DATE=10/4/1999
TYPE=U-S OPINION ROUNDUP
TITLE=U-S KOREAN WAR MASSACRE ALLEGED
NUMBER=6-11499
BYLINE=ANDREW GUTHRIE
DATELINE=WASHINGTON
EDITOR=ASSIGNMENTS
TELEPHONE=619-3335
CONTENT=
INTRO: The Associated Press reported last week that,
after a long, and painstaking investigation by several
members of its staff, it had proof of a massacre by
U-S troops early in the Korean War.
The wire-service story was front-page news across the
nation. The Pentagon at first denied it, then
promised a renewed and thorough investigation. In
Seoul, the South Korean government also demanded a new
U-S probe, even though just a year ago, it had denied
compensation claims from the survivors and their
families.
The story has caused a good deal of comment from the
U-S press in editorials, and we get a sampling now
from __________ in today's U-S Opinion Roundup.
TEXT: The A-P story said that during the early months
of the war, as North Korean troops moved southward
toward the U-S and south Korean lines, they drove
thousands of refugees ahead of them. At times, the
North Korean troops mingled with the refugees.
Some U-S commanders are said to have ordered their
troops to fire on civilians as a way of stopping the
advance of enemy infiltrators. In the incident in
question, hundreds of unarmed, South Korean men, women
and children, trapped under a railway bridge at the
village of No Gun Ri, were allegedly killed by U-S
machine-gunners. Several former U-S army soldiers,
contacted by the Associated Press, corroborated most
of the story.
We begin our sampling of press comment in California,
where The Fresno Bee says in part:
VOICE: The U-S Army Center for Military History
says it can find no evidence that the massacre
... actually happened during late July 1950, a
month after the war began. But one can not
ignore the detailed accounts given by a dozen U-
S veterans to a team of Associated Press
reporters. If the story is true, it may be
partly explained by the inexperience of many U-S
soldiers who have been rushed to Korea to defend
against North Korea's lightning invasion of
South Korea, and by the confusion created by U-S
units' retreat in the face of the North Korean
onslaught. None of this justifies
indiscriminate killing of innocent civilians...
TEXT: The New York Times delves into the original
story for some of the servicemen's comments, before
its conclusion. :
VOICE: "It was just wholesale slaughter," a
former rifleman, Herman Patterson, told the A-P.
"We just annihilated them," recalled Norman
Tinkler, a former machine gunner. Another
American veteran ... remembered his commanding
officer as saying: "The hell with all those
people. Let's get rid of all of them." ... A
full inquiry will take time and money, but it is
vital to see whether an injustice has been done
and whether its victims are due reparations or
compensation of some kind.
TEXT: The Chicago Tribune, under a headline reading;
"The Ghosts of No Gun Ri," suggests:
VOICE: If the report is true ... the slaughter
would be one of only two known cases of killings
of noncombatants by American ground troops this
century. The other was the slaughter by U-S
soldiers of an estimated 500 Vietnamese at My
Lai in 1968. Conscience does not allow such
events to be buried permanently. Like ghosts,
they haunt the living. And eventually they must
be brought to light. That ought to be the end
result of the inquiry into last week's report by
the Associated Press of the killings...
TEXT: To the East, Ohio's [Akron] Beacon Journal
agrees with the Tribune:
VOICE: Only a thorough review will do, no
matter how grim its findings. The American
military calls on its troops to meet the highest
standards of conduct. An essential part of that
requirement is an unwavering pursuit of
accountability. ... If the bridge at No Gun Ri
proves as horrible an episode as the A-P report
suggested, the U-S government will be obliged to
offer deepest apologies and compensation to
survivors and victims' families.
TEXT: The Washington Post is also upset at the tale,
but suggests that it must be placed into the context
of the war at that early stage, and the later triumph,
which led to a democratic South Korea.
VOICE: In retrospect, there is a tinge of
inevitability to the report by the Associated
Press that American soldiers massacred perhaps
hundreds of civilians early in the Korean War at
a place called, ironically, No Gun Ri. ... At
the time, it seems, the incident drew no
special attention. A war was on that otherwise,
at least at the outset, was supported broadly if
not warmly by a majority of Americans. It is
possible to believe that American soldiers were
not as sensitive to local populations as they
subsequently became, and that a single atrocity
in Korea did not stand out against the real-
life back-drop of multiple crimes against
civilians on both sides. ... Any flaws shown in
the American military's performance must be
measured against the American success in
rescuing south Korea from Communist aggression,
and enabling it eventually to become a
democratic and prosperous country. There is no
call for a showy guilt trip, but the truth needs
to be told.
TEXT: The San Francisco Chronicle disagrees, but adds
that:
VOICE: Justice would demand stern punishment for
the officers who ordered such war crimes, but
the passage of time ... [makes] that all but
impossible.
TEXT: Picking up that idea from The Chronicle, The
Washington [D-C] Times agrees that the idea of
assessing guilt, and even of possibly recommending
punishment, will be made virtually impossible by the
passage of time.
VOICE: Some perspective may be in order about
the "forgotten war" before the No Gun Ri episode
turns into a frenzy about supposed American
awfulness. Fifty years ago next June 25, the
North Koreans invaded the South. In three days
Seoul was captured, and five days later
President Harry Truman ordered U-S ground troops
to assist South Korea under United Nations
auspices. The 24th Infantry Division, soft from
garrison duty in Japan and under-strength and
under-equipped, was rushed in piecemeal from
Japan --and decimated as it valiantly tried to
blunt the massive Communist onslaught. ... The
American and South Korean forces steadily were
being pushed back toward the southern seaport of
Pusan and there was growing fear that a
"Dunkirk" loomed. ... That was the fog of war in
those brutal days. But the emphasis of the news
reports is on alleged orders for the G-I's to
open fire on the refugees under the bridge.
Little else is clear -- and the 50 intervening
years hardly will add clarity for the
investigators.
TEXT: On that note, we conclude this sampling of
comment on new allegations that U-S troops fired on
civilians, killing hundreds during the early days of
the Korean War, almost 50 years ago.
NEB/ANG/WTW
04-Oct-1999 16:19 PM EDT (04-Oct-1999 2019 UTC)
NNNN
Source: Voice of America
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