The National Assembly on Tuesday passed a special bill that enables a state investigation into the massive crackdown of citizens amid a deepening ideological rift on the Korean Peninsula prior to the Korean War. 

Under the so-called Yeo-Sun Incident special law, the Prime Minister’s office will set up an investigative committee under its purview with a two-year mandate to verify the truth behind the tragic incident, endowing the committee with a legally binding right to call on key people of reference to submit a statement or attend hearings. 

The law also provides a legal basis for offering victims state assistance on medical treatment and livelihoods and creating memorial facilities, archives and education programs regarding the incident. 

The tragedy refers to the authorities’ violent crackdown on what was described as “anti-government movement” in Yeosu and Suncheon in South Jeolla Province in 1948 and 1949, following the bloody April third uprising that broke out on Jeju Island in 1948.  

Over two-thousand civilians were presumed to have been killed in the Yeo-Sun Incident according to a survey by the South Jeolla Provincial Government. However, ruling Democratic Party Representative So Byung-chul, who proposed the bill, said the number of deaths may be as high as 11-thousand, according to some reports. 

Similar bills were proposed to the parliament on four previous occasions but were all scrapped. The latest draft was proposed in July of last year and was co-sponsored by around 150 other DP lawmakers.