Mass Executions - U.S. Involved - South Korea - Classified Documents Reveal

[ksimons]

Source: AP News/Yahoo

... confirmed that dozens of children were among many thousands shot by their own government early in the Korean War.

The investigative Truth and Reconciliation Commission has thus far verified more than two dozen mass killings of leftists and supposed sympathizers, among at least 100,000 people estimated to have been hastily shot and dumped into makeshift trenches. Declassified records show U.S. officers were present at one killing field and that at least one U.S. officer sanctioned another mass political execution.

The AP has reported that declassified U.S. military documents show U.S. Army officers took photos of the assembly line-style executions outside the central city of Daejeon, where the commission believes between 3,000 and 7,000 people were shot and dumped into mass graves in early July 1950.

Other once-secret files show that a U.S. Army lieutenant colonel reported giving approval to the killing of 3,500 political prisoners by a South Korean army unit he was advising in Busan, if the North Koreans approached that southern port city, formerly spelled Pusan.

The files show the U.S. command was aware in other ways as well of the organized bloodbaths.



This undated photo released by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Republic of Korea shows excavation team members, journalists and family survivors viewing skulls and other human bones at a site in Oegongri, 170 miles southeast of Seoul, South Korea.




Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081206/ap_on_re_as/as_korea_mass_executions

---

The horrific story should be read - it gives a terrible picture of what is hidden in classified U.S. files - including that U.S. Army officers were taking photos of the mass executions.

Disturbing.

[Judi Lynn]

1. Another article, published November 15: South Korea owns up to brutal past

South Korea owns up to brutal past

http://www.smh.com.au/ffximage/2008/11/14/southkoreataejon_wideweb__470x333,0.jpg

Kept secret … a man turns his head to those about to kill him during
the murder of thousands of prisoners by South Korea at Taejon in 1950.

Hamish McDonald Asia-Pacific Editor
November 15, 2008

Page 1 of 2

Out of the competing barrages of propaganda that have shrouded the 1950-53 Korean War, we are finally getting conclusive admissions that some of the worst atrocities, blamed at the time on the enemy, were in fact committed by our side - and we knew it.

The commission is the legacy ofRoh Moo-hyun, the former human rights lawyer and political liberal who was South Korea's president for five years until February. It was set up in December 2005, and operates with a staff of 240 and a budget of $US19 million ($29.7 million) a year, with the daunting task of opening up a century of hidden history. This covers the Korean resistance to the 1910-45 Japanese annexation of the country, political oppression during the postwar occupation when the Americans and Russians set up rival regimes in their zones, the Korean War, and the succession ofright-wing and military dictatorships that lasted in South Korea until the late 1980s.

The massacres of civilians during the Korean War are the most shocking to read about. The commission is working through no less than 1200 cases, including about 215 incidents in which US and allied air forces strafed groups of refugees and other civilians. The victims total 100,000, which the commission says is a conservative estimate.

~snip~
The massacres of civilians during the Korean War are the most shocking to read about. The commission is working through no less than 1200 cases, including about 215 incidents in which US and allied air forces strafed groups of refugees and other civilians. The victims total 100,000, which the commission says is a conservative estimate.

One of the worst incidents preceded the Korean War, in 1948, when the new Syngman Rhee government installed in Seoul by the United States ordered its army to suppress a leftist revolt on Cheju Island. About 30,000 local people were gunned down.

By early 1950 Rhee had about 30,000 alleged communists in his jails, and had about 300,000 suspected sympathisers enrolled in an official "re-education" movement known as the Bodo League. When Kim Il-sung's communist army attacked from the North in June that year, retreating South Korean forces executed the prisoners, along with many Bodo League members.

More:
http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/south-korea-owns-up-to-brutal-past/2008/11/14/1226318928410.html

[ksimons]

3. unspeakable -

... thanks for posting - had not seen that article.

[Judi Lynn]

4. Neither had I before seeing yours, and tried to find more.

So glad you posted the first story on this horrendous reality.

There have been rumbles coming out regarding Korea for several years in reference to killing civilians, but they always seemed to get swept under the carpet without anyone paying much attention to them.

Hoping THIS one will get the attention it by god deserves!

People need to wake up, and find out just what the hell has been going ON all this time they were up to their eyebrows in their american dreams. The rest of the world was going through pure shrieking hell.

[Faith No More]

26. Several years ago, I woke up one morning

and sat on the edge of my bed and realized that everything I had ever been told about my country was a lie. It wasn't so much what they taught me in school, it was what they didn't teach me. We have it pounded into our heads at an early age that this is the greatest country on earth. A shining beacon of freedom and hope in an otherwise dark and sinister world. I held this as truth for much of my life, never realizing how much blood our nation has on its hands. So many lives.........so many lies.......god sometimes I despise this place..........

[sansatman]

31. Killing hope...

"If you flip over the rock of American foreign
policy of the past century, this is what crawls out...

invasions ... bombings ... overthrowing
governments ... suppressing movements
for social change ... assassinating
political leaders ... perverting
elections ... manipulating labor unions ...
manufacturing "news" ... death squads ...
torture ... biological warfare ...
depleted uranium ... drug trafficking ...
mercenaries ...

It's not a pretty picture.
It is enough to give imperialism a bad name".




http://www.killinghope.org/

[CANDO]

37. It's called "American Exceptionalism"

And the right adheres to it religiously. In fact, Sarah Palin mentioned it at least once during the recent campaign. It was either during the RNC or in her debate with Biden. According to my right-wing brother, you can't possibly believe your country has ever done anything but good in this world. Very disturbing stuff. It's where the right comes up with their "why do you hate America" bullshit.

[DB1]

2. When will we learn? When we quit glorifying war and let the TRUTH be told.

I won't hold my breath.

[UpInArms]

5. each of us will die on our feet or on our knees

I shall die looking death in eye

whosoever has the bullet in their gun

they shall die a thousand deaths

[MadMaddie]

6. This is one of the reasons why it was so important for Obama to

win.

These roundups of so called leftists and supposed sympathizers were intellectuals and those who opposed a rogue government started with the ostrazization of these groups. Sound familiar?

Vietnam did the same thing after the US pulled out, the Khmer Rouge murdered millions of supposed sympathizers were intellectuals..

Add your additional Regime or dicatorship here.....

That's right the last 8 years were showing the very signs that led to the above massacres. Propaganda pushed out to a pliant media, no matter how ridiculous, mocking and villifying any group that did not conform to * doctrine of war, corporations and greed. Any intellectual professional that were in lead governmental positions were pushed out and replaced with unqualified yes men/women.

FEMA
Coal Industry
EPA
Come on you can add more....

Oh and lets not forget Blackwater and other military/police contractors who were starting to be used in American domestic affairs not just wars...

Katrina....

If Obama was not elected this country was ripe for a cleansing...I have always thought that * wanted a Nobel class and then the rest of us as Serfs. No middle class, no buying power, no Unions, nothing.....

That's all.....

[Art_from_Ark]

58. The Khmer Rouge were in Cambodia, not Vietnam

It was the Vietnamese army that actually invaded Cambodia and ousted Pol Pot and his Khmer Rouge thugs

[bemildred]

7. "The end justifies the means."

Same old, same old. Except it always turns out the means were the ends, just like always.

[bertman]

8. Rhee and his U.S. backers were scared to death the anti-government forces in South Korea

would be a fifth column against them and wreak havoc inside South Korea while the North Koreans and Chinese drove their armies south.

This news is not surprising. Had the South Koreans been overrun by the Communists there would have been a bloodbath of epic proportions.

Just goes to show why diplomacy and negotiations are ALWAYS preferrable to war.

[Truth2Tell]

9. So do you think these actions were justifiable?

Maybe Rhee and his U.S. backers were scared to death of a fifth column because together they had been acting like fascist thugs to the people of South Korea? And how do you know what kind of bloodbath would have resulted from a communist victory? Oh, right, you don't. What we do know is that a bloodbath did result from this U.S complicity.

Your post really sounds like an attempt to justify these killings. Just sayin'.

[DissedByBush]

16. I'm trying to think

of a communist victory that didn't result in a bloodbath. Vietnam, Soviet Union, Cambodia, China, Cuba...

[Alamuti Lotus]

17. as opposed to the bloodless capitalist miracles..

in Haiti, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Saudi Arabia, Chile...

[Judi Lynn]

19. Don't forget Argentina, and the 30,000 dead "leftists" slaughtered by the military junta,

with Kissinger's blessings, and counsel.

Never forget the many death flights taking political prisoners away, throwing them out over the ocean, rivers, lakes, even dropping them onto mountain tops.

Never forget the women in white who are the grandmothers of the children whose mothers were imprisoned, forced to give birth, then the children handed away to various military and police officials like yearly bonuses, or Christmas gifts, while their mothers were also chained together, taken in the airplanes, and thrown out over the ocean.

The grandmothers themselves were also terrorized when the right-wing government sent people to infiltrate their groups, attend their meetings and set up the more outspoken ones for assassination, even human rights workers, like French nuns who tried to help.

Never forget the Argentinian priests who actually attended the torture sessions and threatened the prisoners while they were being injured. At least one of them was tried last year or so.

As for Haiti, so very recent in our memories, since we were all watching in dread at D.U., with one of DU's finest posters EVER, Tinoire herself being closely connected to that island, how great was it when _Bush not only armed, trained former death squad members next door in the Domincan Republic until it was time to turn them loose against their fellow citizens in Haiti, but also surrounded the island with the U.S. Navy, and intercepted all the boats of terrified Haitians trying to escape the bloodbath, turning them all back to be slaughtered the moment they arrived.

Chile? My God. Guatemala, over 200,000 citizens SLAUGHTERED? Genocide? Torture by S.O.A.-trained monsters, supervised by C.I.A., as was American lawyer Jennifer Harbury's husband?

Simply unbelievable whenever we are visited by people trying to tell us the really rough stuff has been handed out by leftists. That's a hot one, isn't it? Sheer disgust, repulsion beyond description.

[DissedByBush]

30. You miss the point

I'm trying to think of a communist one that *didn't* result in a bloodbath. I can think of many capitalist ones that did, but not one communist one. Your victims number in the tens of millions.

[Truth2Tell]

36. "your victims?"

What a disgusting post.

I guess that makes the victims of fascism "yours."

[DissedByBush]

54. Look at the parent

Poster seems to think that a bloodbath would not have happened had the communists taken over. History shows the number of dead would have likely been much higher. This doesn't excuse what happened, but it does show a naive outlook on the history of communism.

[Truth2Tell]

57. So you refer to the victims of communism as "your victims"

to a DU poster? Why are you still here?

[DissedByBush]

59. I was talking to people who were defending communists

So that's the phrasing I used. Apologies if you yourself realized that a takeover by the communists would have resulted in the usual bloodbath.

[Arctic Dave]

40. I'm all ears. Please enlighten me.

[DissedByBush]

55. Where do I start?

Russia, Ukraine, China, Vietnam, Ethiopia, Nicaragua, Hungary, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Cuba, North Korea, East Germany, Cambodia...

The death toll may reach a hundred million. This is not by accident, or by dictators using communism in name only, but by design as part of the philosophy of some of the communism's greatest figures.

"We would be deceiving both ourselves and the people if we concealed from the masses the necessity of a desperate, bloody war of extermination, as the immediate task of the coming revolutionary action." -- V.I. Lenin

In short, "First, kill everyone who disagrees with us."

[juno jones]

46. you've made it to 402. Good show.

'Your victims' eh?

[LongTomH]

32. Two wrongs don't make a right!

That's still true no matter what math you're using.

[Truth2Tell]

35. The biggest bloodbath in Vietnam happened before the

communist victory.

[DissedByBush]

56. It was during a war

Bloodbaths tend to happen then. And after the communists won, when there were no Americans or French to fight, when there was no more war, then went on their own killing spree for communist ideology.

[IsItJustMe]

24. That is exactly what that sounds like. Sad some people think this way. This type of mentality

justified just about anything. Had to destroy the village to save it. God help us with attitudes like this.

[bertman]

47. Truth2Tell, there is no "justifying" these killings. I was simply stating a fact

As far as what kind of bloodbath might have taken place I think history will back up the fact that hostile communist takeovers of other states usually included massive "purges" of anyone the state felt might be disloyal to the new regime. By purge I mean slaughter.

These types of mass killings are often par for the course NO MATTER WHICH IDEOLOGY prevails; although, after WWII the Allied countries who were representative governments (U.S., Britain, Canada, Australia) were far less repressive than the Russians in their treatment of the occupied nations they conquered.

Anyone who had watched the rise of the Russian empire or the Communist Chinese nation had a pretty good notion of what to expect if their existing non-communist government were toppled by a Communist regime. Murdering thousands or hundreds of thousands of one's citizens is a despicable act of horror and one that all civilized peoples should oppose. Certainly there were options other than murder that should have been used in Korea. I am not condoning what they did or what our military representative apparently was party to.

We cannot undo history. We should never romanticize carnage and mass murder for the sake of nationalism, but the fact is that people often do horrific deeds when they feel they are faced with certain death or slavery under an invading or occupying regime.

As I have read some of the intervening posts since you and I made ours it has been stated how our own U.S. imperial power has been wielded in an equally merciless and genocidal fashion. This has happened because we have been shielded from the realities of life in the Empire by our corporate media collaborators. Every attempt by other nations to throw off the yoke of U.S. domination has resulted in the same types of genocidal slaughter that happened in Korea, Vietnam, Cambodia, China, Indonesia, Pakistan and India, as well as numerous other countries. It is a horrific legacy of the struggle for power and dominance on our planet. It began thousands of years ago and continues unabated to this day.

I hope that we have taken a great first step toward changing that awful reality by electing Barack Obama to be President. Time will tell.

[Truth2Tell]

48. Thanks for the thoughtful reply bertman.

Maybe it was the timing and context of your remark, and not the veracity, that seemed misplaced.

edit to add: misplaced... much like your profile apparently. :)

[bertman]

52. Truth2Tell, thanks for alerting me to my missing profile. I had no idea it was missing.

Anyway, I updated it.

Peace.:-)

[IndianaGreen]

12. Our government has lied to us about the Cold War

Why wouldn't it lie about the Korean War?

[ronnie624]

27. From the article:

Similarly, the North Korean occupiers and their southern comrades at times killed policemen and others associated with the rightist regime after summary "trials." But the commission says petitions relating to executions of leftists outnumber by 6-to-1 those dealing with right-wingers' deaths.

That was his experience in Namyangju, said Kim Jong-chol.

"When the people from the other side (North Korea) came here, they didn't kill many people," he said, contrasting that with "indiscriminate" killing by southern authorities.

[freedomnorth]

50. Yes the bourgeoisie is always a smaller class compared to proletariat. n/t.

[jwirr]

10. I am glad my uncle is not here to see this. He was upset enough

about the way families sold a child into prostitution to support the rest of the family. He was not in any way happy about what he had been sent to fight for in Korea.

[OwnedByFerrets]

13. The same way families are selling their children in Iraq into

prostitution in order to survive. It happened 50 yrs ago and it is happening today. Nothing has changed except the passage of time.

[jwirr]

29. Absolutely, and if we do not start concentrating on real issues instead

of war it will only get worse. From here on out the future must deal with real life problems not the arguments over who gets what. We are in this together and the sooner we see that the better. Unfortunately, I think survival of the fittest will always rule us rather than our heads.

[freedomnorth]

49. Just wait 50 years from now and you see same kind headlines about mass graves in Iraq. n/t.

[davidpdx]

11. This is probably one of the few positive things to come of Roh's Administration

Given he was a mediocre president and had a very low approval rating throughout his presidency, this may end up being what he was remember for (that along with being the only president ever impeached and acquitted).

We'll see if President Lee allows this to continue to go on or not. His administration seems to be reversing almost everything they can from the last 10 years (Roh's predecessor was also a liberal)

[balantz]

14. Mass murderers hold reign over this country and over the world. n/t

[exman]

15. more than shame

:cry: The world is not safe for those who don't toe the corporate party line. Question...why are 20,00 troops being assigned to continental US for "crowd control and "other" purposes.? Expecting a disaster of some kind? It can't happen here!!!??? disturbing and frightening. Sometimes I miss being ignorant,my conscience bothers me because I feel somehow responsible for the actions of MY government.

[wroberts189]

18. Leftist (or liberals) and children ..MURDERED IN COLD BLOOD

execution style ... sanctioned by our own officers.


just f*cking wonderful.

[Judi Lynn]

21. As a former death-squad member in U.S.-bankrolled Colombia has recently testified,

in a massacre they perpetrated upon a Colombian village, with Colombian military participation, they found three young people, girl and boys hiding in their house, and cut their throats at the officer's orders. He told them that they would only grow up to become FARC's, anyway, it's best to get rid of them now.

Stories ongoing of entire villages laid waste in Colombia, many after intensive torture and terror session, during which people are killed by chain saws, machetes, etc., and thrown into rivers, or mass graves.

These people are being killed in a country which receives the THIRD LARGEST FOREIGN AID PACKAGE IN THE WORLD. They are doing this on our hard earned tax dollars. These massacres have been common knowledge for years and years. There's NO WAY _Bush is unaware of any of this.

[puebloknot]

20. This horrifies me in a very personal way. When I was five, I lived in Taejon.

I'm not sure if Taejon is just another way to spell Daejeon. Taejon is south of Seoul, I recall.

My father was in the U.S. Army, and as I understand it, part of a UN program to train South Korean soldiers.

Because it was so unusual in my young life, I remember well my one year there, before we were evacuated because tensions were heating up. A Korean couple worked for us as "houseboy and housegirl," and they had a five-year-old son named Kim who was my playmate. I remember waving goodbye to him from the back of a military truck when we left.

When I was 30, I read that there was a horrific battle in Taejon during the Korean War, and I've always wondered if Kim survived it. He might be one of those skeletons in that ditch.


My god, how terible and how sad. Every war, no matter how *justified* is a blow to the human spirit which reverberates forever through time and space, and wounds every soul, living or dead.

[politicalmajority]

39. You Are Right Daejeon Is Taejon's Current Spelling

Some of the Korean language's English spellings have changed over the decades.

I've read some of the recently released accounts of those mass killings in South Korea and none of them - whether the mass killings occurred in the hands of the South Korean/U.S. military or the North Korean/Chinese military - are hardly justified. They are tragic consequences of extreme ideological divisions between the left and the right.

The unfortunate thing is that two decades after the Berlin Wall fell, the DMZ continues to exist and there are deep divisions within South Korea between the left wing and the extreme right wing. And the South Korean right wings are some of the most extreme in the world - some of the worst Cold Warriors and the most reckless neo-liberal free-market economics disciples in the world.

The current South Korean administration and ruling party are right wings. They are little too rigid against North Korea and they are hellbent neo-liberal free-market economics disciples. And as always, South Korea's right-wing Christians - influenced by American right-wing pastors and became worse in South Korea over time - are fully supportive of them.

The next National Assembly election in which South Koreans can unseat right-wing politicians is 2011. The next presidential election in which South Koreans can elect another Kim Dae-jung is 2012.

[bean fidhleir]

22. There needs to be a new Nürnberg Tribunal

And plenty of US citizens need to stand in the dock, and be condemned.

[No Elephants]

23. Nuremberg Trials 1945-1949. Korean War 1950-1953. Seems as though the lesson was not learned.

[Blue_Tires]

41. but it's not genocide if in the end it benefits american policy...

:sarcasm:

[Joanne98]

25. This pre-dates Chile. They've been mass murderers longer than we thought.

[L0oniX]

28. American military terrorists ...we are imperial terrorists!

[ooglymoogly]

33. Right wingers are the same soulless evil no matter what rock you look under.

They are the evil, rotten load we have to cary. If the world had not been bogged down with bogus religion to cover this kind of evil some of us would be living in the stars by now. Every time you look under a RW place you will find evil; the more in depth, the more evil.

[indepat]

34. Keeping the world safe for democracy

:P

[HEyHEY]

38. When did this first come out? I seem to remember something last year too.

[JustAnotherGen]

42. Who would stand trial?

Would it the enlisted men? The officers?

What about in Vietnam - Are we really willing to try men who were drafted into a war they may not have believed in?

[Vattel]

45. anyone who commits war crimes

whether they were officers or enlisted or whatever should be prosecuted.

[JustAnotherGen]

51. Thanks - I won't support that

Sorry - my dad was Green Beret. He was also college educated. But unfortunately a black man from the Deep South in the late 1950's and there were no options for him with his degree other than the US Army. He did those 'things' when he couldn't even vote in his own country without being castrated.

Can we also hang Robert Byrd, Dem - WV from a tree for being a Klans Man? Since they committed atrocities and horrors against American people?

I'll give up my dad if our party with give up Byrd for sacrifice.

[NOW tense]

43. This is just the blame Amorica first crowd.

We all know might is right. There isn't any documentation that the U.S. has been involved in something like this South of the Equator either.....

:sarcasm:

[DissedByBush]

60. Admit it, there is a large "blame America first" contingent out there

A lot of people living in this country really think America is a horrible country, responsible for all the evils in the world. They never recognize any good we do.

But the opposite of that is the head-in-the-sand right-wingers who refuse to believe our country has ever done any wrong even if you show them clear evidence to the contrary.

[justinaforjustice]

44. Horrific And Very Important to Remember Right Now.

We cannot let the war criminals of the Bush-Cheney administration go without trial and punishment for what they have done in the name of the United States. It is too late to punish those who condoned these Korean massacres, but we must publicly expose and punish all the contemporary violators of human rights and international law.

[mikekohr]

53. 'YOUR HEROES ARE NOT OUR HEROES," -Tall Oak- Narragansett

Such massacres and inhumanity have been a part of our history since 1492 and is part of the nature of being Human.

read more at: http://www.brotherhooddays.com/HEROES.html


clip:

THE MILITIA MEN: Remembered as common men, as hallowed heroes that rose up to overthrow the oppression of English rule, they have other legacies as well.
On March 7, 1782, a group of Pennsylvania Militia Men under the command of Captain David Williamson, surrounded a village of Delaware Indians near today's town of Gnadenhutten, Ohio. The Delaware had converted to the United Brethren Church, (Moravian), a pacifist Christian faith. Staying true to their new-found faith, the Delaware had refused to take sides in the Revolutionary War, an action that made them friends on neither side of the struggle.
The Militia Men bound the captives, separated the women and children from the men, and placed the groups in two buildings of the village. That night the Militia Men took a vote that determined the fate of the Delaware. Learning of their doom, the Delaware spent the night singing hymns and saying prayers. The next morning, March 8th, 1782, the Militia Men led the Delaware in pairs to a small cabin where they forced their bound captives to their knees, and crushed their skulls with a mallet. Two young boys, playing dead, were scalped but survived. They alone lived to tell the story of the slaughter of their families.


The White Moravian brethren of the slaughtered Delaware, erected a 37 foot marble shaft that is inscribed, "Here triumphed in death ninety Christian Indians. March 8, 1782."
For the 28 men, 29 women, and 39 children, butchered at the hands of the Militia Men, this shaft silently bears witness to a forgotten moment in our struggle for independence from English tyranny. 56). 60).
http://www.ohiohistorycentral.org/entry.php?rec=499

mike kohr