We learn from the past that an individual death of a human often changes history. Sometimes it sparks severe international conflicts, and sometimes it changes the relationships between countries. The death of two South Korean teenage girls is becoming one of these historical cases.
South Korea is now experiencing an unprecedented burst of anti-America sentiments. The United States has been South Korea’s best friend since the Korean War. The United States was a faithful supporter of Korea’s democratic development, or so most Koreans have believed so far.
But recently Koreans wonder whether their belief might be wrong. Why are South Koreans rethinking their friendship with United States? Why the recent anti-Americanism? What happened last summer, and what is happening now?
On the morning of June 13, 2002, a U.S. military vehicle hit and killed two 14-year-old Korean girls on a village road that was about 10 miles away from Seoul, the capital of the country. Crushed by the caterpillar of the 50-ton AVLM (Armored Vehicle Launched Mine Clearing Line Charge), the two girls died instantly.
After an initial investigation, the U.S. military announced that the tragedy was just an accident. But many Koreans did not agree that the driver and commander of the vehicle, Sergeant Mark Walker and Sergeant Fernando Nino, and other officials at the accident, were properly investigated. Such a disagreement stemmed from the fact that the Korean authority could not participate in the investigation of the accident.
The Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA), adopted in 1966, provides that the U.S. military has the right to try U.S. soldiers accused of crimes while on duty, while Korea is virtually denied jurisdiction over them. The Korean authority is virtually excluded from both the investigation and the trial in such cases. Pressed by angry public opinion, the Korean prosecution asked the U.S. military to cooperate for its investigation of the involved soldiers, but the request was denied.
The U.S. military charged the two soldiers with negligent homicide in the deaths of the girls. And both were acquitted in November by a U.S. Army court-martial in Korea. The jury, consisting of Army officers and sergeants, found them not guilty. Several days later the two left Korea for undefined reasons.
Many Koreans were angry at this result. They believed that the trial was not fair. Even some Americans living in Korea criticized the trial, saying that many questions had not been answered.
This trial triggered a series of Anti-American demonstrations in which the general public participated. Some radical college students tried to enter the U.S. military base to demonstrate. But many peaceful demonstrations have attracted more participants. An idea for a candlelight vigil, suggested by an individual on the Internet, spread to reach 15 thousand last Saturday. For this vigil, people gather voluntarily almost every evening on a street in downtown Seoul.
Twenty Roman Catholic priests began a hunger strike a block from the U.S. Embassy to protest the acquittals of the two soldiers. Six of them had their heads shaved in protest. Some celebrities such as movie stars and singers took part in the protest. A popular singer dedicated his concert tour to the deaths of the two girls. Numerous civic and religious organizations took part in the protests to the trial and acquittal of the U.S. soldiers.
What the U.S. and Korean government officials worry about is that recent anti-American sentiment will spread over the general public regardless of age and political ideologies. In the past, the questioning of U.S. relations with Korea was regarded to be just radical college students’ opinion. But the two girls’ deaths and the alleged unfair trial make such opinion popular among ordinary Koreans.
A newspaper in Seoul analyzed sentiments after this accident, and anti-American sentiment is expanding from the young adults in their 20s to both older and younger generations. Many experts in Seoul point out more and more young people, such as teenagers, think that the United States may not be their friend.
President Bush apologized on Nov. 28 for the deaths of the girls indirectly, through the American ambassador in Seoul. But Koreans want a direct apology, something similar to that of Clinton’s apology to Japan in 2000. The anti-U.S. protesters also demand that the SOFA treaty covering the status of the U.S. troops stationed in Korea be revised to give Korea courts more jurisdiction over them.
Under SOFA, the U.S. soldiers stationed in Korea are immune from criminal prosecution if they commit crimes against the Korean people. According to Korean government report, about 600 crimes were committed on average per year by the U.S. military personnel in Korea. Of these, only 3.8 percent, on average, have been prosecuted in Korean courts.
One might say that it was just one of those traffic accidents that happen everyday all around the world. Why are Koreans so angry for that? If the U.S. army soldiers who were involved in the accident had been properly investigated and punished for negligence of their duties, most Koreans would have thought that it was a terrible accident and prayed for both the girls and the soldiers. But this was not in this case.
Koreans were excluded from the whole process from the investigation to the trial. There were a lot of questions after the U.S. Army’s investigation briefing, but none of them was answered in the trial. Many Koreans believe that this situation resulted from the unequal relationship between their country and the United States.
Kwangjun Heo ([email protected].) is a journalism graduate student.
