history

The Japanese imperialists poisoned Emperor Kojong of Korea in January 1919.

This was because the emperor was opposed to the Japanese imperialists’ occupation of Korea and took a firm anti-Japanese stand.

When the Japanese imperialists tried to force him to conclude the "Ulsa Five-Point Treaty" in an attempt to seize the sovereignty of Korea in November 1905, the emperor persistently rejected the treaty, saying that it would just mean the ruin of the country if he allowed the treaty. He did not put his signature and the state seal to the treaty to the last even under the tenacious threat and blackmail by the Japanese aggressors.

However, the Japanese imperialists fabricated the treaty. Then the emperor made every effort to inform the international community of its illegality and invalidity. He dispatched three emissaries to the Second International Peace Conference held at The Hague, the Netherlands, in 1907 to that end.

When the Japanese imperialists forced the conclusion of the Jongmi Seven-Point Treaty in 1907, he refused to give a prior consent, signature and the seal of the state.

Unable to realize their colonial domination over Korea smoothly with the emperor left intact, the Japanese imperialists poisoned him on January 21 1919 and even killed two waiting maids who witnessed his death.

But the historical truth cannot be covered up.

The "second declaration of independence" made and issued by the Korean provisional government" in Shanghai, China, in 1921 two years after the poisoning of the emperor and an article written by his son by a concubine disclosed that the Japanese imperialists poisoned the emperor and tried to conceal it.

Evidence of the Japanese imperialists' poisoning of Emperor Kojong is continuously made public from one century to the next.

According to data available, the diary of the then head of the audit department of the agency of imperial household of Japan in 1919 says that he heard that Terauchi, Japan’s first governor-general of Korea, ordered Hasegawa, the then commander of the Japanese forces stationed in Korea, to poison Emperor Kojong as he refused to recognize the "Ulsa Five-Point Treaty".

The Japanese imperialists were so reckless as to even kill the emperor to achieve their purpose of aggression. Such criminal records of Japan still incur the wrath of the Korean people.

The Japanese reactionaries, who are now sharpening the sword for reinvasion far from making an apology and reparations for the untold misfortune and suffering they inflicted upon the Korean people in the past, will have to pay dearly for it.