editorial

The crimes Japan committed against Korea include the murder of Empress Myongsong.

At the end of the 19th century, in order to realize its goal of invading Korea on a full scale, militarist Japan plotted to kill Empress Myongsong who held the real power over the then Korean feudal government and pursued a policy of depending on Czarist Russia.

The Japanese authorities informally chose Army Lieut General Miura Goro as the man fit for the job and appointed him as a resident minister in Korea.

He made a detailed plan for killing the empress and stepped up its implementation in secret.

Mobilized in the killing of the empress were more than 450 Japanese army guards and over 50 Japanese legation policemen and Japanese civilians

At the dawn of October 8 1895, the murderers killed the regiment commander of the Korean Royal Guard of the imperial palace and intruded into the residence of the King to begin searching for Empress Myongsong. Although they had already got familiar with her appearance by means of her portrait, they found it difficult to spot her in the complete mess of numerous court ladies running pell-mell while screaming. So they indiscriminately slashed and stabbed them to death, believing that the empress might be among the ladies.

After identifying the empress lying unconscious among the fallen ladies, they rolled her in a single-layer quilt, put it on a pile of firewood which had already been prepared and burned her to death by pouring petroleum on her. And they threw the pieces of bones that remained unburned in a pond to remove the traces of their crime.

After murdering the empress, the Japanese imperialists became more undisguised in their moves to colonize and enslave Korea.

Japan’s crime of going so far as to kill the empress of a country to realize its aggressive goal was an act of state-sponsored terrorism rare to be found in the international political arena.

More than a century has passed since then. The Japanese, however, do not feel any sense of guilt or responsibility for the past crimes but are hell-bent on turning their country into a military power while distorting history.

The DPRK people will surely and thoroughly settle accounts with Japan for its past crimes.