A proposal was raised at an international academic conference held in Japan today (July 26) calling for a more scientific and systematic excavation for the remains of Patriot Ahn Jung-geun, based on contents from a 1910 Manchurian newspaper article containing clues to pinpointing the burial site.

The Council for Reconciliation and National Cooperation, the Kang Deok-sang Memorial Research Institute, and Sophia University's Institute of Global Concerns in Japan co-hosted the academic conference at Sophia University in Tokyo under the theme, "The Truth of the Burial of Patriot Ahn Jung-geun's Remains and the Establishment of an East Asian Peace Regime."

To find the remains of Patriot Ahn, who was executed and buried at Lushun Prison in 1910, excavation efforts have been carried out around Yuanbaoshan behind the prison and the Dongsangpo area in China, but they have remained deadlocked due to physical constraints and a lack of primary historical sources indicating the burial site's exact location.

Lee Gyu-su, director of the Kang Deok-sang Memorial Research Institute, stated that by cross-verifying a report by special correspondent Komatsu Motogo of the Osaka Mainichi Shimbun published in 1910 and a newly verified article from the Manchuria Daily News dated June 10, 1910, he achieved results that can narrow down the range of Patriot Ahn's burial site.

Director Lee claimed through this verification that the previously accepted notion that "Patriot Ahn was executed and buried on the same day as other death row inmates"—known as the theory of simultaneous execution and burial of death row inmates—is a misinterpretation that has been accepted without criticism.

Analyzing the Manchuria Daily News article, he argued that the death row inmates previously mentioned as having been buried alongside Patriot Ahn were actually executed on June 9, 75 days after Patriot Ahn's martyrdom. Records indicating their graves were close to Patriot Ahn's were mistakenly known as "having been buried together on the same day," which caused confusion in research on the burial site, he asserted.

Director Lee pointed out that given special correspondent Komatsu's description in his report that the graves of these death row inmates and Patriot Ahn's burial site were adjacent, utilizing burial information of those whose real names are mentioned in the Manchuria Daily News can serve as a clue to finding Patriot Ahn's burial site.

Emphasizing the Japanese practice of leaving meticulous administrative materials such as death row graveyard layout maps, Director Lee noted that such information is likely to remain among vast official Japanese archival documents, and stressed that efforts must be made to secure this information through cooperation with Japan.

Kim Kyung-sik, CEO of Metamemory, presented the results of his work estimating the burial site from various angles based on distance clues and surrounding terrain feature information appearing in special correspondent Komatsu's article, during the academic conference.

He cross-verified a 1905 Japanese military precision map with a modern satellite map and designated the Dongsangpo area as a prominent candidate zone for the burial site through artificial intelligence (AI)-based terrain pattern recognition.

Director Lee suggested that "the Dongsangpo area is a Chinese naval military protection zone where indiscriminate excavation by foreign governments is completely blocked," and proposed that the government persuade Chinese authorities through highest-level diplomatic channels and initiate non-destructive exploration utilizing ground-penetrating radar (GPR) and other methods.

Kang Sung-ho, a research advisor at the Institute for Chosun Studies at Chosun University, evaluated that Patriot Ahn's proposal in 'On Oriental Peace', written in prison just before his martyrdom, for the establishment of a joint bank and the issuance of a common currency based on the respect for the independent sovereignty of South Korea, China, and Japan was a visionary insight that anticipated a regional community similar to today's European Union (EU) over 100 years ago.

He emphasized that Patriot Ahn's ideology, in today's era rife with a new Cold War and exclusive nationalism, can serve as a firm ideological foundation for an East Asian multilateral peace regime.

(Photo: Yonhap News)