of Westerners during the Opium Wars,

the Korean court clamped down on the illicit French

missionaries, massacring French Catholic missionaries and

Koreans converts alike.

French frigate "La Guerriere" commanded by Admiral Roze.

Source "Soie et lumieres" Christian Polak of Seric K.K.

That same year France launched a punitive expedition

against Korea, invading and occupying portions of Ganghwa

Island in the fall of 1866. At the first battle, the

Korean infantry division lost heavily, and General Yang

Heon-su concluded that only a large cavalry division

could stand up to French firepower. An ambush by Korean

forces on a French party attempting to occupy the

strategically located Cheondeung Temple on the island‘s

south coast resulted in French casualties. French

realization that they were far outnumbered and outgunned

forced them to abandon the island and their expedition.

The entire incident later became known as the byeong-in

yang-yo, or foreign disturbance of the byeong-in year

(1866).

France and Korea established their first official

relations in 1886 after a Treaty of Friendship, Commerce

and Navigation was signed between the two countries. In

1887 , France sent its first official representative,

Victor Collin de Plancy along with his translator,

Maurice Courant. Courant would later be known as the

"father" of Korean studies in France. In France, the

first records of a Korean living there permanently, Hong

Jong-u, who arrived there not too long after official

relations were established. Arriving in Marseille in

1890, he will spend a few years working in France in a

museum where he would be very helpful in establishing the

first Korean Art and Culture section. Yet, it would not

be until the 1900 Paris World's Fair Exposition

Universelle that Korea would be "introduced" to the

French public.

Partners with time

Today both countries have excellent relations. On the

matter of North Korea, France is one of the few European

countries to not have official diplomatic relations with

the DPRK. France supports the Six-party talks as well as

the role of the IAEA in finding solutions to the nuclear

issue on Korean peninsula. Korean Foreign Minister Yu

Myung-hwan will welcome French Foreign Minister Bernard

Kouchner next month in Seoul.

One issue still divides both countries. A total of 297

ancient books that dictate the protocols of royal

ceremonies and rites of the Joseon Dynasty (1392-1910)

were taken by the French military from a library on

Ganghwa Island off the country’s west coast during an

1866 invasion after the massacre of French priest by

Koreans. Here: http://tinyurl.com/ya9htjx

A single book was returned to Korea on a permanent lease

in 1993 by France’s then-President Francois Mitterand.

At that time in 1993 this issue created a stir of anger

in France as actress Sophie Marceau had taken the side of

Korea, while the actress was on a guests' list of

Mitterrand during the official visit in Korea, prompting

strong remarks from officials and the press on the tune

of " what the hell does she know about history"...

Not only France. Japan's Imperial Household Agency holds

hundreds of historic books of Korea's Joseon Dynasty

(1392-1910), according to South Korean government survey.

The books have been stolen by Japan's Government General

of Korea during Japanese colonial rule of the Korean

Peninsula from 1910 to 1945. Similar calls were made for

a collection of documents known as the Royal Protocols of

the Joseon Dynasty, confirmed to have been kept by the

Imperial Household Agency.

Under a Unesco convention signed in 1970, cultural

properties obtained through illegal means since that year

are subject to restoration, but those obtained prior to

the convention - regardless of how they were acquired -

can lawfully be registered as national properties by the

country that possesses them, as are the Korean texts at

France’s national library, according to officials at

Seoul’s foreign ministry. There are approximately 7,000

South Koreans living in France, more if one recounts

Korean French adoptees, and 6,000 French people living in

South Korea.

Korea's memory troubled by 40 years of dictatorship

Lee Han-yeol

On this picture a fellow Yonsei university student holds

Lee Han-yeol, injured in the head by a tear gas shell

used by riot police during a demonstration at Yonsei

University in Seoul against the military dictatorship of

then President Chun Doo-hwan in Seoul June 9, 1987. Lee

Han-yeol's injury became a trigger for mass rallies all

around ROK South Korea. Lee died in hospital on July 5th

1987 after the military regime gave in to democratization

demands on June 29, following mass pro democracy

demonstrations across the country ending Chun Doo-hwan

regime.

All of these events happened prior to the Olympic Games

of 1988. As I reported for the French national radio, I

can testify that at that time the Korean police and thugs

with them shot at students and journalists without

warning. I was myself shot at during a demonstration

during the democratization with my colleague Roberto

near the Lotte Hotel, down town. We saved a Korean

demonstrator life who fell in the staircase while the

police ran behind kicking viciously all witnesses. I'll

write about these historic events related to Asia post

80's I have been following in a book to come.

(Reporter's notes and SK media).

I spent exciting professional time working in ROK first

during the democratization that crumbled the US sponsored

military dictators Chun Doo Hwan and Noh Tae Woo, and

often visited Korea during the olympic games, and

witnessed the prowess of Koreans during the Asia Football

world cup of 2002, and am a watcher of technologies

blossoming of Korean's way of life. Last but not least,

I'm still very found of Sorak-san chain of mountains

which I toured with my KBS and Seoul national university

rumbling 's friends. I even witnessed bears over there

but did not see any of them eating any roots or garlic,

just fresh flesh hunt in the wild mountains, not so far

from the North...

Sources: archives of Korean newspapers, reporter's notes)

A VDO about Korea Joseon dynasty

URL http://tinyurl.com/ygqfzsd

Seoul today