Washington protest
'U.S. troops out of Korea'
By Scott
Scheffer
Oh Jong Ryul traveled from south Korea to demand that the
Clinton administration admit to and apologize for the U.S.
military massacre of civilians at No Gun Ri during the Korean
War.
Oh is chairperson of the National Alliance for Democracy and
Reunification. The Alliance is spearheading a new drive to
expose U.S. war crimes against the Korean people and to repeal
the infamous National Security Law.
The National Security Law is the legal vehicle by which the
south Korean government has imprisoned thousands who oppose the
repressive regime or its U.S. sponsors.
During a Dec. 10 news conference at the National Press Club
in Washington, and a demonstration at the White House on the
same day, Oh condemned the presence of 37,000 U.S. troops in
south Korea and the division of the Korean Peninsula enforced
by their presence.
"Our cause is to no longer allow the U.S. military foreign
occupational forces that are after their own profits ... to
stay on our land," Oh said.
Oh also stressed that since the recent Associated Press
expose of the No Gun Ri massacre, evidence of nearly 20 other
U.S. troop massacres of Korean civilians during the Pentagon
war has surfaced.
Former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark of the
International Action Center also spoke. He pledged "absolute
solidarity with the peoples of Korea." Clark said that the
United States, which has military personnel all over the world,
"ought to recognize [the Korean people's] right to self-
determination."
He referred to the U.S. military as the "greatest threat to
life on earth."
Sharon Black also expressed solidarity with the militant
workers in south Korea. Black is a shop steward in Food and
Commercial Workers Local 27 and a member of the Baltimore
All-People's Congress. Black pointed out that workers from both
of south Korea's big union confederations were engaged in
street battles with police as they waged their campaign for a
40-hour work week.
The news conference and demonstration were called by the
Washington-based Congress for Korean Reunification, the
All-People's Congress and the International Action Center.
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