Posted on 12/14/2002 4:59:56 AM PST by AmericanInTokyo
*(Crowd View, US Embassy Protection, Wide Angle Aerial View in front of Seoul City Hall an hour ago, General scenes)
By Bill Tarrant (UPDATE)
SEOUL (Reuters) - Tens of thousands of South Koreans railed against the U.S. military and mourned two girls killed by American soldiers in a road accident by holding a candle lit march that turned central Seoul into a sea of light on Saturday.
Many in the crowd of mostly young people chanted slogans demanding a withdrawal of the U.S. military presence aimed at deterring aggression from North Korea, even as tensions rose with Pyongyang vowing earlier in the week to resume a nuclear programme.
The protesters, holding votive candles and singing songs, demanded that two U.S. soldiers undergo a new trial for the June road accident. A U.S. military tribunal acquitted the pair of homicide charges after their armoured vehicle crushed two teenagers during a training exercise.
Local media estimated the crowd in the main avenue leading to the presidential Blue House at up to 100,000, with 10,500 riot police deployed to keep them from marching to the U.S. embassy.
The demonstration was peaceful, almost festive against the backdrop of buildings festooned with Christmas holiday decorations, with only a few minor scuffles reported.
"We announced this is the day of restoring our sovereignty," the Rev. Mun Jung-hyeon, a veteran protest leader, told Reuters Television. "We have been oppressed by U.S. troops for a long time, 58 years."
That is how long the United States has maintained a military presence in South Korea following the 1950-53 Korean War, which ended in an armed truce that has kept the two Korea's in a technical state of war ever since.
Saturday's demonstration was the biggest of almost 50 such protests since the accident and highlights the ambivalence many young South Koreans have about the 37,000 U.S. troops spread across nearly 100 installations in their country.
The troops are meant to deter North Korean aggression against the South. North Korea has some 10,000 artillery pieces and much of its 1.1 million strong army arrayed along the sealed border with the South less than an hour's drive from Seoul.
But the U.S. military presence is also highly visible in this densely populated nation of 48 million people and protests about training exercises disrupting civilian life have mounted in recent years.
The demonstrators want changes in the Status of Forces Agreement, governing the rights and conduct of U.S. forces in Korea, which currently requires U.S. soldiers charged with crimes while on duty to be tried in U.S. military tribunals.
The protests seek wider South Korean jurisdiction over U.S. servicemen.
NORTH KOREA NUCLEAR PROGRAMME
Saturday's rallies took place just ahead of Thursday's presidential election and at a time when North Korea's missile and nuclear capabilities have been thrust into the spotlight.
North Korea said on Thursday it was reactivating a nuclear power plant that is believed to be at the centre of a suspected, clandestine nuclear weapons programme.
That disclosure came after a North Korean cargo ship, containing 15 Scud missiles, was intercepted by Spain in the Arabian Sea on its way to Yemen. The ship, which was handed over to U.S. forces, was allowed to continue on its course.
Some protesters, their ranks swelled by university students on semester break, carried placards calling on the United States to sign a non-aggression pact with North Korea. Pyongyang is demanding such a pact in exchange for holding talks with Washington over its nuclear programme.
Others carried grisly photos of the schoolgirls' bodies sprawled on a roadside and demanded President George W. Bush "apologise directly to the Korean people" for the accident.
In a telephone conversation with South Korean President Kim Dae-jung on Friday to discuss the latest North Korean developments, Bush conveyed his "deep, personal sadness and regret" over the deaths.
The apology did not completely assuage the anger South Koreans have felt about the accident. "I don't believe it is a serious and sincere apology, for his words were not followed by action," said Rev. Mun.
This was no small affair in Seoul, South Korea, the capital of our ally, tonight (Asia Time).
And remind the ingrates in Seoul that had it not been for US blood spilt on their soil they would be eating roots like their North Korean cousins.
I want to see a picture of this guy. This sounds suspiciously like Jesse Jackson. He lost his franchise here and he can't resist the limelight.
IMO......South Korea is not worth the cost and America should remove all military presense from the penninsula.
If we were to announce our intention to vacate, some would cheer, but the majority of South Koreans would shudder at being left to the mercy of the voracious militant North.
Let Japan and China sort out the problem.
We have bigger fish to "fry" in the middle east!!
The hell with them then. Pull every single damn US soldier, sailor, airman, and Marine (except Embassy guards) out of South Korea. Let them stand on their own DMZ and watch Kim il Wackjob's boys dig tunnels underneath it to infiltrate their country.
Does this imbecile not realize that if it wasn't for us, he wouldn't even exist? His parents would've probably starved or been raped, tortured, and killed before he was even born, courtesy of the worker's paradise of the DPRK.
These guys make the French look grateful!
}:-)4
You can lecture the young people in the streets of Seoul (such as I did there a week ago), but I swear it DOES NOT RESONATE and it goes right past them. Pretty sad that this is the future. It is a shame a few US military guys just in from the 'hood or the trailer park, sent far away at 20, go out and ruin the goodwill for many others. The Korean press of course helps inflate things, too. They are licking their chops in Pyongyang over this, and KCNA devotes a lot of time to covering the demonstrations. Some of the student leaders and labour leaders are outright 'chuche' ideology socialist re-unifiers. They would be the first to be shot if the DPRK extended its reach down to Cheju island, for they would never be trusted for having sold out the Republic of Korea.
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