JINBO BBS

>>> Writer : Lee Sohee
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> Understanding the United States through 
> the Crimes Committed by its Troops in Korea
>  
> - Lee Sohee (us@usacrime.or.kr) Secretary-General, 
> National Campaign for Eradication of Crimes by U.S. Troops in Korea (Written 
> January, 2003)
>  
> From 'liberator', 'ally', and 'blood brother' 
> to 'occupying force' and 'source of all evil'could Korean public opinion be 
> split so differently on the issue of the United States? This inevitably means 
> that there must be a concealed and distorted history.
> A History of Crimes by U.S. Troops in Korea
> In modern Korean history, the U.S. troops first 
> stepped on Korean soil on September 8, 1945 at the port of Incheon. Many Koreans 
> welcomed the 'liberators' that had saved Korea from the Japanese occupation. 
> Soon that welcome faded, however, when Koreans realized that the US military 
> was to be stationed in Korea as an occupier as well. 
> Afraid of possible interruptions to the landing 
> operation, American forces arranged for the remnants of the Japanese military 
> and police to keep Koreans indoors. When some Koreans gathered at Incheon port 
> to welcome the U.S. troops, Japanese police shot two Koreans to death and ten 
> were injured for trespassing. Against the protest of Koreans, the U.S. authorities 
> ruled in favor of the Japanese police, saying the incident happened in the interests 
> of public order. This is recorded today by advocacy groups as the first crime 
> by U.S. troops in Korea. The charge level is 'aiding and abetting homicide.'In 
> the intervening fifty-six years, many other crimes have been committed by U.S. 
> troops. According to official Korean government statistics, roughly 52,000 crimes 
> were committed by the U.S. troops and civilians related to the U.S. military 
> from 1967 to 2002. Some 59,000 U.S. servicemen were involved in these crimes. 
> When one considers that not all crimes are reported to the police, it is not 
> difficult to imagine that there are in fact more crimes. Based on the statistic 
> above, it is estimated that there would be more than 100,000 crimes by U.S. 
> troops in Korea since their stationing in 1945. U.S. troops in Korea have committed 
> about 700 crimes every year. In a word, they usually commit 2 or 3 crimes everyday.
> The types of crimes are indeed diverse. They 
> include people being shot to death, bitten by intentionally unleashed military 
> dogs, poked in the eyes with a fork, strangled to death with a bra, cut in the 
> throat with a razor blade, put into a water pool naked in the middle of winter 
> and burned after killing. Records show that Koreans were killed without any 
> particular reason, for not obeying the order to stop, for intervening in a quarrel, 
> for waking up, for eating too much jam, for smoking too much, etc. Each and 
> every case cannot be listed in detail.
> It was only in 1992, after a half-century since 
> US troops entered Korea, when the crimes by U.S. troops in Korea became widely 
> publicized. The landmark case of Ms. Yoon Geumy , which involved a certain. 
> Kenneth Lee Markle, still remains as a shocking picture for many Koreans until 
> today.
> In the evening of the day before the crime, 
> October 27, 1992, drunk after barhopping, Ms. Yoon Geumy (26 years old at that 
> time) was heading her home in Dongdoochon with Pvt. Markle (20 years old at 
> that time), after agreeing to spend the night with him. On the way, the two 
> came across with U.S. Cpl. Jason Ramburt in front of her house. They got involved 
> in a quarrel for quite long time. Ms. Yoon, who had slept with him the night 
> before, was now in another soldier's arms. Ramburt, who was already in a bad 
> mood from negotiating for cost at another military camp town bar, picked on 
> these two people. Pvt. Markle got mad, took Ms. Yoon by the hair, brought her 
> into her room, and started to beat her up. He hit her forehead several times 
> with a cola bottle. 
> When blood poured out from her forehead and 
> she stopped resisting, he poked in her anus with an umbrella he found in the 
> room. The tip of the umbrella reached her rectum, 27 cm from the anus. This 
> did not satisfy him. He stuffed two beer bottles into 
> her vagina. When she was found dead, she was 
> naked and a half of the cola bottle was still poked in her anus. He tried to 
> cover up the evidence by putting broken matchsticks in her mouth and sprinkling 
> white detergent powder all over her dead body. The autopsy reported the cause 
> of death to be physical trauma and bleeding from the forehead.  
> As the truth of this incident was revealed, 
> civil, social, and religious organizations got together and formed the Taskforce 
> Committee against the Murder of Ms. Yoon Geumy by U.S. Troops in Korea. The 
> committee fought for more than a year, requesting fair punishment of the U.S. 
> soldier. In the end, the Korean Supreme Court sentenced Pvt. Markle to 15 years 
> imprisonment. 
> Crimes by U.S. Troops in Korea and National 
> Security 
> The main reason that prevented crimes by U.S. 
> troops from being discussed in Korean society was the special position the U.S. 
> occupied in the Korean national security framework. 
> In 1950, with the outbreak of the Korean War, 
> the U.S. was called our 'blood brother' because it dispatched troops into the 
> war and sacrificed its young men to keep Koreans safe from the communist invasion. 
> Since then, however, as U.S. troops remained stationed in Korea, their role 
> changed to one of augmenting South Korean national security against an attack 
> from the north. As a result, many of the crimes committed by U.S. troops in 
> Korea were either justified or concealed in the name of 'national security.' 
> 
> 1964 was a year of particular note in the history 
> of crimes committed by U.S. troops. On February 4, 1964, while picking up cans 
> near a U.S. base, Ms. Suh Myungja was shot to death by a U.S. soldier. She was 
> nine months pregnant at the time. On the 6th of the same month, a 16-year-old 
> boy, Ahn Jaeseop, was catching rabbits with a friend when he approached wire 
> entanglements of a U.S. base. Right away a U.S. guard shot the boy through the 
> boy's throat, and he died. When Koreans demanded an accounting of the incident, 
> the U.S. authority announced that throughout the day, the UN Forces need to 
> perform maximum protection for our war munitions for there are continuing threats 
> of infiltration by communist spies. They justified the shooting by saying that 
> it occurred to prevent the theft of military resources.
> Continued shootings in the 1960s and the resulting 
> official stance of U.S. troops vividly showed us the frightening barbarity of 
> how crimes can be justified in the name of 'security.' Above all, the fact that 
> the 'beautiful country (美國  how the U.S. is translated into Korean)' 
> commits crimes was intolerable for Korean society. 
> The blind pro-Americanism of Korean politics 
> resulted in a corresponding blind anti-North sentiment. Talking about the negative 
> image of the U.S. was taboo because it was easily connected with 'pro-Northern' 
> sentiment.  This oppressive atmosphere was reflected in the fact that civilian 
> massacres during the Korean War, including Nogeunri incident, came up to the 
> surface only after a half-century of silence. In addition, unlike other countries 
> under the U.S. sphere of influence which all had anti-U.S. movements, anti-U.S. 
> sentiment or slogans were seldom found in Korea for several decades during the 
> stationing of U.S. troops. This in fact shows how much the existence of the 
> U.S. in Korean society has been considered unquestionable.
> As time passed, however, the Korean people 
> started to raise critical voices against the U.S. The most significant change 
> appeared in 2000 when two major incidents created great controversy: the Maehyangri 
> explosion and the illegal disposal of toxic materials. The Maehyangri incident 
> revealed the effects of life-threatening noise pollution and serious heavy metal 
> contamination over 50 years. Disposal of formaldehyde, which causes cancer and 
> miscarriages, raised concerns throughout the country. Influenced largely by 
> improvement of the relations between South and North after the summit of 
> June 2002, anti-U.S. sentiment from various 
> interests led to revision the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) between Korea 
> and the United States. The reconciliatory mood between South and North caused 
> damage to the national security ideology rooted on the logic of confrontation 
> between South and North. The changing atmosphere also affected the foundation 
> of the U.S. troop presence in Korea because it was and is based on a possible 
> attack from the North. There developed, therefore, some splits in Korean politics 
> surrounding the existence and role of the U.S. troops in Korea.
> What Will the U.S. Choose?
> What is the U.S. and why are U.S. troops in 
> Korea? Now it is the time for Koreans to ask themselves this question. How should 
> Koreans interpret the reality that the ones who are supposed to be here for 
> the security of our nation are in fact threatening our life and safety? Is this 
> situation benefiting or hurting Korean national security?
> There needs to be a clear line between the 
> defense of national security and criminal acts. In particular, impunity on the 
> recent schoolgirls incident was without a doubt unacceptable for Koreans, though 
> it happened during official duties of U.S. troops. It is quite natural that 
> the recent rise of anti-U.S. sentiment in Korea coincided with the transformation 
> of the Koreans' view of the U.S. according to a reality which was romanticized 
> for so long.
> It is necessary to make clear that the fundamental 
> reason for anti-U.S. sentiment was the arrogant attitude of the U.S. authorities 
> towards the victims of the crimes by U.S. troops in Korea. The perception of 
> unequal relations between Korea and the U.S. also was a contributing factor. 
> 
> Just looking at the case of the schoolgirls, 
> the U.S. authorities investigated the incident for the sake of formality that 
> the truth is still not known. It refused the Korean government's request to 
> turn over jurisdiction, and ended the trial with acquittal on the charge of 
> negligence. After continuing requests for an apology, the president of the U.S. 
> only delivered an indirect apology. This left a scar on Korean people's pride. 
> This portrait stands in contrast to the image, which the U.S. projects, as being 
> one of the best countries in protecting human rights. That the death of a few 
> Koreans can be nothing serious to the U.S., and that the incident is treated 
> differently because it happened to a foreign people, cause Koreans anguish. 
> It is natural to raise doubts as to whether the U.S. is indeed an ally of Korea.
> Now the U.S. is no longer an 'unconditional' 
> benefactor to the Korean people. If the U.S., without accepting this clear fact, 
> keeps insisting on the conventional relationship of the past, it could loose 
> its blood brother. Only things left now is the choice of the U.S. 
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No Crimes by U.S.Troops!