After nearly a year of mobilizing Koreans from such far-flung places as Boston, Seoul, and Tokyo, the Washington, DC–based Korea Truth Commission (KTC) is gearing up for its own version of justice: a war-crimes tribunal targeting the Pentagon.

For the past nine months, the KTC, joined by human-rights and social-justice advocates, has conducted a “people’s investigation” of Pentagon-led military attacks against civilians during the Korean conflict that lasted from 1950 to 1953. This month, the group kicks off a series of hearings in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Boston to draw attention to the US role in that war. It also hopes to rally local activists for the upcoming tribunal, which is slated for June 23 in New York City.

“It’s important to tell the truth to the American people,” says Phebe Eckfeldt of the International Action Center, which is sponsoring the KTC’s Boston hearing on March 25. “These massacres, and the US’s involvement in these massacres, must not be forgotten.”

The effort to expose Korean war crimes dates back to September 1999, when a scathing Associated Press article examined a July 1950 massacre in the South Korean village No Gun Ri. The AP reported that as many as 248 peasants — mostly women and children — languished beneath a railroad bridge for three days while US troops mowed them down with machine guns. American and South Korean military officials had called the Pulitzer Prize–winning AP account into question. But last December, a Pentagon inquiry concluded that US soldiers had, in fact, killed Korean refugees near No Gun Ri; it also found no evidence that soldiers had fired under orders from superiors.

Such horror stories were made real for Eckfeldt and dozens of New England activists on a journey to South Korea last August. As part of a KTC fact-finding mission, Eckfeldt went from village to village, interviewing survivors and gathering evidence. While in the Kyunggi province outside Seoul, she visited the Ilsan Kumjung Cave, where villagers produced row after row of human skulls, bone shards, and tattered clothes — artifacts of what they described as the routine killing of unarmed civilians by US-directed troops.

As Koreans relayed their experiences, Eckfeldt recalls, “there wasn’t a dry eye in the place.... It was pretty intense.”

A similar scene may unfold at the Boston event, where several war-crime survivors are expected to address the crowd. KTC members will also speak about their struggle for justice from the Pentagon — which has not acknowledged a role in civilian attacks, except at No Gun Ri.

Though Eckfeldt recognizes that the June tribunal is largely symbolic, she says that symbolism matters. “We have a responsibility to help bring justice to fruition for the Korean people,” she says, “and the tribunals will certainly expose what the US did there [in Korea] as criminal.”

The Boston KTC hearing takes place on March 25 at 6 p.m. at the Community Church of Boston, 565 Boylston Street. For more information, call the Boston International Action Center at (617) 522-6626. Or check out its Web site at www.iacboston.org.