SEOUL-- The National Assembly on Thursday approved a special bill calling for paying a maximum compensation of 90 million won (US$76,600) to each of the victims of the bloody 1948-1954 suppression of a civilian uprising on Jeju Island.

A revision of the Special Act on Discovering the Truth of the Jeju 4.3 Incident and the Restoration of Honor of Victims was passed at a parliamentary plenary session to finalize the government's plan to pay total compensation of 909 billion won to 10,101 victims of the so-called Jeju April 3 incident over five years from next year.

It marks the biggest amount of compensation paid by the government to the victims of a single historical incident.

On April 3, 1948, Jeju islanders began protesting against U.S. military-led rule following Korea's liberation from Japan's 1910-1945 colonial rule. The then government distorted the uprising as a communist riot and massacred an estimated up to 30,000 civilians, about 10 percent of the island's population at the time, in armed crackdowns over the subsequent years.

The final compensation plan excludes the victims who have already received payments through individual lawsuits or the designation as persons of national merit and those who have no bereaved family members.

The state compensation includes not only actual damage, such as medical expenses, but also lost profits and mental damage.

In the case of after-effect disabilities, compensation of not more than 90 million won will be provided, depending on the degree of disability.

In terms of the amount of compensation per person, however, it is less than 132 million won paid in late 2000s to each of the victims of a massacre of "leftists" in Ulsan, southeast South Korea, during the 1950-53 Korean War.

The government plans to pay the Jeju incident compensation in stages, and a budget of 181 billion won has been earmarked for that purpose next year.

Source: Yonhap News Agency