Hong Jun-pyo: "Hong Beom-do is a hero... Should be evaluated by the spirit of the times"

"Roh Moo-hyun Ignited the Left-Right Debate in Korea"

Daegu Mayor Hong Jun-pyo expressed his opinion regarding the controversy surrounding General Hong Beom-do, stating, "The evaluation of historical figures should be based on the spirit of the times at that time," and added, "Hong Beom-do is a hero."

In a post on Facebook on the 9th, Mayor Hong said, "We should not evaluate based on the current era, 100 or 200 years later." He then cited the example of Silla, which unified the Three Kingdoms by involving the Tang Dynasty, and questioned, "At that time, were the Three Kingdoms enemies to each other, and was there a concept of the same ethnicity?"

Mayor Hong said, "Isn't the outdated ideological war of communism over with the dissolution of the former Soviet Union?" He added, "There are no communist countries on Earth now, right? There are only totalitarian dictatorships, but including those as communism doesn't seem right."

Hong Jun-pyo, Mayor of Daegu

He continued, "We respect General Hong Beom-do because he was a hero of the independence movement, not because he was an inevitable Soviet Communist Party member," and concluded his post with the question, "In Korean society, isn't ideological warfare the conflict and confrontation between right-wing and left-wing, conservative and progressive?"

Earlier, on the 27th of last month, Mayor Hong strongly criticized the Army Academy's plan to relocate General Hong Beom-do's bust and other items to the Independence Hall, saying, "They really have nothing better to do." At that time, through social media, Mayor Hong questioned, "He was neither a North Korean soldier who started the Korean War nor a Chinese Communist soldier who participated in that war, so why is this issue becoming controversial now?" and sharply remarked, "They really have nothing better to do."

He further pointed out, "It's not bad to have historical or ideological debates, but trying to expel even the heroes of the anti-Japanese independence movement by labeling them with the ghost of communism is way over the top." Mayor Hong also raised his voice, saying, "That is anti-history. Doing so leads to misunderstandings of McCarthyism. Stop it. That is not right."

Meanwhile, in another post written on the 9th, Mayor Hong said, "There are left-leaning conservatives even among conservatives, and right-leaning progressives even among progressives." He claimed, "Former President Roh Moo-hyun ignited the left-right, conservative-progressive debate in Korean society, but it was former President Moon Jae-in who transformed progressive leftists into pro-North leftists."

Mayor Hong added, "Currently, the People Power Party claims to be conservative right-wing, and the Democratic Party claims to be progressive left-wing, but if you look closely, that is not always the case," and pointed out, "The biggest ideological problem in Korean society is that pro-North leftists masquerade as progressives and deceive the people." Finally, he added, "If ideological struggle is necessary, it should be against these pseudo pro-North leftists."