Thursday 30 October 2014

New Materials Reveal GI Crimes in S. Korea


The DPRK State Bureau of Archives has recently made public 87 pieces of data disclosing US military atrocities in south Korea.
The data were collected from the US army documents which were captured during the Korean war and they give a glimpse of GI crimes committed against the locals between January 1948 and August 1949 in south Korea.
Most of the data are the records of criminal cases dealt by the US criminal investigation detachment. They offer details of the cases including names, affiliations and military mark numbers of American criminals, victims’ names and addresses, testimonies of witnesses and conclusions of the investigators.
The records show that American soldiers did not regard the Koreans as human beings.
Document CID 1229 tells that on February 16 1948 private Arthur T. Lebrum (RA 12281686, APO 6, 6th Engineer Battalion) bayoneted local Kim Chong Myong (male, aged 39, living in Woo-dong 552, Haeundae, Pusan) in the body, hands and arms and said to his fellows that he hated Koreans.
Record 25 CID 431 says that private Eugene G. Miller (RA 162344429, APO 7, Headquarters Company, 7th Infantry Division) shot to death Lee So Han (aged 49, 3rd Block, Wonhyo-ro, Yongsan-gu, Seoul) without any reason on June 15 1948.
Record 25 CID 559 vividly reveals the crime of an American soldier steeped in misanthropy. According to it, private second class Everett Higgs (white man, aged 22, RA 35813083, APO 7, 7th Signal Company) beat Lee Chun Ja (female, aged 18, 2nd Street, Hangang-ro, Yongsan-gu, Seoul) and stabbed her in the neck, before bragging to his fellows that he stabbed her 14 times.
The records contain all kinds of GI crimes including sexual assault on minors, rape, murder, robbery, violence and destruction and plunder of property, laying bare the true colors of US troops in south Korea.

No comments: