March 29, 2024
KCNA Ministry of Foreign Affairs (EN)

“Ulmi Incident” – Unprecedented Crime of Violation of National Sovereignty

Date: 28/11/2021 | Source: Ministry of Foreign Affairs (EN) | Read original version at source

A letter written by a Japanese, who had made his entry into our country as a diplomat of the Japanese legation 126 years ago, has recently been discovered in Japan. In the letter, the Japanese admitted his direct involvement in the murder of Empress Myongsong.

It was the letter which Horiguchi Kumaichi, the then assistant consul of the Japanese legation in Korea, had sent to his friend shortly after the incident. He wrote in the letter that he was assigned the task of “penetration” into the imperial palace, and he climbed over the wall, attacked the bedroom and murdered the Empress.

Together with over 40 murderers who had been involved in the incident, Horiguchi Kumaichi was brought to trial in Japan (it was merely a masquerade) and acquitted under the pretext of lacking evidence. Afterwards, he built a “brilliant career” as diplomat. And his son, Horiguchi Daigaku, received the Order of Culture in 1979 as a poet and a specialist in literature.

The bloodstained history associated with the Japanese invasion of Korea records innumerable illegal and outrageous inhumane crimes. Yet the savage murder of Empress of a sovereign state committed by Japan in 1895 (Ulmi year) is unheard-of in any time of the history and in any part of the world.

Empress Myongsong virtually represented the state power, as she was ruling the country in the name of Emperor Kojong.

Japan concluded that Empress Myongsong was a big obstacle to realizing the exclusive control over and the colonial enslavement of Korea, and appointed Miura Koro, a notorious ex-serviceman, as Japanese Minister to Korea. Japan gave him the absolute power and brutally murdered Empress Myongsong under a scrupulous plot.

The Japanese government has so far distorted and concealed the fact concerning the murder incident of Empress Myongsong, aka “Ulmi Incident”, misleading the truth as if some individual Japanese civilians had simply been involved in the internal conflict within the Korean feudal government.

Through the recently discovered letter of the then Japanese diplomat who had admitted his crime, it has again come to be completely laid bare that “Ulmi Incident” was a state terrorism commanded directly by the Japanese government.

Unprecedented in the world history of diplomacy is such a heinous crime, where diplomats - who must respect sovereignty of other countries and hold to the principle of equality, mutual benefit and non-interference in the internal affairs of others - climbed over the wall of royal palace of other country and stabbed an empress.

Japan is now sharpening its sword for reinvasion in revenge for its defeat while doggedly trying to cover up its aggression history and gravest crime against humanity.

The Japanese unprecedented crime of having violated our national sovereignty by driving even diplomats can never be expunged whatever the passage of time and the change of generations. Japan has to pay dearly for it.

Cha Hye Gyong

Researcher, Institute for Studies of Japan

Ministry of Foreign Affairs

Democratic People’s Republic of Korea

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