----- Original Message ----- From: Rick Rozoff <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Friday, June 09, 2000 8:20 AM Subject: [STOPNATO] Anti-U.S. Sentiments Rise In Seoul STOP NATO: NO PASARAN! - HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.COM http://www.iht.com/IHT/TODAY/FRI/IN/seoul2.html Paris, Friday, June 9, 2000 Anti-U.S. Sentiments Rise in Seoul 'Special Drama' Depicts American Soldiers Taking Part in Massacre -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- By Don Kirk International Herald Tribune -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- SEOUL - The young foreign actors, wearing American military uniforms and hefting American weapons, were hardly prepared for the scenes they were told to enact. ''We were playing the parts of American soldiers preventing peasants from going into a village,'' said Jakub Svoboda, 24, a graduate student from Prague. ''In the end we fired on the peasants. It was very brutal. There were scenes of Americans killing children.'' The film, a ''special drama'' that the state-owned Korea Broadcasting System plans to air next month, reflects a growing mood of anti-Americanism in a society faced with new questions about the American military presence here. ''Is Korea a colony of the United States?'' asks a pamphlet distributed by militant students near the Myongdong Cathedral in central Seoul. ''Why don't we retrieve our ownership of our own country?'' On the slope leading to the cathedral, students shout, ''Expel the Americans'' and ''Americans, Go Home'' against a backdrop of photographs purporting to show American participation in the executions of South Korean communists in the Korean War. While such displays remain small compared with mass demonstrations that have shaken the capital in previous years, observers sense a pattern of rising sentiment against the presence of 37,000 U.S. troops pledged to defend the South under a joint U.S.-South Korean command led by an American general. Revelations of massacres by U.S. troops in the opening weeks of the Korean War, protests against the use of a bombing range by American warplanes and negotiations over the right of South Korean authorities to hold U.S. soldiers charged with crimes, all provide fuel for demands for withdrawal of American troops. ''A lot of things are coming up now,'' an American official said. ''It's clearly not the anti-Americanism of the 1970s or '80s, but it's always combustible.'' The fear is that protests could expand as a result of President Kim Dae Jung's summit meeting next week with the North Korean leader, Kim Jong Il, in Pyongyang. Even though the talks are not likely to produce any specific results, in the view of some observers, the feeling of optimism for the future of inter-Korean relations may help to create an atmosphere in which foreign troops appear irrelevant. Against this background, officials fear the repercussions of any incident. The decision of the pilot of a U.S. Air Force A-10 plane on May 8 to drop six 500-pound bombs on a South Korean training range after his plane ran into engine trouble forced U.S. command last week to suspend use of the range. Even so, citizens of the nearby village of Maehyang-ri, along with militant students, are demanding the permanent closure of the facility along with compensation for damages that a joint U.S.-Korean team said did not occur. ''How can U.S. soldiers investigate their own criminal activities?'' asked a pamphlet distributed by demonstrators attempting to break through the range's fence. ''How can the Korean government try to cover up the crimes of the Americans and suppress our protesters?'' Protesters are just as touchy about the right of South Korean authorities to hold and try Americans accused of crimes against civilians. The murder in February of a South Korean bar hostess, allegedly by a U.S. soldier, has turned into a cause clbre in the South Korean media while U.S. and South Korean officials prepare to negotiate a new status-of-forces agreement. South Koreans are demanding that the United States give up its right, under the current agreement, to hold soldiers accused of crimes through both their trials and subsequent appeals. Some analysts argue that the central issue is not anti-Americanism but an assertion of basic rights. ''There is not increasing anti-Americanism,'' said Kim Byung Kook, a political science professor at Korea University. ''It's about the rights of citizens and the responsibility of government.'' The most emotional issue, though, may be the massacres that U.S. soldiers apparently committed in the village of No Gun Ri - and reports that American officers witnessed the executions by South Koreans of those alleged to be North Korean partisans. It was the No Gun Ri massacre that inspired the Korea Broadcasting System docudrama portraying alleged atrocities. The drama was originally planned to air June 25, the 50th anniversary of the North Korean invasion of South Korea. ''Our aim is not to instigate anti-Americanism,'' said Kim Do Kyun, one of the directors. ''We only want to present the truth.'' Nonetheless, he said, the Ministry of National Defense did not cooperate, and the broadcasters had to postpone the initial airing a week. The title was also changed, dropping the words, ''50th Anniversary of Korean War.'' ''They know the sensitivities,'' Mr. Kim said. ''They don't want to cause unnecessary trouble.'' __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! 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