Two Koreas to jointly celebrate 100th year of independence movement

President Moon Jae-in speaks at Culture Station Seoul 284, Tuesday, during a launch ceremony of a presidential committee to prepare for events to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the March 1 Independence Movement and the establishment of Korea's provisional government in 1919 during the Japanese occupation. / Yonhap

By Kim Rahn

South Korea will invite North Korea to jointly commemorate the 100th anniversary of the March 1 Independence Movement and the establishment of Korea's provisional government in Shanghai in 1919 during Japan's 1910-45 colonial rule, President Moon Jae-in said, Tuesday.

He disclosed the plan in a launch ceremony of a presidential committee to prepare commemorative events for the 100th anniversary next year.

"Seventy years of division and hostility between the South and the North have divided the history of the independence movement as well," Moon said during the ceremony held at Culture Station Seoul 284, the former Seoul Station building where the independence movement rallied on March 5, 1919.

He said he and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un discussed, at the inter-Korean summit in April, a joint celebration of the 100th anniversary of the March 1 Movement, and they put the intent in the Panmunjeom Declaration.

The declaration states the two Koreas will encourage more cooperation and exchanges to rejuvenate the sense of national reconciliation and unity, and stage various joint events on dates that hold special meaning for both South and North Korea.

"The people of the two Koreas will feel closer to each other if they can share the history of the independence movement," Moon said, urging the committee to come up with events Seoul and Pyongyang can carry out together.

Moon said the power of the people, who wished for peace and co-prosperity on the Korean Peninsula, made the inter-Korean summit possible and it is opening a new history for the next 100 years.

He said Koreans called for independence, peace, democracy and human rights through the March 1 Movement, and this led to the establishment of the provisional government which sought to establish a democratic republic.

"The ancestors' spirit has not died in the last 100 years; the candlelit protest (against a presidential corruption scandal) was an honorable civil revolution that inherited its spirit," he said. "Commemorating the 100th anniversary of the independence movement and the provisional government establishment will become the foundation to establish a fair and just country."

The committee will finalize commemorative event plans by September.

To mark the 100th anniversary next year, the government also plans to build a memorial hall for the provisional government, recover the command headquarters of Korean independence forces located in Chongqing, southwestern China, and revise regulations about support for descendants of independence fighters so a larger number of descendants can benefit.