Jang Se Hwan, executive chairman of the Democratic Party of south Korea, on June 14 referred to this fact, quoting a report submitted by the Defense Ministry. The shocking fact has been confirmed that defoliant, used by the U.S. forces during the Vietnamese war, was massively shipped into south Korea at the request of the Park Chung-Hee regime, he said.

The then "prime minister," Jong Il Gwon, approved of the use of defoliant on September 20, 1967 and, consequently, a huge amount of defoliant and equipment and supplies needed for its spraying were introduced to south Korea from the U.S. on several installments from 1968, he noted.

He further said:

But the amount of defoliant sprayed at that time was about 11.5 times that the Park regime requested. This proves that the U.S. shipped a greater deal of defoliant into south Korea.

It has not yet been confirmed how much and through what channel defoliant was introduced and whether the U.S. got payment from the south Korean authorities or not. It is needed to make a thoroughgoing investigation into this matter.

If the Park regime was aware of harmfulness of defoliant before introducing it, this would be thrice-cursed atrocity, he said.

The crime of spraying defoliant, whereby many people suffered great pain, should be certainly judged by history, he stressed.