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SOFA Branded as Treacherous Agreement

KCNA

    Pyongyang, February 9 (KCNA) -- Rodong Sinmun in a signed commentary today terms the "south Korea-U.S. Status of Forces Agreement" (SOFA), one of the treacherous agreements symbolical of inequality and humiliation, as a "slavery agreement" granting extraterritorial privileges to the U.S. troops and imposing submission, disgrace and misfortunes upon the south Korean people, a down-the-line document of aggression allowing by law military occupation by the U.S. imperialists and a disgraceful one wantonly trampling upon the self-respect and interests of the south Korean people. The SOFA has been kept in force since it came into effect on Feb. 9, 1967. It provides for "right to criminal jurisdiction" of the U.S. troops, "use of land and facilities", "tax business," "immigration control," etc. for the U.S. forces in south Korea, all of which are disgraceful, the commentary says, and goes on:
    After the treacherous agreement took effect, nearly 40,000 cases of crimes of U.S. soldiers were reported until 1987. But the south Korean authorities exercised first-stage jurisdiction only in 234 cases of them. The SOFA is a slavery document of modern version as it codifies the relations between south Korea and the U.S. as extremely unequal one.
    Today is the era of independence. It is an intolerable shame and tragedy of the nation that south Korea, still bound hand and foot by it, cannot utter a complaint to the U.S. and utterly unable to take any action against GIs' crimes.
    Such aggressive and treacherous agreement, a left-over of the old era which hurts the self-respect of the nation, must be scrapped right away.
    National dignity and sovereignty can be won and defended only through a united struggle of the nation. The present situation in which the U.S. is becoming all the more crazy in its arrogance and arbitrariness proves how it is judicious for all the compatriots at home and abroad to turn out in the showdown between the Korean nation and the United States under the banner of Korean nation-first spirit.