U.S. Military against People & Nature

[Yoshie Furuhashi <furuhashi.1@xxxxxxx>]

Instead of wrangling over relative merits of dishwashers, we had
better discuss how to stop human & environmental damages caused by
the U.S. military (here and overseas).  While dishwashers may or may
not clean dishes well, and thus may or may not add to human welfare,
it is clear that the U.S. military poses a clear and present danger
to nature and human beings while adding nothing to human welfare.
Greens who do not think of this issue as the most important
environmental problem got their priority wrong.     Yoshie

*****   Los Angeles Times
June 29, 2000

U.S. IN ONGOING BATTLE OVER S. KOREAN BOMBING RANGE

Military: Villagers, allies face off against riot police as sentiment
rises against American troop presence.

By Valerie Reitman

Maehyang Ri, South Korea--The Korean War's battles ended almost five
decades ago, but this village not far from Seoul has been under
constant siege ever since--not by North Korea, but from U.S. bombs
and machine-gun fire.

Nearly every weekday morning, when the wind is calm, the sounds of
war commence, often lasting well into the night.

U.S. Air Force A-10 Thunderbolt antitank planes swoop down like
vultures, unleashing their hail of bullets in a terrifying clamor at
targets on the edge of rice paddies.  Villagers swear that they can
see the pilots' helmets--perhaps an exaggeration, but only a slight
one if a recent day's visit is any indication.

Then come the F-16 fighters, circling high in the sky before dumping
500-pound practice bombs in a thunderous roar on two tiny islands
about a mile offshore.

"Every day is like the [Persian] Gulf War," says villager Choi In Son, 39.

Over the years, nine deaths and at least a dozen injuries have
occurred, villagers maintain, although the Air Force says such claims
are highly exaggerated.  In addition, the noise has left a legacy of
miscarriages, hearing and mental health problems, frightened animals
and children who scream in the night, say many in the village about
40 miles from the capital.

"We feel like we are the targets," says Chu Young Bae, 53.

The practice field, known as the Koon Ni Range, has become a
lightning rod for a rising sentiment against the 37,000 U.S. troops
posted in South Korea, and the fervor has been heightened in the
aftermath of the North-South Korean summit two weeks ago.  Lately,
hundreds of civic groups have come to aid the locals in their
crusade, and now the field is ringed by hundreds of riot police.

The dizzyingly successful North-South meeting renewed hopes for peace
on the divided peninsula--where about 1.9 million troops from the two
Koreas still face off along the world's most fortified border, the
demilitarized zone, or DMZ--and eased fears of any imminent invasion
by the Communist North.

"The summit was peaceful and there's been rapprochement," says
villager Chu, "so what's the point of practicing?"

On Sunday, South Korean President Kim Dae Jung reiterated the need
for the U.S. troops' presence.  "The U.S. armed forces will stay
until a complete peace system is put in place on the Korean peninsula
. . . even after unification, in order to maintain the balance of
power in northeast Asia."

Nevertheless, the talks also gave rise to a spirit of nationalism:
While dozens of South Koreans interviewed here and in Seoul say they
are grateful for the U.S. troops that have been present since the
Korean War, many say it is time for Washington to vastly reduce its
forces here and clean up its act.

"U.S. troops are getting morally careless and taking advantage of the
SOFA agreement," says Kim Il Hyun, 58, a Seoul businessman, referring
to the Status of Forces Agreement that governs U.S. military
operations in South Korea, where 90 American bases constitute much of
the U.S. military muscle in Asia.

Environmental problems at some bases as well as soldiers' crimes and
unpaid parking tickets are adding to the feelings of resentment.
Tensions also were fueled by recent allegations that U.S. troops
massacred hundreds of civilians at No Gun Ri during the war.

Protests at Maehyang Ri came to a head last month after a fighter jet
malfunctioned and the pilot preventively unloaded six live bombs off
the village's coast.

"These issues are coming at a time when most observers say the
U.S.-South Korea relationship is at one of its high points," says
Scott Snyder, the Asia Foundation's Korea representative and a
security expert.  "There is a risk that if it blows up into something
bigger, the anti-military sentiment could be translated into broader
anti-American feelings."

Brig. Gen. Jeff Kohler, the vice commander of the 7th Air Force in
South Korea, has seen Koon Ni from the air--he has dropped bombs from
F-16s--but he hasn't seen it from the ground.  Nonetheless, he
insists that the field is safe for civilians as well as essential for
pilot training and war readiness.

Most of the planes originate from Osan Air Base, the United States'
most "forward-deployed" base: It's just 48 miles from North Korea.
In an interview at his office at Osan, Kohler stresses that North
Korea remains a threat and that the two sides technically are still
at war.

"The key element is that our units are ready to fight tonight,"
Kohler says.  "In order to be ready tonight, we have to practice."

Many of the young pilots, in South Korea on one-year tours, are just
out of basic training and drill extensively on simulators before
dropping live ordnance at Koon Ni, one of the few bases in Asia where
they can get immediate readings on whether their bombs have hit their
targets.

Kohler displays a detailed map of Koon Ni in his office.  It shows an
easement around the practice field where no development was supposed
to occur after the U.S. began operating the field in the 1950s--but
which now sports a steel factory, a Kia automobile assembly plant, a
bus depot and houses.

"They weren't there when we started," he says.

There's nothing the U.S. government can do about the squatters, he
says--that's the purview of the South Korean government.

"We've discussed either moving the range or moving the residences,"
Kohler says.  "But there's virtually no chance of finding an
alternative location." South Korea's rapid growth and
industrialization have left little open space in this country, which
is only slightly larger than Indiana.

Despite the encroachments, Kohler insists that it's safe for the
pilots to operate. He says that there has been just one casualty, a
woman who was hit by a piece of bomb shrapnel while walking on the
beach.  That was before 1978, when the U.S. stopped using live
explosives in bombs and bullets.

A spokesman for South Korea's Defense Ministry says that the agency
is "studying ways of relocating people" and that 80% of the people in
the areas closest to the base--a total of about 720 families--are
willing to move if they receive compensation. No offers have been
made, but Seoul would probably foot the bill.

But if interviews with numerous villagers gathered at a neighborhood
protest center are any indication, most have no intention of leaving
the place where their parents and grandparents are buried.

"Sixty-two generations of my family have lived here," says Choi Sun
Cha, 43. "We shouldn't be the ones who have to leave."

Choi's husband, Chun Man Ku, has been on a crusade to stop the
bombing missions for 12 years, even moving his family out of its
house and into the small building on the field's edge that serves as
the neighborhood's "protest central."

Chun was arrested June 16 for entering the field during a
demonstration by several hundred protesters.  Six students were
arrested two days later in demonstrations at the protest hall.

Chun began sacrificing himself for the movement after his father
committed suicide, which neighbors say Chun blamed on the constant
disruptions of practice bombs.  "My husband says he doesn't want our
four children to have these problems," Choi says.

The village's farmers and fishermen--who are prohibited from fishing
and tending oyster beds on weekdays while the bombing goes on--say
casualties over the years include a trio of brothers who were injured
playing with unexploded ordnance containing uranium years ago; two
died and one was permanently disabled.  Another time, a woman was so
frightened by the noise that she fainted and died, villagers say.
Four years ago, a practice bullet made a clean entry and exit through
a fisherman's hand.

Chi Sook Son, 49, says she had two miscarriages and that a third
child died 10 days after birth because he was "so stressed from the
noise."

Hu Sang Kun, 50, once raised chicks but gave up because they grouped
together so tightly when the planes flew by that they died.

The noises are undeniably frightening.

When an A-10 suddenly approaches--barely cresting trees, utility
lines and rooftops--and begins strafing targets, it emits a sound
like a phonograph needle scratching a record, amplified thousands of
times.

"That's nothing" compared with the bombings, Chi says, as several
more planes follow suit.

Taxi driver You Son Nam, who lives near the Osan Air Base and knows
well the roar of the aircraft takeoffs and landings, is astonished
that this din is so much worse.

"I asked three or four villagers if they'd hooked up a microphone to
the planes," he says. (They hadn't.)

On this evening, it once again becomes quiet--except for the singing
and chanting of student protesters--for several hours before the
night bombings begin.  They are much later than usual.  About 9:40
p.m., a noise like a foghorn erupts.

Suddenly, high in the sky, a pair of planes shoot across the
star-filled sky, their lights flickering next to the Big Dipper.
They circle, hovering over the uninhabited target islands marked with
red lights.  But within minutes, a cover of clouds moves in,
blanketing everything in a thick fog.  The only things visible are
the red neon cross atop a church on the field's edge and a red light
spinning atop a police car near the protest hall--lights
nerve-rackingly close in color to those on the target islands.

Villager Chu concedes that, in the last few years, "the technology
has gotten better so they almost always hit [the targets], compared
with the '80s and '90s, when they hit farms and the Kia factory."

On this night, the planes continue to circle above for several more
minutes before retreating without unleashing their bombs.  By 11
p.m., many of the residents have left the protest center, which is
hung with banners reading "Yankey Go Home" and "Bombing is hurting
sky, earth and sea and taking away our place to live."

Two priests--one South Korean, one American--are packing it in after
a hard day of demonstrating outside the practice facility.

"The enemy isn't North Korea or Russia or anybody else," says Father
Robert Sweeney, a priest from Niagara Falls, N.Y., who has been doing
missionary work in Korea for 36 years.  "It is us."