Thousands of angry anti-US protestors scuffled with riot police Tuesday in an attempt to storm a US air force bombing range.
The standoff started when some 4,000 protestors began tearing down barbed wire fences after encircling the Koon-Ni range used by US military jets to practice strafing.
Hundreds of angry villagers and students armed with clubs clashed with some 2,400 riot police wielding truncheons from behind plastic shields, at several points along the three-kilometer (1.8-mile) fences.
The protestors, chanting "Yankee Go Home" and holding anti-US placards and flags, included some 1,500 residents from nearby farming and fishing villages.
"The range must be relocated. We want to live in our hometown," Choi Yong-Un, a farmer, said, demanding the US military compensate for mental and physical damages.
The 5,000-acre (2,000-hectare) range, built on tidal flats near the west coat village of Mae Hyang, 50 miles (80 kilometers) south of Seoul, opened during the 1950-53 Korean War.
"We have been plagued by noise for 50 years. We cannot endure it any longer," Oh Moyong-Hwang, a 44-year-old farmer who lived near the range, told
Villagers have complained that at least nine people have died in accidents linked to the range, including four children who were toying with an unexploded bomb in 1968.
Exploding bombs on the range and sounds from US warplanes also caused roofs to cave in and walls to crack and have left many residents half-deaf, they say.
The South Korean government has promised to help repair damages, aside from compensation. But villagers have rejected a government offer to relocate their homes.
The US military has about 20 bases in South Korea and operates several ranges provided by South Korea under a mutual defense pact.
US jet were absent during Tuesday's protest, which underlined growing sentiment here over the presence of 37,000 US troops in South Korea.
North Korea and South Korean dissidents have demanded the withdrawal of US troops from South Korea. But Seoul and its closest military ally, Washington, have described US forces as vital to security in the region.
The US military cites a possible military confrontation between the two Koreas, which have remained technically at war since the Korean war ended in 1953 without a permanent peace treaty, to justify its presence here.
US troops first entered Korea in 1945 to disarm Japanese troops -- who had occupied the peninsula since 1910 -- and stayed until 1948 to help form the southern half of Korea into a capitalist state.
The Soviet Union did likewise in the northern half and turned it into a communist state.
North Korea invaded South Korea in 1950 prompting the United States to lead a UN command to repel the invaders. The war killed more than 33,000 US soldiers.