This will be dedicated to Khiem and Christophe who have kindly been interested in the work we do at the commission and took their precious time and shed much perspiration to visit one of our excavation sites in Korea.
As one of the dear friends described, "He really managed to turn even those people against him."
An estimated 60,000 South Koreans, including 7,000 monks, gathered at City Hall in Seoul to protest against what they say is a pro-Christian bias in President Lee Myung-bak's government.
Buddhists are angry at what they see as a predominance of Christian appointees in the government and a series of recent incidents they say express an anti-Buddhist approach by the authorities.
Monks marched to Jogye Temple, home to the Jogye Order. Eight civic activists have been staying there since rallies earlier this year against Mr Lee's decision to open South Korea to US beef imports.
The protesters want Mr Lee to apologise for alleged transgressions against Buddhism, and to fire his police chief. They are particularly upset by a recent check of top monk Jigwan's car.
Mr Lee, a Presbyterian, has faced a long run of protests since his government came to power in February. Intense anger fuelled by his approval of US beef imports caused his popularity to plummet.
Religious tolerance is prized in South Korea. Buddhism is the oldest religion but officials say Christians make up about 29% of the population compared to the Buddhists' 23%.
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
Thursday, August 21, 2008
Ousted KBS Chief Indicted
By Kim Rahn
Staff Reporter
Former KBS President Jung Yun-joo was indicted Wednesday for breach of trust, charged with causing 189 billion won in losses to the network by dropping a lawsuit in which the company sought a corporate tax refund.
Hours after the indictment, the Seoul Administrative Court rejected Jung's request to suspend President Lee Myung-bak's dismissal decision.
``(The court) does not see a need to take an emergency step to prevent any irrecoverable damage from the dismissal of Jung,'' judge Jeong Hyeong-sik said in the ruling. It said it is ``in a situation where it cannot clearly say that President Lee's endorsement of dismissal constitutes a breach of the law.''
Jung's lawyers said they would appeal.
In January 2006, KBS settled with the National Tax Service on a refund of 50 billion won, though it had a chance of winning a larger amount. Prosecutors say Jung dropped the suit to use the refund to make up for a company deficit he caused due to mismanagement.
Since the probe began in May, Jung has refused five summonses for questioning. He was taken into custody last week and let go after 40 hours of questioning.
Jung's attorneys said that if he committed breach of trust, prosecutors must investigate the tax authority, the high court, KBS financial advisers and certain law firms, calling them all accomplices.
The court battle is expected to focus on if Jung dropped the suit to make up for the deficit as prosecutors claim or for other managerial reasons. His attorneys say the decision to drop the suit was made with the agreement of the KBS board of directors, financial advisers and auditors, and not at Jung's discretion.
If the charge is proven, a court will also set the amount of losses Jung caused KBS. Under law, those who cause losses of more than five billion won ($5 million) face a minimum of five years in prison.
The KBS board recommended Jung's dismissal to the President, who accepted this.
Jung has said that President Lee had no right to fire him under a law revision in 1999, which stipulated the chief executive had the right to appoint the network's chief only. He said the revision got rid of the dismissal right to secure KBS independence, while the government said the appointment right includes that of dismissal.
The law stipulated the appointment right only between 1972 and 1985, included both rights after a revision until 1999, and now carries only the appointment right since a second revision in 1999.
rahnita@koreatimes.co.kr
Staff Reporter
Former KBS President Jung Yun-joo was indicted Wednesday for breach of trust, charged with causing 189 billion won in losses to the network by dropping a lawsuit in which the company sought a corporate tax refund.
Hours after the indictment, the Seoul Administrative Court rejected Jung's request to suspend President Lee Myung-bak's dismissal decision.
``(The court) does not see a need to take an emergency step to prevent any irrecoverable damage from the dismissal of Jung,'' judge Jeong Hyeong-sik said in the ruling. It said it is ``in a situation where it cannot clearly say that President Lee's endorsement of dismissal constitutes a breach of the law.''
Jung's lawyers said they would appeal.
In January 2006, KBS settled with the National Tax Service on a refund of 50 billion won, though it had a chance of winning a larger amount. Prosecutors say Jung dropped the suit to use the refund to make up for a company deficit he caused due to mismanagement.
Since the probe began in May, Jung has refused five summonses for questioning. He was taken into custody last week and let go after 40 hours of questioning.
Jung's attorneys said that if he committed breach of trust, prosecutors must investigate the tax authority, the high court, KBS financial advisers and certain law firms, calling them all accomplices.
The court battle is expected to focus on if Jung dropped the suit to make up for the deficit as prosecutors claim or for other managerial reasons. His attorneys say the decision to drop the suit was made with the agreement of the KBS board of directors, financial advisers and auditors, and not at Jung's discretion.
If the charge is proven, a court will also set the amount of losses Jung caused KBS. Under law, those who cause losses of more than five billion won ($5 million) face a minimum of five years in prison.
The KBS board recommended Jung's dismissal to the President, who accepted this.
Jung has said that President Lee had no right to fire him under a law revision in 1999, which stipulated the chief executive had the right to appoint the network's chief only. He said the revision got rid of the dismissal right to secure KBS independence, while the government said the appointment right includes that of dismissal.
The law stipulated the appointment right only between 1972 and 1985, included both rights after a revision until 1999, and now carries only the appointment right since a second revision in 1999.
rahnita@koreatimes.co.kr
Thursday, August 14, 2008
No More Freedom of Speech in South Korea
MBC Buckles; Union Protests
Banners hung at MBC headquarters in Seoul to denounce the probe of its report on mad cow disease. MBC aired an apology for the report Tuesday, accepting the order from the Korea Communications Commission which concluded its report false and biased. / Korea Times
Prosecutors Warn of Tougher Investigation of ‘PD Notebook’
By Kim Rahn
Staff Reporter
MBC, the nation's second largest broadcaster, apologized late Tuesday night for its ``biased'' report on mad cow disease, which triggered the months-long candlelit protests against the resumption of American beef.
Its apology came hours after the ousted KBS chief Jung Yun-joo was arrested by prosecutors for alleged breach of trust. Prosecutors also threatened to confiscate the original recordings of the ``PD Notebook'' episode on mad cow disease and arrest its program directors. Prosecutors claim that the investigative piece intentionally distorted facts to exaggerate dangers linked to mad cow disease and defame the agriculture ministry.
Progressive groups and the broadcaster's union denounced the apology, claiming MBC bowed down to government pressure and its attempt to control the media.
MBC aired the two-minute apology at around 10:40 p.m. Tuesday, following an order from the Korea Communications Commission. As PD Notebook was not aired due to special reports about the Beijing Olympics, the apology was aired at the end of its main news program.
``Reporting Humane Society's video clip about animal abuse and news about an American woman who died from symptoms similar to that of the human form of mad cow disease, we made six translation errors, and mistakenly described `downer' cows as those infected with mad cow disease,'' MBC said in a statement.
``We also said Koreans are more vulnerable than Westerners. We also reported unilateral opinions about the U.S.' butchery system and feed policy, although conflicting opinions exist. These were in violation of the broadcast regulation for fair and objective reporting, so we apology to viewers,'' it said.
Earlier in the afternoon, MBC President Ohm Ki-young said in an executives' meeting that he decided to air the apology after considering ``the intent of the program, facts, and the future of MBC.''
Ohm added the broadcaster would come up with strengthened guidelines to boost investigative programs' accuracy, fairness and accountability. Regarding the report about mad cow disease, however, he said he thought it had contributed to public health and public interests.
MBC has dismissed two PD Notebook directors from the show, and will assign them new positions in the near future.
Unionized MBC workers denounced the management's move. ``The management has hurt the pride of public broadcasting and bowed to the government, making political compromise. Those in charge of the humiliating apology should take responsibility,'' the union said.
In a separate move from the apology, the prosecution is considering seeking arrest warrants for the directors and scriptwriters of the program for questioning, as they have refused summons.
Prosecutors have demanded they hand over the original recordings of the report, but the directors refused. Tentatively concluding that the report distorted facts, the prosecution demanded they offer evidence invalidating the prosecution's findings by Wednesday ― a demand not met.
PD Notebook has built up a strong reputation over the years with groundbreaking reports that have sent ripples across the world, such as the 2006 scoop that revealed stem cell scientist Hwang Woo-suk's claims as fraudulent.
rahnita@koreatimes.co.kr
Banners hung at MBC headquarters in Seoul to denounce the probe of its report on mad cow disease. MBC aired an apology for the report Tuesday, accepting the order from the Korea Communications Commission which concluded its report false and biased. / Korea Times
Prosecutors Warn of Tougher Investigation of ‘PD Notebook’
By Kim Rahn
Staff Reporter
MBC, the nation's second largest broadcaster, apologized late Tuesday night for its ``biased'' report on mad cow disease, which triggered the months-long candlelit protests against the resumption of American beef.
Its apology came hours after the ousted KBS chief Jung Yun-joo was arrested by prosecutors for alleged breach of trust. Prosecutors also threatened to confiscate the original recordings of the ``PD Notebook'' episode on mad cow disease and arrest its program directors. Prosecutors claim that the investigative piece intentionally distorted facts to exaggerate dangers linked to mad cow disease and defame the agriculture ministry.
Progressive groups and the broadcaster's union denounced the apology, claiming MBC bowed down to government pressure and its attempt to control the media.
MBC aired the two-minute apology at around 10:40 p.m. Tuesday, following an order from the Korea Communications Commission. As PD Notebook was not aired due to special reports about the Beijing Olympics, the apology was aired at the end of its main news program.
``Reporting Humane Society's video clip about animal abuse and news about an American woman who died from symptoms similar to that of the human form of mad cow disease, we made six translation errors, and mistakenly described `downer' cows as those infected with mad cow disease,'' MBC said in a statement.
``We also said Koreans are more vulnerable than Westerners. We also reported unilateral opinions about the U.S.' butchery system and feed policy, although conflicting opinions exist. These were in violation of the broadcast regulation for fair and objective reporting, so we apology to viewers,'' it said.
Earlier in the afternoon, MBC President Ohm Ki-young said in an executives' meeting that he decided to air the apology after considering ``the intent of the program, facts, and the future of MBC.''
Ohm added the broadcaster would come up with strengthened guidelines to boost investigative programs' accuracy, fairness and accountability. Regarding the report about mad cow disease, however, he said he thought it had contributed to public health and public interests.
MBC has dismissed two PD Notebook directors from the show, and will assign them new positions in the near future.
Unionized MBC workers denounced the management's move. ``The management has hurt the pride of public broadcasting and bowed to the government, making political compromise. Those in charge of the humiliating apology should take responsibility,'' the union said.
In a separate move from the apology, the prosecution is considering seeking arrest warrants for the directors and scriptwriters of the program for questioning, as they have refused summons.
Prosecutors have demanded they hand over the original recordings of the report, but the directors refused. Tentatively concluding that the report distorted facts, the prosecution demanded they offer evidence invalidating the prosecution's findings by Wednesday ― a demand not met.
PD Notebook has built up a strong reputation over the years with groundbreaking reports that have sent ripples across the world, such as the 2006 scoop that revealed stem cell scientist Hwang Woo-suk's claims as fraudulent.
rahnita@koreatimes.co.kr
Monday, August 11, 2008
Democracy Now; Interview with Charles J. Hanley
South Korea’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission is concluding the US military indiscriminately killed large groups of South Korean civilians during the Korean War in the early 1950s. The Commission has more than 200 cases on its docket, based on hundreds of citizens’ petitions recounting US bombing and strafing runs on South Korean refugee gatherings in 1950 and ’51. We speak with Pulitzer Prize-winning Associated Press reporter Charles Hanley, co-author of The Bridge at No Gun Ri: A Hidden Nightmare from the Korean War. [includes rush transcript]
Guest:
Charles Hanley, special correspondent for the Associated Press who has written extensively about the Korean War. He was part of the AP team in 2000 that won the Pulitzer Prize for investigative journalism for their coverage of the massacre at No Gun Ri. He is co-author of the book The Bridge at No Gun Ri: A Hidden Nightmare from the Korean War.
Related Links
Mass Killings in Korea (Interactive feature from Associated Press)
Seoul probes civilian `massacres' by US (Associated Press)
Korean War pilot: `We're not lily-white' (Associated Press)
AMY GOODMAN: As we look back at the Rwandan genocide more than a decade ago to killings in another part of the world, to killings in Korea, and what it means for President Bush’s trip to South Korea. Anjali?
ANJALI KAMAT: President Bush heads to China today for the last leg of his three-nation trip to Asia. The press has been focusing heavily on his decision to visit Beijing for the opening ceremony of the Summer Olympic Games and criticism of China’s human rights record. But there has been hardly any coverage of another story, this one out of South Korea, where the President held summit talks on Wednesday.
It was revealed this week that South Korea’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission is concluding the US military indiscriminately killed large groups of South Korean civilians during the Korean War in the early 1950s.
The commission has more than 200 cases on its docket, based on hundreds of citizens’ petitions recounting US bombing and strafing runs on South Korean refugee gatherings in 1950 and ’51. The citizens’ petitions have accumulated since 1999, when the Associated Press confirmed the 1950 refugee killings at No Gun Ri in 1950, where some 400 civilians, mostly women and children, were killed by US troops.
Concluding its first investigations, the commission is urging the South Korean government to seek US compensation for victims. South Korean legislators have also asked a US Senate committee to join them in investigating declassified evidence that American ground commanders had adopted a policy of deliberately targeting refugees.
AMY GOODMAN: Charles Hanley is a special correspondent for the Associated Press who has written extensively about the Korean War. He was part of the AP team that won the Pulitzer Prize for investigative journalism in 2000 for their coverage of the massacre at No Gun Ri. He is co-author of the book The Bridge at No Gun Ri: A Hidden Nightmare from the Korean War. He joins me now in the firehouse studio, Anjali and I, to talk about the relevance of this today. We’re talking more than half a century later.
Can you talk about what is being demanded and how you discovered what you did back in, what, ’99?
CHARLES HANLEY: Well, what happened in 1999 was actually a contemporary news story as much as a piece of history, because at the time, in the 1990s, the survivors of the No Gun Ri killings—and the survivors estimate that about 400 refugees were killed there, mostly women and children, by the US Army and the US Air Force—those survivors finally were able to bring their stories forth and were demanding an investigation, an apology, compensation, some sort of token of acknowledgement of culpability.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you describe it for us? Just give a picture. Most people, I think, in this country, especially younger people, hardly even know what the Korean War was, let alone that US troops were there.
CHARLES HANLEY: Well, what happened was, after the division of Korea in 1945 by the US and the Soviet Union, the effort to unite the two Koreas failed, and in June of 1950, the North Koreans invaded. The Communist North Koreans invaded South Korea. This sent large numbers of South Korean refugees moving farther and farther south, as the North Koreans advanced. And the United States very hastily decided to intervene with troops who were really unprepared for what they were about to face. And one thing led to another—rumors and fears and panic among the US troops—such that they became convinced that every Korean was their enemy, in effect—many of the troops and many of the commanders.
And so, at this place called No Gun Ri, which is a tiny village in central South Korea, the people from two nearby villages had been chased by US troops to head farther south, and they ran into a battalion of the 7th Cavalry Regiment. First, what happened to these people was that they were strafed and bombed by US airplanes, warplanes. And secondly, then they were trapped and fired upon for three days, trapped around and under a railroad bridge. And the survivors, as I say, estimate that 400 of them were killed.
At the time, we discovered in our research that there were documented orders to fire on refugees. In fact, the most important document that has emerged was discovered by the American historian Sahr Conway-Lanz and disclosed only recently. It was a letter from the US ambassador in South Korea at the time, John Muccio, writing back to the State Department in Washington, saying that the US Army has adopted a policy of firing on refugees that approached their lines despite warning shots and such. And so, this was, in essence, clearly a policy that was countenanced.
AMY GOODMAN: We’re talking to Charles Hanley, special correspondent for the Associated Press, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist. We’ll come back to this conversation in a minute.
[break]
AMY GOODMAN: Our guest is Charles Hanley, a Pulitzer Prize-winning special correspondent for the Associated Press, written extensively about the Korean War and was co-author of The Bridge at No Gun Ri. Anjali?
ANJALI KAMAT: Charles Hanley, you mentioned Ambassador John Muccio during the Korean War. Can you talk about his role a little bit more? And also, the US Army concluded an investigation after your report in 2001. Did they mention John Muccio at all?
CHARLES HANLEY: No. The US Army conducted a fourteen-month investigation of the No Gun Ri incident, after our reporting confirmed it. The Army previously had rejected the allegations.
But we discovered, only two years ago—or last year, actually—that the Army, during that investigation, did indeed find the Muccio letter, the letter that reported to Washington that the Army had adopted this policy of firing on South Korean refugees. In that letter, by the way, which was written to Dean Rusk, later Secretary of State—and Rusk was then the Assistant Secretary for East Asia—in that letter, Muccio said this policy is bound to have repercussions if it becomes known. Well, of course, it did not become known in the chaos and the journalistic blindness, actually, in 1950. The Army found the letter, we later confirmed, and did not report its existence. This letter would have confirmed a policy of shooting at refugees.
The Army finally told us and told the South Korean government it did not report the existence of the Muccio letter, because they found, in essence, it wasn’t relevant to this investigation of a mass killing of refugees. That is patently ridiculous. The Army actually told us then that, well, it discussed a proposed policy and not an actual policy. That, too, is just plain untrue. The letter very clearly says this was decided last night.
AMY GOODMAN: And one of the powerful parts of your expose was actually speaking to US soldiers.
CHARLES HANLEY: Yes. This was the key to the whole No Gun Ri story, was to locate—and this was the most difficult part of the research and of the reporting—was to locate the soldiers who were there. Although once we located, were able to zero in on the right unit—that was the real problem—fairly soon we found that the men needed to talk about this and needed to get it off their chests, because at an advanced age, this had been weighing on them for their whole lives.
AMY GOODMAN: Describe what they described.
CHARLES HANLEY: What they described was a scene of pure madness, in the view of some of them. One, who was not involved but was observing it from a distance, said that he looked at it and just said, “What is going on? Stop this! Stop this!” Others refused to fire when they were ordered to fire, but—
AMY GOODMAN: On refugees.
CHARLES HANLEY: On refugees. But, obviously, a good number of them did fire with machine guns and automatic rifles. And as I say, this went on for three days. The Army report in 2001 contended that this was, quote, “not deliberate,” unquote, which, again, is obviously refuted by clear facts, the fact that it went on for three days and was not stopped, and now on the record. We’ve accumulated at least nineteen examples of orders to fire on refugees during this period, during several weeks in mid-1950.
ANJALI KAMAT: The orders to kill people in white?
CHARLES HANLEY: And this was another aspect of this whole story, that the Air Force, in particular, had it in its head that people in white could be enemy threat.
AMY GOODMAN: Wearing white clothes?
CHARLES HANLEY: Wearing white clothes. Now, most Koreans, civilians, wore white clothes during this period. But this all stemmed from the fact that the rumors were that North Korean soldiers were infiltrating the American lines in civilian clothes, meaning in white. And this is what happens in war. You let loose the dogs of war, and they go wild, and you just cannot control it. And so, these jet pilots flying over from bases in Japan, at their intelligence briefings, were told that people in white could be dangerous, and sometimes the air observers would actually target, send them to targets who were refugee columns walking down the roads, because they were wearing white.
AMY GOODMAN: Was this being raised when President Bush went to South Korea? There were mass protests around the issue of mad cow and beef imports being allowed into South Korea. What about No Gun Ri?
CHARLES HANLEY: To my knowledge, of course, officially, the new conservative government certainly would not raise the issue. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission that is working right now, and will be for another couple of years, at least, was established under the previous liberal government of President Roh. President Lee’s current government certainly, I’m sure, even behind closed doors, would not raise the issue. I suspect some of the protesters in the streets may be holding up placards mentioning No Gun Ri and related incidents, but it seems to be overshadowed by the beef dispute and others.
ANJALI KAMAT: Can you talk about the mass execution of political prisoners and leftists in 1950 and the US role in that? How did that come up at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission?
CHARLES HANLEY: This is a remarkable chapter of twentieth century history that has been hidden largely for decades. Of course, it was whispered about. South Koreans—older South Koreans know about these things, including even No Gun Ri, but they dared not talk about them publicly during the dictatorships of Syngman Rhee and Park Chung-hee and others until the 1980s, 1990s. And now, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission finally has sort of a government imprimatur that it can apply to these investigations and stories, and people can finally face up to what happened.
And what happened was that, in a matter of a few weeks in mid-1950, as the North Koreans pushed down the peninsula, Syngman Rhee’s right-wing government rounded up tens of thousands of suspected leftists, including tens of thousands of political prisoners being held already, and simply took them out into the countryside and shot them in the head and dumped them into mass graves. The commission believes that a very conservative estimate of the number killed is 100,000. They think it may have been more like 200,000 or even 300,000 people killed, and they are now—for the second summer season, they are excavating mass graves at several sites around South Korea. The reason, the ostensible and immediate reason, for these executions was to prevent the North Koreans from freeing these people, who would then reinforce their army or their programs in various ways as they took over South Korea.
The US role is a bit murky and ambiguous. However, the most interesting and unique document that we have found so far is one that shows that an American colonel, an adviser to a South Korean army division, gave his approval to the proposed execution of 3,500 political prisoners in Pusan, in the southern port of Pusan, and subsequent to that, thousands of political prisoners were indeed killed in Pusan. But otherwise, the US embassy, Ambassador Muccio and his staff, at times expressed disapproval to South Korean officials about these summary—mass summary executions, which, by the way, at times included many women and even children. And, however, General MacArthur, who was the overall commander, was said—according to the declassified record, was said to feel that this was an internal matter of the South Korean government, even though he had formal control over the South Korean forces that were carrying out these executions.
AMY GOODMAN: Could cases like No Gun Ri spark demands for reparations from the United States?
CHARLES HANLEY: Well, this is the key question, of course. The US Army, in its 2001 investigation of No Gun Ri, acknowledged in a footnote that it had learned about other incidents, which, of course, now we’re coming out more openly formally, and indicated that it would not be investigating the other incidents, because this would simply open up Pandora’s box, so to speak, not just in Korea, where we now know of at least 200 incidents, but there are other places, such as Vietnam.
AMY GOODMAN: I want to thank you very much, Charles Hanley, for joining us, special correspondent for the Associated Press, written extensively on the Korean War. He’s co-author of the book The Bridge at No Gun Ri: A Hidden Nightmare from the Korean War. And for our radio listeners, you can go to our website at democracynow.org to see the photos that Charles Hanley was just describing, the killings in South Korea.
Guest:
Charles Hanley, special correspondent for the Associated Press who has written extensively about the Korean War. He was part of the AP team in 2000 that won the Pulitzer Prize for investigative journalism for their coverage of the massacre at No Gun Ri. He is co-author of the book The Bridge at No Gun Ri: A Hidden Nightmare from the Korean War.
Related Links
Mass Killings in Korea (Interactive feature from Associated Press)
Seoul probes civilian `massacres' by US (Associated Press)
Korean War pilot: `We're not lily-white' (Associated Press)
AMY GOODMAN: As we look back at the Rwandan genocide more than a decade ago to killings in another part of the world, to killings in Korea, and what it means for President Bush’s trip to South Korea. Anjali?
ANJALI KAMAT: President Bush heads to China today for the last leg of his three-nation trip to Asia. The press has been focusing heavily on his decision to visit Beijing for the opening ceremony of the Summer Olympic Games and criticism of China’s human rights record. But there has been hardly any coverage of another story, this one out of South Korea, where the President held summit talks on Wednesday.
It was revealed this week that South Korea’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission is concluding the US military indiscriminately killed large groups of South Korean civilians during the Korean War in the early 1950s.
The commission has more than 200 cases on its docket, based on hundreds of citizens’ petitions recounting US bombing and strafing runs on South Korean refugee gatherings in 1950 and ’51. The citizens’ petitions have accumulated since 1999, when the Associated Press confirmed the 1950 refugee killings at No Gun Ri in 1950, where some 400 civilians, mostly women and children, were killed by US troops.
Concluding its first investigations, the commission is urging the South Korean government to seek US compensation for victims. South Korean legislators have also asked a US Senate committee to join them in investigating declassified evidence that American ground commanders had adopted a policy of deliberately targeting refugees.
AMY GOODMAN: Charles Hanley is a special correspondent for the Associated Press who has written extensively about the Korean War. He was part of the AP team that won the Pulitzer Prize for investigative journalism in 2000 for their coverage of the massacre at No Gun Ri. He is co-author of the book The Bridge at No Gun Ri: A Hidden Nightmare from the Korean War. He joins me now in the firehouse studio, Anjali and I, to talk about the relevance of this today. We’re talking more than half a century later.
Can you talk about what is being demanded and how you discovered what you did back in, what, ’99?
CHARLES HANLEY: Well, what happened in 1999 was actually a contemporary news story as much as a piece of history, because at the time, in the 1990s, the survivors of the No Gun Ri killings—and the survivors estimate that about 400 refugees were killed there, mostly women and children, by the US Army and the US Air Force—those survivors finally were able to bring their stories forth and were demanding an investigation, an apology, compensation, some sort of token of acknowledgement of culpability.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you describe it for us? Just give a picture. Most people, I think, in this country, especially younger people, hardly even know what the Korean War was, let alone that US troops were there.
CHARLES HANLEY: Well, what happened was, after the division of Korea in 1945 by the US and the Soviet Union, the effort to unite the two Koreas failed, and in June of 1950, the North Koreans invaded. The Communist North Koreans invaded South Korea. This sent large numbers of South Korean refugees moving farther and farther south, as the North Koreans advanced. And the United States very hastily decided to intervene with troops who were really unprepared for what they were about to face. And one thing led to another—rumors and fears and panic among the US troops—such that they became convinced that every Korean was their enemy, in effect—many of the troops and many of the commanders.
And so, at this place called No Gun Ri, which is a tiny village in central South Korea, the people from two nearby villages had been chased by US troops to head farther south, and they ran into a battalion of the 7th Cavalry Regiment. First, what happened to these people was that they were strafed and bombed by US airplanes, warplanes. And secondly, then they were trapped and fired upon for three days, trapped around and under a railroad bridge. And the survivors, as I say, estimate that 400 of them were killed.
At the time, we discovered in our research that there were documented orders to fire on refugees. In fact, the most important document that has emerged was discovered by the American historian Sahr Conway-Lanz and disclosed only recently. It was a letter from the US ambassador in South Korea at the time, John Muccio, writing back to the State Department in Washington, saying that the US Army has adopted a policy of firing on refugees that approached their lines despite warning shots and such. And so, this was, in essence, clearly a policy that was countenanced.
AMY GOODMAN: We’re talking to Charles Hanley, special correspondent for the Associated Press, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist. We’ll come back to this conversation in a minute.
[break]
AMY GOODMAN: Our guest is Charles Hanley, a Pulitzer Prize-winning special correspondent for the Associated Press, written extensively about the Korean War and was co-author of The Bridge at No Gun Ri. Anjali?
ANJALI KAMAT: Charles Hanley, you mentioned Ambassador John Muccio during the Korean War. Can you talk about his role a little bit more? And also, the US Army concluded an investigation after your report in 2001. Did they mention John Muccio at all?
CHARLES HANLEY: No. The US Army conducted a fourteen-month investigation of the No Gun Ri incident, after our reporting confirmed it. The Army previously had rejected the allegations.
But we discovered, only two years ago—or last year, actually—that the Army, during that investigation, did indeed find the Muccio letter, the letter that reported to Washington that the Army had adopted this policy of firing on South Korean refugees. In that letter, by the way, which was written to Dean Rusk, later Secretary of State—and Rusk was then the Assistant Secretary for East Asia—in that letter, Muccio said this policy is bound to have repercussions if it becomes known. Well, of course, it did not become known in the chaos and the journalistic blindness, actually, in 1950. The Army found the letter, we later confirmed, and did not report its existence. This letter would have confirmed a policy of shooting at refugees.
The Army finally told us and told the South Korean government it did not report the existence of the Muccio letter, because they found, in essence, it wasn’t relevant to this investigation of a mass killing of refugees. That is patently ridiculous. The Army actually told us then that, well, it discussed a proposed policy and not an actual policy. That, too, is just plain untrue. The letter very clearly says this was decided last night.
AMY GOODMAN: And one of the powerful parts of your expose was actually speaking to US soldiers.
CHARLES HANLEY: Yes. This was the key to the whole No Gun Ri story, was to locate—and this was the most difficult part of the research and of the reporting—was to locate the soldiers who were there. Although once we located, were able to zero in on the right unit—that was the real problem—fairly soon we found that the men needed to talk about this and needed to get it off their chests, because at an advanced age, this had been weighing on them for their whole lives.
AMY GOODMAN: Describe what they described.
CHARLES HANLEY: What they described was a scene of pure madness, in the view of some of them. One, who was not involved but was observing it from a distance, said that he looked at it and just said, “What is going on? Stop this! Stop this!” Others refused to fire when they were ordered to fire, but—
AMY GOODMAN: On refugees.
CHARLES HANLEY: On refugees. But, obviously, a good number of them did fire with machine guns and automatic rifles. And as I say, this went on for three days. The Army report in 2001 contended that this was, quote, “not deliberate,” unquote, which, again, is obviously refuted by clear facts, the fact that it went on for three days and was not stopped, and now on the record. We’ve accumulated at least nineteen examples of orders to fire on refugees during this period, during several weeks in mid-1950.
ANJALI KAMAT: The orders to kill people in white?
CHARLES HANLEY: And this was another aspect of this whole story, that the Air Force, in particular, had it in its head that people in white could be enemy threat.
AMY GOODMAN: Wearing white clothes?
CHARLES HANLEY: Wearing white clothes. Now, most Koreans, civilians, wore white clothes during this period. But this all stemmed from the fact that the rumors were that North Korean soldiers were infiltrating the American lines in civilian clothes, meaning in white. And this is what happens in war. You let loose the dogs of war, and they go wild, and you just cannot control it. And so, these jet pilots flying over from bases in Japan, at their intelligence briefings, were told that people in white could be dangerous, and sometimes the air observers would actually target, send them to targets who were refugee columns walking down the roads, because they were wearing white.
AMY GOODMAN: Was this being raised when President Bush went to South Korea? There were mass protests around the issue of mad cow and beef imports being allowed into South Korea. What about No Gun Ri?
CHARLES HANLEY: To my knowledge, of course, officially, the new conservative government certainly would not raise the issue. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission that is working right now, and will be for another couple of years, at least, was established under the previous liberal government of President Roh. President Lee’s current government certainly, I’m sure, even behind closed doors, would not raise the issue. I suspect some of the protesters in the streets may be holding up placards mentioning No Gun Ri and related incidents, but it seems to be overshadowed by the beef dispute and others.
ANJALI KAMAT: Can you talk about the mass execution of political prisoners and leftists in 1950 and the US role in that? How did that come up at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission?
CHARLES HANLEY: This is a remarkable chapter of twentieth century history that has been hidden largely for decades. Of course, it was whispered about. South Koreans—older South Koreans know about these things, including even No Gun Ri, but they dared not talk about them publicly during the dictatorships of Syngman Rhee and Park Chung-hee and others until the 1980s, 1990s. And now, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission finally has sort of a government imprimatur that it can apply to these investigations and stories, and people can finally face up to what happened.
And what happened was that, in a matter of a few weeks in mid-1950, as the North Koreans pushed down the peninsula, Syngman Rhee’s right-wing government rounded up tens of thousands of suspected leftists, including tens of thousands of political prisoners being held already, and simply took them out into the countryside and shot them in the head and dumped them into mass graves. The commission believes that a very conservative estimate of the number killed is 100,000. They think it may have been more like 200,000 or even 300,000 people killed, and they are now—for the second summer season, they are excavating mass graves at several sites around South Korea. The reason, the ostensible and immediate reason, for these executions was to prevent the North Koreans from freeing these people, who would then reinforce their army or their programs in various ways as they took over South Korea.
The US role is a bit murky and ambiguous. However, the most interesting and unique document that we have found so far is one that shows that an American colonel, an adviser to a South Korean army division, gave his approval to the proposed execution of 3,500 political prisoners in Pusan, in the southern port of Pusan, and subsequent to that, thousands of political prisoners were indeed killed in Pusan. But otherwise, the US embassy, Ambassador Muccio and his staff, at times expressed disapproval to South Korean officials about these summary—mass summary executions, which, by the way, at times included many women and even children. And, however, General MacArthur, who was the overall commander, was said—according to the declassified record, was said to feel that this was an internal matter of the South Korean government, even though he had formal control over the South Korean forces that were carrying out these executions.
AMY GOODMAN: Could cases like No Gun Ri spark demands for reparations from the United States?
CHARLES HANLEY: Well, this is the key question, of course. The US Army, in its 2001 investigation of No Gun Ri, acknowledged in a footnote that it had learned about other incidents, which, of course, now we’re coming out more openly formally, and indicated that it would not be investigating the other incidents, because this would simply open up Pandora’s box, so to speak, not just in Korea, where we now know of at least 200 incidents, but there are other places, such as Vietnam.
AMY GOODMAN: I want to thank you very much, Charles Hanley, for joining us, special correspondent for the Associated Press, written extensively on the Korean War. He’s co-author of the book The Bridge at No Gun Ri: A Hidden Nightmare from the Korean War. And for our radio listeners, you can go to our website at democracynow.org to see the photos that Charles Hanley was just describing, the killings in South Korea.
Monday, August 04, 2008
AP IMPACT: Seoul probes civilian `massacres' by US
By CHARLES J. HANLEY and JAE-SOON CHANG – 8 hours ago
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Korean investigators, matching once-secret documents to eyewitness accounts, are concluding that the U.S. military indiscriminately killed large groups of refugees and other civilians early in the Korean War.
A half-century later, the Seoul government's Truth and Reconciliation Commission has more than 200 such alleged wartime cases on its docket, based on hundreds of citizens' petitions recounting bombing and strafing runs on South Korean refugee gatherings and unsuspecting villages in 1950-51.
Concluding its first investigations, the 2 1/2-year-old commission is urging the government to seek U.S. compensation for victims.
"Of course the U.S. government should pay compensation. It's the U.S. military's fault," said survivor Cho Kook-won, 78, who says he lost four family members among hundreds of refugees suffocated, burned and shot to death in a U.S. Air Force napalm attack on their cave shelter south of Seoul in 1951.
Commission researchers have unearthed evidence of indiscriminate killings in the declassified U.S. archive, including a report by U.S. inspectors-general that pilots couldn't distinguish their South Korean civilian allies from North Korean enemy soldiers.
South Korean legislators have asked a U.S. Senate committee to join them in investigating another long-classified document, one saying American ground commanders, fearing enemy infiltrators, had adopted a policy of shooting approaching refugees.
The Associated Press has found that wartime pilots and declassified documents at the U.S. National Archives both confirm that refugees were deliberately targeted by U.S. forces.
The U.S. government has been largely silent on the commission's work. The U.S. Embassy here says it has not yet been approached by the Seoul government about compensation. Spokesman Aaron Tarver also told the AP that the embassy is not monitoring commission findings.
The commission's president, historian Ahn Byung-ook, said the U.S. Army helped defend South Korea in the 1950-53 war, but also "victimized" South Korean civilians. "We feel detailed investigation should be done by the U.S. government itself," he said.
The citizen petitions have accumulated since 1999, when the AP, after tracing Army veterans who were there, confirmed the 1950 refugee killings at No Gun Ri, where survivors estimate 400 died at American hands, mostly women and children.
In newly democratized South Korea, after decades of enforced silence under right-wing dictatorships, that report opened floodgates of memory, as families spoke out about other wartime mass killings.
"The No Gun Ri incident became one of the milestones, to take on this kind of incident in the future," said Park Myung-lim of Seoul's Yonsei University, a Korean War historian and adviser to the truth commission.
The National Assembly established the 15-member panel in December 2005 to investigate not only long-hidden Korean War incidents, including the southern regime's summary executions of thousands of suspected leftists, but also human rights violations by the Seoul government during the authoritarian postwar period.
Findings are meant to "reconcile the past for the sake of national unity," says its legislative charter.
The panel cannot compel testimony, prosecute or award compensation. Since the commission may shut down as early as 2010, the six investigators devoted to alleged cases of "civilian massacre committed by U.S. soldiers" are unlikely to examine all 215 cases fully.
News reports at the time hinted at such killings after North Korea invaded the south in June 1950. But the extent wasn't known. Commission member Kim Dong-choon, in charge of investigating civilian mass killings, says there were large numbers of dead — between 50 and 400 — in many incidents.
As at No Gun Ri, some involved U.S. ground troops, such as the reported killing of 82 civilians huddled in a village shrine outside the southern city of Masan in August 1950. But most were air attacks.
In one of three initial findings, the commission held that a surprise U.S. air attack on east Wolmi island on Sept. 10, 1950, five days before the U.S. amphibious landing at nearby Incheon, was unjustified. Survivors estimate 100 or more South Korean civilians were killed.
In clear weather from low altitude, "U.S. forces napalmed numerous small buildings, (and) strafed children, women and old people in the open area," the commission said.
Investigator Kang Eun-ji said high priority is being given to reviewing attacks earlier in 1950 on refugees gathered in fields west of the Naktong River, in North Korean-occupied areas of the far south, while U.S. forces were dug in east of the river. One U.S. air attack on 2,000 refugees assembled Aug. 20, 1950, at Haman, near Masan, killed almost 200, survivors reported.
"There were many similar incidents — refugees gathered in certain places, and there were air strikes," she said.
The declassified record shows the Americans' fear that enemy troops were disguising themselves as civilians led to indiscriminate attacks on "people in white," the color worn by most Koreans, commission and AP research found.
In the first case the commission confirmed, last November, its investigators found that an airborne Air Force observer had noted in the "Enemy" box of an after-mission report, "Many people in white in area."
The area was the village of Sanseong-dong, in an upland valley 100 miles southeast of Seoul, attacked on Jan. 19, 1951, by three waves of Navy and Air Force planes. Declassified documents show the U.S. X Corps had issued an order to destroy South Korean villages within 5 miles of a mountain position held by North Korean troops.
"Everybody came out of their houses to see these low-flying planes, and everyone was hit," farmer Ahn Shik-mo, 77, told AP reporters visiting the apple-growing village. "It appeared they were aiming at people."
At least 51 were killed, the commission found, including Ahn's mother. Sixty-nine of 115 houses were destroyed in what the panel called "indiscriminate" bombing. "The U.S. Air Force regarded all people in white as possible enemy," it concluded.
"There never were any North Koreans in the village," said villager Ahn Hee-duk, a 12-year-old boy at the time.
The U.S. military itself said there were no enemy casualties, an acknowledgment made Feb. 13, 1951, in a joint Army-Air Force report on the Sanseong-dong bombing, an unusual review undertaken because Korean authorities questioned the attack.
Classified for a half-century, that report included a candid admission: "Civilians in villages cannot normally be identified as either North Koreans, South Koreans, or guerrillas," wrote the inspectors-general, two colonels.
The Eighth Army commander, Lt. Gen. Matthew Ridgway, held, nonetheless, that Sanseong-dong's destruction was "amply justified," the AP found in a declassified document. Today's Korean commission held otherwise, recommending that the government negotiate for U.S. compensation.
A U.S. airborne observer in that attack, traced by the AP, said it's "very possible" the Sanseong-dong mission could be judged indiscriminate. George P. Wolf, 88, of Arlington, Texas, also said he remembered orders to strafe refugees.
"I'm very, very sorry about hitting civilians," said the retired Air Force lieutenant colonel, who flew with the 6147th Tactical Control Squadron.
The day after the Sanseong-dong attack, the cave shelter at Yeongchun, 120 miles southeast of Seoul, came under repeated napalm and strafing attacks from 11 U.S. warplanes.
Hundreds of South Korean civilians, fearing their villages would be bombed, had jammed inside the 85-yard-long cave, with farm animals and household goods outside.
Around 10 a.m., Cho Byung-woo, then 9, was deep in the narrow, low-ceilinged tunnel when he heard screams up front, and saw choking fumes billowing inside. Air Force F-51 Mustangs dropped napalm firebombs at the cave's entrance, a declassified mission report shows.
"I ran forward and all I could hear were people coughing and screaming, and some were probably already dead," Cho recalled, revisiting the cave with AP reporters. His father flung the boy out the entrance, his hair singed. Outside, Cho saw more planes strafe people fleeing into surrounding fields.
He and other survivors said surveillance planes had flown over for days beforehand. "There was no excuse," Cho said. "How could they not tell — the cows, the pieces of furniture?"
Survivors said the villagers had tried days earlier to flee south, but were turned back at gunpoint at a U.S. Army roadblock, an account supported by a declassified 7th Infantry Division journal.
Villagers believe 360 people were killed at the cave. In its May 20 finding, the commission estimated the dead numbered "well over 200." It found the U.S. had carried out an unnecessary, indiscriminate attack and had failed — with the roadblock — to meet its responsibility to safeguard refugees.
The commission also pointed out that Ridgway — in a Jan. 3, 1951, order uncovered by AP archival research — had given units authority to fire at civilians to stop their movement.
Five months earlier, the U.S. ambassador to South Korea confidentially informed Washington that the U.S. Army, fearing infiltrators, had adopted a policy of shooting South Korean refugees who approached its lines despite warnings. Ambassador John J. Muccio's letter was dated July 26, 1950, the day U.S. troops began shooting refugees at No Gun Ri.
American historian Sahr Conway-Lanz reported his discovery of the declassified Muccio letter in his 2006 book "Collateral Damage." But the Army had learned of the letter earlier, during its 1999-2001 No Gun Ri investigation, and had not disclosed its existence.
The Army now asserts it omitted the letter from its 2001 No Gun Ri report because it discussed "a proposed policy," not an approved one. But the document unambiguously described the policy as among "decisions made" — not a proposal — at a high-level U.S.-South Korean meeting, and AP research found declassified documents in which U.S. commanders in subsequent weeks repeatedly ordered troops to fire on refugees.
In a May 15 letter to Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del., chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, the then-vice speaker of Seoul's National Assembly, Lee Yong-hee, called on Congress to investigate whether the Army intentionally suppressed the Muccio letter in its inquiry.
Since targeting noncombatants is a war crime, "this is a matter of deep concern to the Korean people," wrote Lee, whose district includes No Gun Ri.
Lee, who has since lost his leadership position as a result of elections, suggested a joint U.S.-Korean congressional probe. Frank Jannuzi, the Senate committee's senior East Asia specialist, said its staff would seek Pentagon and State Department briefings on the matter.
In 2001, the U.S. government rejected the No Gun Ri survivors' demand for an apology and compensation, and the Army's report claimed the No Gun Ri killings were "not deliberate."
But at a Seoul news conference on May 15 with survivors of No Gun Ri and other incidents, their U.S.-based lawyers pointed out that powerful contrary evidence has long been available.
"The killings of Korean civilians were extensive, intentional and indiscriminate," lawyers Michael Choi and Robert Swift said in a statement.
In its 2001 report, the Army said it had learned of other civilian killings by U.S. forces, but it indicated they would not be investigated.
Associated Press investigative researcher Randy Herschaft in New York contributed to this report.
On the Net:
South Korean Truth and Reconciliation Commission: http://www.jinsil.go.kr/English/index.asp
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Korean investigators, matching once-secret documents to eyewitness accounts, are concluding that the U.S. military indiscriminately killed large groups of refugees and other civilians early in the Korean War.
A half-century later, the Seoul government's Truth and Reconciliation Commission has more than 200 such alleged wartime cases on its docket, based on hundreds of citizens' petitions recounting bombing and strafing runs on South Korean refugee gatherings and unsuspecting villages in 1950-51.
Concluding its first investigations, the 2 1/2-year-old commission is urging the government to seek U.S. compensation for victims.
"Of course the U.S. government should pay compensation. It's the U.S. military's fault," said survivor Cho Kook-won, 78, who says he lost four family members among hundreds of refugees suffocated, burned and shot to death in a U.S. Air Force napalm attack on their cave shelter south of Seoul in 1951.
Commission researchers have unearthed evidence of indiscriminate killings in the declassified U.S. archive, including a report by U.S. inspectors-general that pilots couldn't distinguish their South Korean civilian allies from North Korean enemy soldiers.
South Korean legislators have asked a U.S. Senate committee to join them in investigating another long-classified document, one saying American ground commanders, fearing enemy infiltrators, had adopted a policy of shooting approaching refugees.
The Associated Press has found that wartime pilots and declassified documents at the U.S. National Archives both confirm that refugees were deliberately targeted by U.S. forces.
The U.S. government has been largely silent on the commission's work. The U.S. Embassy here says it has not yet been approached by the Seoul government about compensation. Spokesman Aaron Tarver also told the AP that the embassy is not monitoring commission findings.
The commission's president, historian Ahn Byung-ook, said the U.S. Army helped defend South Korea in the 1950-53 war, but also "victimized" South Korean civilians. "We feel detailed investigation should be done by the U.S. government itself," he said.
The citizen petitions have accumulated since 1999, when the AP, after tracing Army veterans who were there, confirmed the 1950 refugee killings at No Gun Ri, where survivors estimate 400 died at American hands, mostly women and children.
In newly democratized South Korea, after decades of enforced silence under right-wing dictatorships, that report opened floodgates of memory, as families spoke out about other wartime mass killings.
"The No Gun Ri incident became one of the milestones, to take on this kind of incident in the future," said Park Myung-lim of Seoul's Yonsei University, a Korean War historian and adviser to the truth commission.
The National Assembly established the 15-member panel in December 2005 to investigate not only long-hidden Korean War incidents, including the southern regime's summary executions of thousands of suspected leftists, but also human rights violations by the Seoul government during the authoritarian postwar period.
Findings are meant to "reconcile the past for the sake of national unity," says its legislative charter.
The panel cannot compel testimony, prosecute or award compensation. Since the commission may shut down as early as 2010, the six investigators devoted to alleged cases of "civilian massacre committed by U.S. soldiers" are unlikely to examine all 215 cases fully.
News reports at the time hinted at such killings after North Korea invaded the south in June 1950. But the extent wasn't known. Commission member Kim Dong-choon, in charge of investigating civilian mass killings, says there were large numbers of dead — between 50 and 400 — in many incidents.
As at No Gun Ri, some involved U.S. ground troops, such as the reported killing of 82 civilians huddled in a village shrine outside the southern city of Masan in August 1950. But most were air attacks.
In one of three initial findings, the commission held that a surprise U.S. air attack on east Wolmi island on Sept. 10, 1950, five days before the U.S. amphibious landing at nearby Incheon, was unjustified. Survivors estimate 100 or more South Korean civilians were killed.
In clear weather from low altitude, "U.S. forces napalmed numerous small buildings, (and) strafed children, women and old people in the open area," the commission said.
Investigator Kang Eun-ji said high priority is being given to reviewing attacks earlier in 1950 on refugees gathered in fields west of the Naktong River, in North Korean-occupied areas of the far south, while U.S. forces were dug in east of the river. One U.S. air attack on 2,000 refugees assembled Aug. 20, 1950, at Haman, near Masan, killed almost 200, survivors reported.
"There were many similar incidents — refugees gathered in certain places, and there were air strikes," she said.
The declassified record shows the Americans' fear that enemy troops were disguising themselves as civilians led to indiscriminate attacks on "people in white," the color worn by most Koreans, commission and AP research found.
In the first case the commission confirmed, last November, its investigators found that an airborne Air Force observer had noted in the "Enemy" box of an after-mission report, "Many people in white in area."
The area was the village of Sanseong-dong, in an upland valley 100 miles southeast of Seoul, attacked on Jan. 19, 1951, by three waves of Navy and Air Force planes. Declassified documents show the U.S. X Corps had issued an order to destroy South Korean villages within 5 miles of a mountain position held by North Korean troops.
"Everybody came out of their houses to see these low-flying planes, and everyone was hit," farmer Ahn Shik-mo, 77, told AP reporters visiting the apple-growing village. "It appeared they were aiming at people."
At least 51 were killed, the commission found, including Ahn's mother. Sixty-nine of 115 houses were destroyed in what the panel called "indiscriminate" bombing. "The U.S. Air Force regarded all people in white as possible enemy," it concluded.
"There never were any North Koreans in the village," said villager Ahn Hee-duk, a 12-year-old boy at the time.
The U.S. military itself said there were no enemy casualties, an acknowledgment made Feb. 13, 1951, in a joint Army-Air Force report on the Sanseong-dong bombing, an unusual review undertaken because Korean authorities questioned the attack.
Classified for a half-century, that report included a candid admission: "Civilians in villages cannot normally be identified as either North Koreans, South Koreans, or guerrillas," wrote the inspectors-general, two colonels.
The Eighth Army commander, Lt. Gen. Matthew Ridgway, held, nonetheless, that Sanseong-dong's destruction was "amply justified," the AP found in a declassified document. Today's Korean commission held otherwise, recommending that the government negotiate for U.S. compensation.
A U.S. airborne observer in that attack, traced by the AP, said it's "very possible" the Sanseong-dong mission could be judged indiscriminate. George P. Wolf, 88, of Arlington, Texas, also said he remembered orders to strafe refugees.
"I'm very, very sorry about hitting civilians," said the retired Air Force lieutenant colonel, who flew with the 6147th Tactical Control Squadron.
The day after the Sanseong-dong attack, the cave shelter at Yeongchun, 120 miles southeast of Seoul, came under repeated napalm and strafing attacks from 11 U.S. warplanes.
Hundreds of South Korean civilians, fearing their villages would be bombed, had jammed inside the 85-yard-long cave, with farm animals and household goods outside.
Around 10 a.m., Cho Byung-woo, then 9, was deep in the narrow, low-ceilinged tunnel when he heard screams up front, and saw choking fumes billowing inside. Air Force F-51 Mustangs dropped napalm firebombs at the cave's entrance, a declassified mission report shows.
"I ran forward and all I could hear were people coughing and screaming, and some were probably already dead," Cho recalled, revisiting the cave with AP reporters. His father flung the boy out the entrance, his hair singed. Outside, Cho saw more planes strafe people fleeing into surrounding fields.
He and other survivors said surveillance planes had flown over for days beforehand. "There was no excuse," Cho said. "How could they not tell — the cows, the pieces of furniture?"
Survivors said the villagers had tried days earlier to flee south, but were turned back at gunpoint at a U.S. Army roadblock, an account supported by a declassified 7th Infantry Division journal.
Villagers believe 360 people were killed at the cave. In its May 20 finding, the commission estimated the dead numbered "well over 200." It found the U.S. had carried out an unnecessary, indiscriminate attack and had failed — with the roadblock — to meet its responsibility to safeguard refugees.
The commission also pointed out that Ridgway — in a Jan. 3, 1951, order uncovered by AP archival research — had given units authority to fire at civilians to stop their movement.
Five months earlier, the U.S. ambassador to South Korea confidentially informed Washington that the U.S. Army, fearing infiltrators, had adopted a policy of shooting South Korean refugees who approached its lines despite warnings. Ambassador John J. Muccio's letter was dated July 26, 1950, the day U.S. troops began shooting refugees at No Gun Ri.
American historian Sahr Conway-Lanz reported his discovery of the declassified Muccio letter in his 2006 book "Collateral Damage." But the Army had learned of the letter earlier, during its 1999-2001 No Gun Ri investigation, and had not disclosed its existence.
The Army now asserts it omitted the letter from its 2001 No Gun Ri report because it discussed "a proposed policy," not an approved one. But the document unambiguously described the policy as among "decisions made" — not a proposal — at a high-level U.S.-South Korean meeting, and AP research found declassified documents in which U.S. commanders in subsequent weeks repeatedly ordered troops to fire on refugees.
In a May 15 letter to Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del., chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, the then-vice speaker of Seoul's National Assembly, Lee Yong-hee, called on Congress to investigate whether the Army intentionally suppressed the Muccio letter in its inquiry.
Since targeting noncombatants is a war crime, "this is a matter of deep concern to the Korean people," wrote Lee, whose district includes No Gun Ri.
Lee, who has since lost his leadership position as a result of elections, suggested a joint U.S.-Korean congressional probe. Frank Jannuzi, the Senate committee's senior East Asia specialist, said its staff would seek Pentagon and State Department briefings on the matter.
In 2001, the U.S. government rejected the No Gun Ri survivors' demand for an apology and compensation, and the Army's report claimed the No Gun Ri killings were "not deliberate."
But at a Seoul news conference on May 15 with survivors of No Gun Ri and other incidents, their U.S.-based lawyers pointed out that powerful contrary evidence has long been available.
"The killings of Korean civilians were extensive, intentional and indiscriminate," lawyers Michael Choi and Robert Swift said in a statement.
In its 2001 report, the Army said it had learned of other civilian killings by U.S. forces, but it indicated they would not be investigated.
Associated Press investigative researcher Randy Herschaft in New York contributed to this report.
On the Net:
South Korean Truth and Reconciliation Commission: http://www.jinsil.go.kr/English/index.asp
South Korea Says U.S. Killed Hundreds of Civilians
By CHOE SANG-HUN
WOLMI ISLAND, South Korea — When American troops stormed this island more than half a century ago, it was a hive of Communist trenches and pillboxes. Now it is a park where children play and retirees stroll along a tree-shaded esplanade.
From a hilltop across a narrow channel, Gen. Douglas MacArthur, memorialized in bronze, appears to gaze down at the beaches of Inchon where his troops splashed ashore in September 1950, changing the course of the Korean War and making him a hero here.
In the port below, rows of cars, gleaming in the sun, wait to be shipped around the world — testimony to South Korea’s industrial might and a reminder of which side has triumphed economically since the conflict ended 55 years ago.
But inside a ragged tent at the entrance of the park, some aging South Koreans gather daily to draw attention to their side of the conflict, a story of carnage not mentioned in South Korea’s official histories or textbooks.
“When the napalm hit our village, many people were still sleeping in their homes,” said Lee Beom-ki, 76. “Those who survived the flames ran to the tidal flats. We were trying to show the American pilots that we were civilians. But they strafed us, women and children.”
Village residents say dozens of civilians were killed.
The attack, though not the civilian casualties, has been corroborated by declassified United States military documents recently reviewed by South Korean investigators. On Sept. 10, 1950, five days before the Inchon landing, according to the documents, 43 American warplanes swarmed over Wolmi, dropping 93 napalm canisters to “burn out” its eastern slope in an attempt to clear the way for American troops.
The documents and survivors’ stories persuaded a South Korean commission investigating long-suppressed allegations of wartime atrocities by Koreans and Americans to rule recently that the attack violated international conventions on war and to ask the country’s leaders to seek compensation from the United States.
The ruling was one of several by the government’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission in recent months that accused the United States military of using indiscriminate force on three separate occasions in 1950 and 1951 as troops struggled against Communists from the North and from China. The commission says at least 228 civilians, and perhaps hundreds more, were killed in the three attacks.
In one case, the commission said, at least 167 villagers, more than half of them women, were burned to death or asphyxiated in Tanyang, 87 miles southeast of Seoul, when American planes dropped napalm at the entrance of a cave filled with refugees.
“We should not ignore or conceal the deaths of unarmed civilians that resulted not from the mistakes of a few soldiers but from systematic aerial bombing and strafing,” said Kim Dong-choon, a senior commission official. “History teaches us that we need an alliance, but that alliance should be based on humanitarian principles.”
The South Korean government has not disclosed how it plans to follow up on the findings. And Maj. Stewart Upton, a Defense Department spokesman in Washington, said the Pentagon could not comment on the reports pending formal action by the South Korean government.
Under South Korea’s earlier authoritarian and staunchly anti-Communist governments, criticism of American actions in the war was taboo.
But after investigations showed that American soldiers killed South Korean civilians in air and ground attacks on the hamlet of No Gun Ri in 1950 — and after the United States acknowledged the deaths but refused to investigate other claims — a liberal government set up the fact-finding commission in 2005. More than 500 petitions, some describing the same actions, were filed to demand the investigation of allegations of mass killings by American troops, mostly in airstrikes.
The recent findings were the commission’s first against the United States, and it is unlikely that the commission has the time or resources to investigate many more before it is disbanded, as early as 2010.
Separately, the commission has also ruled that the South Korean government summarily executed thousands of political prisoners and killed many unarmed villagers during the war.
The Wolmi victims’ demands for recognition tap into complicated emotions underlying South Korea’s alliance with the United States.
“We thank the American troops for saving our country from Communism, for the peace and prosperity we have today,” said Han In-deuk, chairwoman of a Wolmi advocacy group. “Does that mean we have to shut up about what happened to our families?”
The airstrikes came during desperate times for the American forces and for the South Koreans they came to defend.
The war broke out in June 1950 with a Communist invasion from the north. In September, when the American military planned the landing at Inchon to relieve United Nations forces cornered in the southeastern tip of the peninsula, it decided it first had to neutralize Wolmi, which overlooks the channel that approaches the harbor.
“The mission was to saturate the area so thoroughly with napalm that all installations on that area would be burned,” Marine pilots said in one of their mission reports on Wolmi that were retrieved by the commission from the National Archives and Records Administration of the United States.
They also reported that no troops were seen, “but the flashes observed on the ground indicated the intensity of the fire to be accurate enough to destroy any about.”
The reports describe strafing on the beach but make no mention of civilian casualties.
The Inchon landing helped United Nations troops recapture Seoul and drive the North Koreans back. But the tide turned again when China entered the war.
The other two attacks the commission ruled on, in Tanyang and Sansong, south of Seoul, occurred as Communist forces barreled down the peninsula. As the allies fell back, they were attacked by guerrillas they could not easily distinguish from refugees.
Fearing enemy infiltration, American troops stopped refugees streaming down the roads and told them to return home or stay in the hills, or risk getting shot by allied troops. On Jan. 14, 1951, the Army’s X Corps under Maj. Gen. Edward M. Almond ordered the “methodical destruction of dwellings and other buildings forward of front lines which are, or susceptible of being, utilized by the enemy for shelter.” It recommended airstrikes.
“Excellent results” was how American pilots summarized their strikes at Sansong on Jan. 19, 1951.
The same day, however, one of General Almond’s subordinates, Brig. Gen. David G. Barr of the Seventh Infantry Division, wrote to General Almond that “methodical burning out poor farmers when no enemy is present is against the grain of U.S. soldiers.” At least 51 villagers, including 16 children, were killed in Sansong, according to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
The attack on Tanyang followed the next day, when, survivors say, American planes dropped napalm near the entrance of the cave where refugees had sought shelter.
“When the napalm hit the entrance, the blast and smoke knocked out kerosene and castor-oil lamps we had in the cave,” Eom Han-won, then 15, said in an interview. “It was a pitch-black chaos — people shouting for each other, stampeding, choking. Some said we should crawl in deeper, covering our faces with wet cloth. Some said we should rush out through the blaze. Those who were not burned to death suffocated.”
Like Mr. Eom’s family, most of the people there were refugees who had been turned back at an American roadblock south of Tanyang, survivors said. In the days before the attack, the cave was packed with families. When the American warplanes flew in from the southwest, children were playing outside amid cattle and baggage.
That day, the Seventh Division’s operations logs noted that 13 planes attacked “enemy troops” and “pack animals and cave.” It reported “many casualties and got all animals.”
Mr. Eom, who rushed out of the cave into a hail of machine-gun fire from the planes but survived, said, “The Americans pushed us back toward the enemy area and then bombed us.” He said he lost 10 family members.
Shortly afterward, South Korea’s Second Division reported 34 civilians killed and 72 wounded at Sansong, but “no enemy casualties,” prompting the American military to open an investigation. The American investigators did not dispute the South Korean report but concluded that the airstrike was “amply justified.” They said that Sansong was considered an enemy haven and that its residents had been warned to evacuate.
The case appeared closed until several years ago, when, in the course of a Korean television reporter’s investigation, villagers acquired a copy of the American military’s wartime report and read that they had been told to evacuate. They insist, and the commission agreed, that this was not true. They say the village where North Korean troops were sighted was elsewhere and was never bombed.
Regarding the Wolmi attack, the commission said that while it recognized the need for the landing at Inchon, it could find “no evidence of efforts to limit civilian casualties.”
Wolmi survivors said the North Korean officers’ housing was about 1,000 feet away from their village. They say the American pilots, whose mission reports noted “visibility unlimited” and firing altitudes as low as 100 feet, should not have mistaken villagers, including many women and children, for the enemy.
They said the American troops later bulldozed their charred village to build a base.
“If you say these killings were not deliberate and were mistakes, how can you explain the fact that there were so many of these incidents?” asked Park Myung-lim, a historian at Yonsei University in Seoul.
The victims’ grievances found an outlet in 2005, when left-leaning civic groups tried to topple the MacArthur statue. But Wolmi survivors said they did not join the protest for fear they might be branded anti-American.
“We consider MacArthur a hero to our country, but no one can know the suffering our family endured,” said Chung Ji-eun, an Inchon cabdriver whose father died at Wolmi. “Both governments emphasize the alliance, but they never care about people like us who were sacrificed in the name of alliance.”
WOLMI ISLAND, South Korea — When American troops stormed this island more than half a century ago, it was a hive of Communist trenches and pillboxes. Now it is a park where children play and retirees stroll along a tree-shaded esplanade.
From a hilltop across a narrow channel, Gen. Douglas MacArthur, memorialized in bronze, appears to gaze down at the beaches of Inchon where his troops splashed ashore in September 1950, changing the course of the Korean War and making him a hero here.
In the port below, rows of cars, gleaming in the sun, wait to be shipped around the world — testimony to South Korea’s industrial might and a reminder of which side has triumphed economically since the conflict ended 55 years ago.
But inside a ragged tent at the entrance of the park, some aging South Koreans gather daily to draw attention to their side of the conflict, a story of carnage not mentioned in South Korea’s official histories or textbooks.
“When the napalm hit our village, many people were still sleeping in their homes,” said Lee Beom-ki, 76. “Those who survived the flames ran to the tidal flats. We were trying to show the American pilots that we were civilians. But they strafed us, women and children.”
Village residents say dozens of civilians were killed.
The attack, though not the civilian casualties, has been corroborated by declassified United States military documents recently reviewed by South Korean investigators. On Sept. 10, 1950, five days before the Inchon landing, according to the documents, 43 American warplanes swarmed over Wolmi, dropping 93 napalm canisters to “burn out” its eastern slope in an attempt to clear the way for American troops.
The documents and survivors’ stories persuaded a South Korean commission investigating long-suppressed allegations of wartime atrocities by Koreans and Americans to rule recently that the attack violated international conventions on war and to ask the country’s leaders to seek compensation from the United States.
The ruling was one of several by the government’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission in recent months that accused the United States military of using indiscriminate force on three separate occasions in 1950 and 1951 as troops struggled against Communists from the North and from China. The commission says at least 228 civilians, and perhaps hundreds more, were killed in the three attacks.
In one case, the commission said, at least 167 villagers, more than half of them women, were burned to death or asphyxiated in Tanyang, 87 miles southeast of Seoul, when American planes dropped napalm at the entrance of a cave filled with refugees.
“We should not ignore or conceal the deaths of unarmed civilians that resulted not from the mistakes of a few soldiers but from systematic aerial bombing and strafing,” said Kim Dong-choon, a senior commission official. “History teaches us that we need an alliance, but that alliance should be based on humanitarian principles.”
The South Korean government has not disclosed how it plans to follow up on the findings. And Maj. Stewart Upton, a Defense Department spokesman in Washington, said the Pentagon could not comment on the reports pending formal action by the South Korean government.
Under South Korea’s earlier authoritarian and staunchly anti-Communist governments, criticism of American actions in the war was taboo.
But after investigations showed that American soldiers killed South Korean civilians in air and ground attacks on the hamlet of No Gun Ri in 1950 — and after the United States acknowledged the deaths but refused to investigate other claims — a liberal government set up the fact-finding commission in 2005. More than 500 petitions, some describing the same actions, were filed to demand the investigation of allegations of mass killings by American troops, mostly in airstrikes.
The recent findings were the commission’s first against the United States, and it is unlikely that the commission has the time or resources to investigate many more before it is disbanded, as early as 2010.
Separately, the commission has also ruled that the South Korean government summarily executed thousands of political prisoners and killed many unarmed villagers during the war.
The Wolmi victims’ demands for recognition tap into complicated emotions underlying South Korea’s alliance with the United States.
“We thank the American troops for saving our country from Communism, for the peace and prosperity we have today,” said Han In-deuk, chairwoman of a Wolmi advocacy group. “Does that mean we have to shut up about what happened to our families?”
The airstrikes came during desperate times for the American forces and for the South Koreans they came to defend.
The war broke out in June 1950 with a Communist invasion from the north. In September, when the American military planned the landing at Inchon to relieve United Nations forces cornered in the southeastern tip of the peninsula, it decided it first had to neutralize Wolmi, which overlooks the channel that approaches the harbor.
“The mission was to saturate the area so thoroughly with napalm that all installations on that area would be burned,” Marine pilots said in one of their mission reports on Wolmi that were retrieved by the commission from the National Archives and Records Administration of the United States.
They also reported that no troops were seen, “but the flashes observed on the ground indicated the intensity of the fire to be accurate enough to destroy any about.”
The reports describe strafing on the beach but make no mention of civilian casualties.
The Inchon landing helped United Nations troops recapture Seoul and drive the North Koreans back. But the tide turned again when China entered the war.
The other two attacks the commission ruled on, in Tanyang and Sansong, south of Seoul, occurred as Communist forces barreled down the peninsula. As the allies fell back, they were attacked by guerrillas they could not easily distinguish from refugees.
Fearing enemy infiltration, American troops stopped refugees streaming down the roads and told them to return home or stay in the hills, or risk getting shot by allied troops. On Jan. 14, 1951, the Army’s X Corps under Maj. Gen. Edward M. Almond ordered the “methodical destruction of dwellings and other buildings forward of front lines which are, or susceptible of being, utilized by the enemy for shelter.” It recommended airstrikes.
“Excellent results” was how American pilots summarized their strikes at Sansong on Jan. 19, 1951.
The same day, however, one of General Almond’s subordinates, Brig. Gen. David G. Barr of the Seventh Infantry Division, wrote to General Almond that “methodical burning out poor farmers when no enemy is present is against the grain of U.S. soldiers.” At least 51 villagers, including 16 children, were killed in Sansong, according to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
The attack on Tanyang followed the next day, when, survivors say, American planes dropped napalm near the entrance of the cave where refugees had sought shelter.
“When the napalm hit the entrance, the blast and smoke knocked out kerosene and castor-oil lamps we had in the cave,” Eom Han-won, then 15, said in an interview. “It was a pitch-black chaos — people shouting for each other, stampeding, choking. Some said we should crawl in deeper, covering our faces with wet cloth. Some said we should rush out through the blaze. Those who were not burned to death suffocated.”
Like Mr. Eom’s family, most of the people there were refugees who had been turned back at an American roadblock south of Tanyang, survivors said. In the days before the attack, the cave was packed with families. When the American warplanes flew in from the southwest, children were playing outside amid cattle and baggage.
That day, the Seventh Division’s operations logs noted that 13 planes attacked “enemy troops” and “pack animals and cave.” It reported “many casualties and got all animals.”
Mr. Eom, who rushed out of the cave into a hail of machine-gun fire from the planes but survived, said, “The Americans pushed us back toward the enemy area and then bombed us.” He said he lost 10 family members.
Shortly afterward, South Korea’s Second Division reported 34 civilians killed and 72 wounded at Sansong, but “no enemy casualties,” prompting the American military to open an investigation. The American investigators did not dispute the South Korean report but concluded that the airstrike was “amply justified.” They said that Sansong was considered an enemy haven and that its residents had been warned to evacuate.
The case appeared closed until several years ago, when, in the course of a Korean television reporter’s investigation, villagers acquired a copy of the American military’s wartime report and read that they had been told to evacuate. They insist, and the commission agreed, that this was not true. They say the village where North Korean troops were sighted was elsewhere and was never bombed.
Regarding the Wolmi attack, the commission said that while it recognized the need for the landing at Inchon, it could find “no evidence of efforts to limit civilian casualties.”
Wolmi survivors said the North Korean officers’ housing was about 1,000 feet away from their village. They say the American pilots, whose mission reports noted “visibility unlimited” and firing altitudes as low as 100 feet, should not have mistaken villagers, including many women and children, for the enemy.
They said the American troops later bulldozed their charred village to build a base.
“If you say these killings were not deliberate and were mistakes, how can you explain the fact that there were so many of these incidents?” asked Park Myung-lim, a historian at Yonsei University in Seoul.
The victims’ grievances found an outlet in 2005, when left-leaning civic groups tried to topple the MacArthur statue. But Wolmi survivors said they did not join the protest for fear they might be branded anti-American.
“We consider MacArthur a hero to our country, but no one can know the suffering our family endured,” said Chung Ji-eun, an Inchon cabdriver whose father died at Wolmi. “Both governments emphasize the alliance, but they never care about people like us who were sacrificed in the name of alliance.”
Friday, August 01, 2008
보도연맹 학살은 이승만 특명에 의한 것"
보도연맹 학살은 이승만 특명에 의한 것"
민간인 처형 집행했던 헌병대 간부 최초증언
심규상 (djsim) 기자
▲ 1950년 전쟁발발 당시 헌병대 6사단 상사로 보도연맹원 처형과정에 참여했던 김만식(84)씨가 증언하고 있다.
ⓒ 오마이뉴스 심규상
한국전쟁 발발 직후 군경에 의해 자행된 보도연맹원 등 민간인에 대한 학살이 당시 이승만 대통령의 특명에 의한 것이라는 증언이 나왔다. 이는 당시 보도연맹원 처형과정에 직접 참여한 헌병대 초급간부의 첫 증언이라는 점에서 주목된다.
1950년 전쟁발발 당시 헌병대 6사단 상사로 보도연맹원 처형과정에 참여했던 김만식(84, 충북 청주시)씨는 4일 충북도청 기자실에서 열린 회견에서 "6월 27일 경 헌병사령부를 통해 대통령 특명으로 분대장급 이상 지휘관은 명령에 불복하는 부대원을 사형시키고 남로당 계열이나 보도연맹 관계자들을 처형하라는 무전지시를 직접 받았다"고 밝혔다.
그동안 전쟁직후 민간인에 대한 학살이 정부 최상층부로부터 나온 것이라는 추정과 증언이 있었지만 이처럼 "대통령 특명"에 따른 것이라는 증언이 나온 것은 처음이다.
김씨는 이날 '민간인학살 진상규명 충북대책위'가 주최한 기자회견을 통해 "보도연맹원으로 끌려가 죽은 사람들 중에는 아주 순박하고 어진 평범한 시민과 농민들이 많았다"며 "하지만 국가명령에 따라 처형집행을 하지 않을 수 없었다"고 말했다.
그는 또 "당시 헌병대 6사단에 소속돼 (대통령 특명을 받은 다음 날인) 28일 강원도 횡성을 시작으로 원주 등에서 많은 보도연맹원을 처형한 후 충북 충주로 이동했다"고 말했다. 이는 보도연맹원에 대한 최초의 집단 학살이 그간 알려진 7월 1일 경기도 이천이었다는 주장을 뒤집는 것이기도 하다.
전쟁직후 최초 보도연맹원 처형은 6월 28일 강원도 횡성
그는 "이후 충북 충주(7월 5일)-진천(5일, 조리방죽)-음성(8일, 백마령고개)-청원(9일, 옥녀봉)-청원 오창창고(10일) 등에서 보도연맹 관련자를 처형하고 경북 영주(7월 중순)와 문경(7월 15-16일), 상주(7월 중순)등으로 이동하며 처형했다"고 덧붙였다.
진실화해위원회 측은 김씨에 의해 거론된 해당 지역에서 모두 4700여명의 보도연맹원이 학살된 것으로 추정하고 있다.
▲ 충북대책위 관계자가 전쟁당시 6사단 이동경로 및 보도연맹원 처형과정을 설명하고 있다.
ⓒ 오마이뉴스 심규상
미국 육군 소속의 방첩부대(CIC)가 보도연맹원 처형과정에 직접 개입했다는 증언도 관심을 끄는 대목이다.
김씨는 학살집행 과정과 관련해서는 "보도연맹원 소집은 각 경찰서별로 이뤄졌고 CIC(광복 이후 남한 주둔 미군 소속의 정보기관)가 처형여부에 대한 심사를 결정했다"며 "헌병대는 경찰서에서 보도연맹원을 인계받아 연대 헌병대 주관하에 보병과 경찰병력 일부를 지원받아 총살을 집행했다"고 말했다.
그는 "당시 헌병대 장교가 일부 보도연맹원을 임의로 풀어준 책임을 물어 증평 지서장을 권총으로 총살했다는 보고를 받은 적도 있다"고 덧붙였다.
충북대책위원회 박만순 운영위원장은 "그동안 가해자 측 증언이 부족해 사건의 진실을 밝히는 데 많은 한계가 있었다"며 "이같은 증언으로 충북지역은 물론 전쟁전후 전국 민간인학살 사건을 밝히는 데 많은 도움이 될 것으로 보인다"고 말했다.
충북대책위원회는 이날 별도 성명을 통해 "이번 증언은 진실규명운동에 하나의 분기점이 될 것으로 보인다"며 "용기 있는 증언에 박수를 보낸다"고 격려했다. 이어 "이제 국가가 회답할 차례"라며 "이를 계기로 또 다른 증언을 낳게 해 진실규명이 더욱 촉진될 수 있도록 해야 한다"고 덧붙였다.
"CIC(미군 소속의 정보기관)가 처형 여부 심사"
이날 공개증언에 나선 김씨는 1948년 헌병대 6사단에 배속된 후 전쟁직후에는 보도연맹원 처형과 관련 강원도 횡성 등 일부 지역의 현장지휘책임자를 맡기도 했다. 또 1950년 7월 대구 다부동 전투에 '육탄결사대' 소대장으로 참전해 전과를 이룬 공로로 헌병대에서는 처음으로 '을지무공훈장'을 받았다. 그는 1956년 육군대위로 예편해 대한무공수훈자회 초대충북지부장을 역임하기도 했다.
다음은 김씨가 이날 기자회견과 충북대책위를 통해 밝힌 주요 증언 내용.
- 보도연맹원에 대한 처형은 어떤 경로로 이루어졌나?
"6월 27일 경 헌병사령부를 통해 대통령 특명으로 분대장급 이상 지휘관은 명령에 불복하는 부대원을 사형시키고 남로당 계열 및 보도연맹 관계자들을 처형하라는 무전지시를 직접 받았다."
- 당시 왜 보도연맹원에 대한 처형명령이 내려졌다고 생각하나?
"국군에 대한 정보가 보도연맹원을 통해 북의 인민사령부에 보고돼 군이 진퇴양난에 빠졌다고 판단한 것으로 보인다. 실제 남로당원들이 보도연맹에 많이 가입한 것으로 안다. 하지만 농지 무상분배 등 혜택을 받기 위해 아주 순박하고 어진 평범한 시민, 농민들이 많이 가입했다."
▲ 김만식씨가 공개 증언에 앞서 양손을 모으고 생각에 잠겨 있다.
ⓒ 오마이뉴스 심규상
- 소속돼 있던 6사단의 경우 보도연맹원 처형에 어떻게 관여했나.
"28일 강원도 횡성을 시작으로 원주 등에서 많은 보도연맹원을 처형한 후 충북 충주로 이동했다. 이후 충북 충주(7월 5일)-진천(5일, 조리방죽)-음성(8일, 백마령고개)-청원(9일,옥녀봉)-청원 오창창고(10일) 등에서 보도연맹 관련자를 처형하고 문경을 거쳐 경북 영주(7월 중순)와 문경(7월 15-16일), 상주(7월 중순)등으로 이동하며 처형을 계속했다. 일부 지역의 경우 소총으로 안돼 기관총으로 일제 사격을 하기도 했다."
- 전쟁이 일어나자마자 곧바로 작전에 투여됐다는 얘긴가?
"특별한 사정이 있다. 다른 사단의 경우 6ㆍ25때 모두 휴가를 간 상태였다. 하지만 6사단의 경우 한 소속원이 월북해 6사단 2연대, 7연대, 19연대가 휴가도 못가고 비상경비태세에 있었다."
- 처형 과정에서 다른 기관과 CIC역할은 무엇이었나.
"민간계통에서 보도연맹원 신청과 등록을 받았다. 이후 전쟁이 나자 각 경찰서별로 보도연맹원을 소집했다. 심사는 CIC가 했다. AㆍBㆍC급으로 나눠 AㆍB급은 모두 총살하고 C급은 설득시켜 군대로 보냈고 여자들은 훈방 후 요시찰 대상이 됐다. 헌병대의 경우 경찰서에서 보도연맹원을 인계받아 연대 헌병대 주관하에 보병과 경찰병력 일부를 지원받아 총살을 집행했다."
- 경찰서 인계당시 신분장을 넘겨 받았나?
"그런 거 없었다. 그냥 경찰서에서 몇 명이다 하면 대충 숫자만 파악해 인계받았다. 강원도 원주비행장의 경우 상황이 급해서 구덩이도 파지 않고 총살 후 곧바로 이동했다."
- 충북 오창 사건도 6사단이 벌인 일인가.
"그렇다. 6사단 19연대가 맡았다."
- 옥녀봉(충북) 사건은 어떤가?
"6사단 7연대가 나갔다. 당시 증평에서 소집한 보도연맹원 일부를 지서장이 풀어줘 헌병대 장교가 증평 지서장을 권총으로 총살했다는 보고를 받은 적도 있다."
- 경북 영주사건에 대해서는 아는 것이 있나.
"6사단 19연대가 이동한 지역이지만 직접 참여하지 않아 잘 모른다. 다만 영주경찰서에서 트럭에 의해 실려온 보도연맹원들을 영주와 문경 사이 큰 개울옆 야산에서 총살한 것으로 알고 있다."
- 청주형무소나 대전형무소 등 재소자 처형건에 대해 당시 들은 얘기가 있다면?
"들은 바도 없고 잘 모른다."
2007-07-04 14:22 ⓒ 2007 OhmyNews
민간인 처형 집행했던 헌병대 간부 최초증언
심규상 (djsim) 기자
▲ 1950년 전쟁발발 당시 헌병대 6사단 상사로 보도연맹원 처형과정에 참여했던 김만식(84)씨가 증언하고 있다.
ⓒ 오마이뉴스 심규상
한국전쟁 발발 직후 군경에 의해 자행된 보도연맹원 등 민간인에 대한 학살이 당시 이승만 대통령의 특명에 의한 것이라는 증언이 나왔다. 이는 당시 보도연맹원 처형과정에 직접 참여한 헌병대 초급간부의 첫 증언이라는 점에서 주목된다.
1950년 전쟁발발 당시 헌병대 6사단 상사로 보도연맹원 처형과정에 참여했던 김만식(84, 충북 청주시)씨는 4일 충북도청 기자실에서 열린 회견에서 "6월 27일 경 헌병사령부를 통해 대통령 특명으로 분대장급 이상 지휘관은 명령에 불복하는 부대원을 사형시키고 남로당 계열이나 보도연맹 관계자들을 처형하라는 무전지시를 직접 받았다"고 밝혔다.
그동안 전쟁직후 민간인에 대한 학살이 정부 최상층부로부터 나온 것이라는 추정과 증언이 있었지만 이처럼 "대통령 특명"에 따른 것이라는 증언이 나온 것은 처음이다.
김씨는 이날 '민간인학살 진상규명 충북대책위'가 주최한 기자회견을 통해 "보도연맹원으로 끌려가 죽은 사람들 중에는 아주 순박하고 어진 평범한 시민과 농민들이 많았다"며 "하지만 국가명령에 따라 처형집행을 하지 않을 수 없었다"고 말했다.
그는 또 "당시 헌병대 6사단에 소속돼 (대통령 특명을 받은 다음 날인) 28일 강원도 횡성을 시작으로 원주 등에서 많은 보도연맹원을 처형한 후 충북 충주로 이동했다"고 말했다. 이는 보도연맹원에 대한 최초의 집단 학살이 그간 알려진 7월 1일 경기도 이천이었다는 주장을 뒤집는 것이기도 하다.
전쟁직후 최초 보도연맹원 처형은 6월 28일 강원도 횡성
그는 "이후 충북 충주(7월 5일)-진천(5일, 조리방죽)-음성(8일, 백마령고개)-청원(9일, 옥녀봉)-청원 오창창고(10일) 등에서 보도연맹 관련자를 처형하고 경북 영주(7월 중순)와 문경(7월 15-16일), 상주(7월 중순)등으로 이동하며 처형했다"고 덧붙였다.
진실화해위원회 측은 김씨에 의해 거론된 해당 지역에서 모두 4700여명의 보도연맹원이 학살된 것으로 추정하고 있다.
▲ 충북대책위 관계자가 전쟁당시 6사단 이동경로 및 보도연맹원 처형과정을 설명하고 있다.
ⓒ 오마이뉴스 심규상
미국 육군 소속의 방첩부대(CIC)가 보도연맹원 처형과정에 직접 개입했다는 증언도 관심을 끄는 대목이다.
김씨는 학살집행 과정과 관련해서는 "보도연맹원 소집은 각 경찰서별로 이뤄졌고 CIC(광복 이후 남한 주둔 미군 소속의 정보기관)가 처형여부에 대한 심사를 결정했다"며 "헌병대는 경찰서에서 보도연맹원을 인계받아 연대 헌병대 주관하에 보병과 경찰병력 일부를 지원받아 총살을 집행했다"고 말했다.
그는 "당시 헌병대 장교가 일부 보도연맹원을 임의로 풀어준 책임을 물어 증평 지서장을 권총으로 총살했다는 보고를 받은 적도 있다"고 덧붙였다.
충북대책위원회 박만순 운영위원장은 "그동안 가해자 측 증언이 부족해 사건의 진실을 밝히는 데 많은 한계가 있었다"며 "이같은 증언으로 충북지역은 물론 전쟁전후 전국 민간인학살 사건을 밝히는 데 많은 도움이 될 것으로 보인다"고 말했다.
충북대책위원회는 이날 별도 성명을 통해 "이번 증언은 진실규명운동에 하나의 분기점이 될 것으로 보인다"며 "용기 있는 증언에 박수를 보낸다"고 격려했다. 이어 "이제 국가가 회답할 차례"라며 "이를 계기로 또 다른 증언을 낳게 해 진실규명이 더욱 촉진될 수 있도록 해야 한다"고 덧붙였다.
"CIC(미군 소속의 정보기관)가 처형 여부 심사"
이날 공개증언에 나선 김씨는 1948년 헌병대 6사단에 배속된 후 전쟁직후에는 보도연맹원 처형과 관련 강원도 횡성 등 일부 지역의 현장지휘책임자를 맡기도 했다. 또 1950년 7월 대구 다부동 전투에 '육탄결사대' 소대장으로 참전해 전과를 이룬 공로로 헌병대에서는 처음으로 '을지무공훈장'을 받았다. 그는 1956년 육군대위로 예편해 대한무공수훈자회 초대충북지부장을 역임하기도 했다.
다음은 김씨가 이날 기자회견과 충북대책위를 통해 밝힌 주요 증언 내용.
- 보도연맹원에 대한 처형은 어떤 경로로 이루어졌나?
"6월 27일 경 헌병사령부를 통해 대통령 특명으로 분대장급 이상 지휘관은 명령에 불복하는 부대원을 사형시키고 남로당 계열 및 보도연맹 관계자들을 처형하라는 무전지시를 직접 받았다."
- 당시 왜 보도연맹원에 대한 처형명령이 내려졌다고 생각하나?
"국군에 대한 정보가 보도연맹원을 통해 북의 인민사령부에 보고돼 군이 진퇴양난에 빠졌다고 판단한 것으로 보인다. 실제 남로당원들이 보도연맹에 많이 가입한 것으로 안다. 하지만 농지 무상분배 등 혜택을 받기 위해 아주 순박하고 어진 평범한 시민, 농민들이 많이 가입했다."
▲ 김만식씨가 공개 증언에 앞서 양손을 모으고 생각에 잠겨 있다.
ⓒ 오마이뉴스 심규상
- 소속돼 있던 6사단의 경우 보도연맹원 처형에 어떻게 관여했나.
"28일 강원도 횡성을 시작으로 원주 등에서 많은 보도연맹원을 처형한 후 충북 충주로 이동했다. 이후 충북 충주(7월 5일)-진천(5일, 조리방죽)-음성(8일, 백마령고개)-청원(9일,옥녀봉)-청원 오창창고(10일) 등에서 보도연맹 관련자를 처형하고 문경을 거쳐 경북 영주(7월 중순)와 문경(7월 15-16일), 상주(7월 중순)등으로 이동하며 처형을 계속했다. 일부 지역의 경우 소총으로 안돼 기관총으로 일제 사격을 하기도 했다."
- 전쟁이 일어나자마자 곧바로 작전에 투여됐다는 얘긴가?
"특별한 사정이 있다. 다른 사단의 경우 6ㆍ25때 모두 휴가를 간 상태였다. 하지만 6사단의 경우 한 소속원이 월북해 6사단 2연대, 7연대, 19연대가 휴가도 못가고 비상경비태세에 있었다."
- 처형 과정에서 다른 기관과 CIC역할은 무엇이었나.
"민간계통에서 보도연맹원 신청과 등록을 받았다. 이후 전쟁이 나자 각 경찰서별로 보도연맹원을 소집했다. 심사는 CIC가 했다. AㆍBㆍC급으로 나눠 AㆍB급은 모두 총살하고 C급은 설득시켜 군대로 보냈고 여자들은 훈방 후 요시찰 대상이 됐다. 헌병대의 경우 경찰서에서 보도연맹원을 인계받아 연대 헌병대 주관하에 보병과 경찰병력 일부를 지원받아 총살을 집행했다."
- 경찰서 인계당시 신분장을 넘겨 받았나?
"그런 거 없었다. 그냥 경찰서에서 몇 명이다 하면 대충 숫자만 파악해 인계받았다. 강원도 원주비행장의 경우 상황이 급해서 구덩이도 파지 않고 총살 후 곧바로 이동했다."
- 충북 오창 사건도 6사단이 벌인 일인가.
"그렇다. 6사단 19연대가 맡았다."
- 옥녀봉(충북) 사건은 어떤가?
"6사단 7연대가 나갔다. 당시 증평에서 소집한 보도연맹원 일부를 지서장이 풀어줘 헌병대 장교가 증평 지서장을 권총으로 총살했다는 보고를 받은 적도 있다."
- 경북 영주사건에 대해서는 아는 것이 있나.
"6사단 19연대가 이동한 지역이지만 직접 참여하지 않아 잘 모른다. 다만 영주경찰서에서 트럭에 의해 실려온 보도연맹원들을 영주와 문경 사이 큰 개울옆 야산에서 총살한 것으로 알고 있다."
- 청주형무소나 대전형무소 등 재소자 처형건에 대해 당시 들은 얘기가 있다면?
"들은 바도 없고 잘 모른다."
2007-07-04 14:22 ⓒ 2007 OhmyNews
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