SEOUL — For the first time in over five decades, South Korea's Defense Minister Shin Won-sik is set to issue a formal apology for the government's secretive 'Silmido unit', which was involved in one of the most controversial chapters of the country's military history.
According to Yonhap News Agency, the apology will be part of a letter issued during an upcoming excavation ceremony aimed at recovering the remains of four members of the unit. These individuals were executed and clandestinely buried in 1972, and the ceremony is scheduled to take place between September and October at a cemetery in Goyang, just northwest of Seoul. The Silmido unit, or Unit 684, was formed in 1968 after North Korea attempted to assassinate the South Korean president. The unit comprised commandos trained for a potential assassination mission against North Korea's then-leader Kim Il-sung.
However, as diplomatic relations between the Koreas warmed, the unit was deemed unnecessary and disbanded in 1971 by the order of then-President Park Chung-hee. Following a failed escape and standoff, most members of the unit were killed or captured; the four who survived were executed the next year.
The unit's existence was officially denied until 2004, when its story was popularized by the film "Silmido", which led to a public outcry and subsequent compensation lawsuits, some of which were settled in favor of the victims' families. In 2022, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of South Korea recommended further investigations into the burial sites of the unit members and called for a formal apology to the victims.
This forthcoming apology marks a significant acknowledgment of past misdeeds and aims to heal historical wounds tied to this dark period of South Korean military history.