People's Democracy

THE US president Clinton's recent refusal to explicity apologise for the murder of Korean civilians by US military forces during the Korean War is another lost moment of desperately needed "American" honesty.

The US inquiry and Clinton’s statement of mere "regret" was focussed on only one crime scene at a particular location. It implied that the deaths were unfortunate rather than part of a systematic pattern to murder cumulatively as many as three million civilians. Careful examination of the empirical record reveals multiple dozens, perhaps a couple hundred, massacre sites at various locations throughout the entire Korean peninsula where malicious intent was incontrovertible. There was an overwhelming pattern of systematic targetting of the Korean people, with no serious effort to distinguish "civilians" from "combatants."

This should come as no surprise. Beginning in 1945, the US record in Korea is horrendous. It would behove our political leaders, and academicians, to learn an authentic history of Korea. Simply relying on popular comic book demonisation of North Koreans, without recognising the US role in creating the conditions that led to the war in the first place, continues a tragic disservice to history. When the Japanese were finally defeated on August 15, 1945, the vast majority of the people who resided on the Korean peninsula immediately began to celebrate, then organise for a return to Korean sovereignty after 40 years of hated foreign occupation.

When the US immediately insisted on turning the peninsula into a Cold War arena with the Russians, people throughout Korea organised resistance, at first non-violent, later in the form of a guerrilla war. The US created a puppet government, similar to what it later did in Vietnam, and oversaw between 1945-50 the systematic repression and murder of hundreds of thousands of Koreans who rightfully demanded independence. The US military and political policy to this day does not understand this fundamental Korean history which continues one of the most tragic chapters of the twentieth century.

During the Korean "hot" war, General Douglas MacArthur ordered that US Air Forces "destroy every means of communication, every installation, factory, city and village" south of the Yalu River boundary with China. Massive saturation bombing, especially with napalm and other incendiaries, alone murdered perhaps 2.5 million civilians. Major General William B Kean of the 25th Infantry Division ordered "civilians in the combat zone" to be considered as enemy.

The famous July 25, 1950 Fifth Air Force memorandum to General Timberlake declared that adherence to army orders to "strafe all civilian refugees" have been "complied with." USA Today (October 1, 1999) and the New York Times (December 29, 1999) reported from declassified US Air Force documents the "deliberate" strafing and bombing of Korean "civilians" and "people in white." In the August 21, 1950 issue of Life, John Osborne reported that US officers ordered troops to fire upon clusters of civilians.

US racism has been an unfortunate but tragic feature of the origins of the US American Republic and has substantially contributed to the cruelty of its long imperial history under the rubric of "American manifest destiny." Directed towards the Korean (and later Vietnamese) people, who we regularly called "gooks," racism helped justify commission of a gruesome, almost unlimited and careless war, including use of germ warfare and the regular threat of dropping nuclear bombs.

The highest law officer in the land, President Truman's second attorney general, J Howard McGrath, referred to the Korean as "rodents." The massive saturation bombings in World War II in Germany and Japan had been conducted with no pretense of striking only military targets. They legitimised bombing with no concern for civilians, despite explicit prohibition by the US Field Manual 27-10 Rules of Land Warfare. These indiscriminate saturation bombings were routinely and relentlessly continued in Korea.

The question continues to beg: when will the United States face up to its long history of crimes against humanity, thereby revealing that a genuine humility has replaced US arrogance? Failing that, the lives of all the people of the world, including our own, are endangered by an arrogance continually nourished by insidious racism that seeks to spread its unwanted "neo-liberal" values. The Americans way of life inevitably creates rage among billions of people who resent the forced imposition of US values and policies.

An apology by the United States, followed by an offer of appropriate reparations to the Korean people, would be a tremendous new omen for a peaceful world based on mutual respect and justice.