By International Action Center and Korea Truth Commission
CALL TO ACTION BY INTERNATIONAL ACTION CENTER AND KOREA TRUTH COMMISSION
People`s Investigation of U.S. War Crimes Against Korea Grows
International Grass Roots Groups Organize for June 23rd, 2001, NYC War Crimes Tribunal
DOES YOUR GROUP WANT TO BE LISTED AS AN ENDORSER?
14 Dec 2000
Since September of 1999, evidence of 160 instances of US led military attacks on Korean non-combatants during the Korean war have surfaced. Hundreds of thousands of children, women, and aged people are believed to have been massacred as a result of orders from U.S. military brass. Because of the right wing atmosphere whipped up during the McCarthy era, an anti-war response in the United States never came about, and these horrific crimes never reached the U.S mass media. Consequently, Washington and their long series of south Korean client regimes have been able to suppress the Korean people´s cry for justice.
On June 23rd, 2001 south Korean activists (including some who are survivors of such attacks), and Koreans from Japan, the United States and other Korean communities around the world, will meet in New York City to take part in a war crimes tribunal. The tribunal will be the culmination of a people´s investigation of the role of the US led military during the war. The investigation has included a series of trips to south Korea during which activists visited massacre sites, interviewed survivors, and saw evidence that refuted the U.S. contention that the numbers of those Korean civilians killed by US led troops during the war have been exaggerated, and that any killings were the result of panic or poor training of troops. They also attended demonstrations against the continued division of Korea and against the continued presence of 37,000 U.S. troops.
They will be joined by former US Attorney General Ramsey Clark and other progressive and anti war activists. Representatives from the 15 other countries that participated in the war will also be present. They will put the Washington DC war-makers on trial for their crimes against the Korean people.
TO ENDORSE THE CALL for the June 23rd War Crimes Tribunal e- mail iacenter@iacenter.org and type Korea War Crimes Tribunal in the subject line.
CALL TO ACTION
In September of 1999, the associated press began publishing a series of articles that were the results of a long investigation of an incident that took place at the south Korean village of NoGun-ri in July of 1950. Hundreds of villagers were pinned beneath a bridge for 3 days as US military forces strafed them from aircraft, raked them with machine gun fire, and fired mortars at them. It is believed that some 400 villagers were massacred. This My Lai-like episode was only the most prominent among many that were brought out by the AP in the ensuing months. There is evidence that the mass executions of perhaps 100,000 prisoners by the south Korean regime was done with the complicity of their sponsors in Washington DC. What emerged in the AP series and from other sources was not mistakes by panic stricken troops as the current US investigation of NoGun-ri implies but rather a systematic campaign of extermination that targeted the broad and progressive Korean resistance movement. This movement was fighting against the U.S. imposed division of their 5,000 year old culture, and against being colonized by the United States after they had fought so long and hard to be free of Japanese imperialism. Like the Palestinian Intifada, and like the people´s movement of Colombia today, the Korean people wanted self-determination.
The International Action Center, and the Korea Truth Commission to Investigate U.S. War Crimes have jointly called for this important war crimes tribunal in order to expose the true nature of the U.S. war against Korea. This call for action is not for the sake of posterity but to strengthen the worldwide struggle for self-determination today. What happened in Korea is scarcely different than the U.S. bombing of a pharmaceutical factory in August of 1998 in Sudan, or the carnage at the Highway of Death during the U.S. war against Iraq in 1991.
Only a people´s campaign in solidarity with the Korean fight for self- determination and justice can end the continued U.S. presence and domination of northeast Asia. We hope that your organization can endorse this very important organizing effort and can join with us on June 23rd in New York City.
TO ENDORSE THE CALL for the June 23rd War Crimes Tribunal e- mail iacenter@iacenter.org and type Korea War Crimes Tribunal in the subject line.
