War crimes in Korea
U.S. admits No Gun Ri massacre
By Deirdre
Griswold
The U.S. government has finally, after half a century,
admitted that its soldiers killed innocent civilians in the
south Korean township of No Gun Ri shortly after the start of
the Korean War in 1950. President Bill Clinton himself
expressed "deep regret" in a public statement on Jan. 11.
But in making an official investigation and report on the
incident, the Pentagon did everything it could to shield its
officers from questioning and blame. It refused to allow the
south Korean Ministry of Defense, which was also conducting an
investigation, to question any U.S. military personnel. And, by
refusing to "quantify" the number of Koreans killed at No Gun
Ri, it tried to downplay this massacre.
Survivors say the killing began when U.S. planes strafed
refugees who were fleeing an area of heavy fighting. About 100
people were killed this way. The large column of refugees,
wearing white so they could be distinguished from combatants,
then sought shelter at a railroad overpass.
Over a three-day period, U.S. troops with machine guns
killed another 300 of these unarmed civilians, survivors told
reporters from the Associated Press, who broke the story in the
fall of 1999. The Pentagon report refuses to give a number.
Lt. Gen. Michael Ackerman, the Army inspector general,
claimed at a press conference that his investigation turned up
no evidence of any orders to fire on civilians. But this was
contradicted by the Associated Press, which in a Jan. 12
article said that about 20 ex-GIs it had interviewed "recalled
orders to shoot."
The article continued: "The AP also found wartime documents
showing at least three high-level Army headquarters and an Air
Force command ordered troops to treat as hostile any civilians
approaching U.S. positions. At the time, U.S. forces were in
retreat, and thousands of refugees fled for their safety as the
North Korean army advanced south.
"Two days before the No Gun Ri incident, the 8th Cavalry
Regiment communications log instructed: 'No refugees to cross
the front line. Fire everyone trying to cross lines.' "
While the U.S. government pretended to have invaded Korea to
aid the people in the south, this massacre confirms that the
war itself was a racist and imperialist atrocity in which the
U.S. commanders regarded all Koreans as potential enemies.
A growing movement in Korea is exposing U.S. atrocities and
war crimes and demanding that the tens of thousands of soldiers
still based there go home.
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
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