At the minimum, Nader should use his campaign to criticize human and environmental damages caused by the U.S. military here and overseas. He's not going to win presidency in any case, so what has he got to lose? The U.S. military is the biggest polluter (responsible for over one third of toxic waste in America), so I can't take Nader as a "Green" candidate seriously, if he doesn't bother to highlight this issue.
Yoshie
***** Los Angeles Times June 29, 2000
U.S. IN ONGOING BATTLE OVER S. KOREAN BOMBING RANGE
Military: Villagers, allies face off against riot police as sentiment rises against American troop presence.
By Valerie Reitman
Maehyang Ri, South Korea--The Korean War's battles ended almost five decades ago, but this village not far from Seoul has been under constant siege ever since--not by North Korea, but from U.S. bombs and machine-gun fire.
Nearly every weekday morning, when the wind is calm, the sounds of war commence, often lasting well into the night.
U.S. Air Force A-10 Thunderbolt antitank planes swoop down like vultures, unleashing their hail of bullets in a terrifying clamor at targets on the edge of rice paddies. Villagers swear that they can see the pilots' helmets--perhaps an exaggeration, but only a slight one if a recent day's visit is any indication.
Then come the F-16 fighters, circling high in the sky before dumping 500-pound practice bombs in a thunderous roar on two tiny islands about a mile offshore.
"Every day is like the [Persian] Gulf War," says villager Choi In Son, 39.
Over the years, nine deaths and at least a dozen injuries have occurred, villagers maintain, although the Air Force says such claims are highly exaggerated. In addition, the noise has left a legacy of miscarriages, hearing and mental health problems, frightened animals and children who scream in the night, say many in the village about 40 miles from the capital.
"We feel like we are the targets," says Chu Young Bae, 53.
The practice field, known as the Koon Ni Range, has become a lightning rod for a rising sentiment against the 37,000 U.S. troops posted in South Korea, and the fervor has been heightened in the aftermath of the North-South Korean summit two weeks ago. Lately, hundreds of civic groups have come to aid the locals in their crusade, and now the field is ringed by hundreds of riot police.
The dizzyingly successful North-South meeting renewed hopes for peace on the divided peninsula--where about 1.9 million troops from the two Koreas still face off along the world's most fortified border, the demilitarized zone, or DMZ--and eased fears of any imminent invasion by the Communist North.
"The summit was peaceful and there's been rapprochement," says villager Chu, "so what's the point of practicing?"
On Sunday, South Korean President Kim Dae Jung reiterated the need for the U.S. troops' presence. "The U.S. armed forces will stay until a complete peace system is put in place on the Korean peninsula . . . even after unification, in order to maintain the balance of power in northeast Asia."
Nevertheless, the talks also gave rise to a spirit of nationalism: While dozens of South Koreans interviewed here and in Seoul say they are grateful for the U.S. troops that have been present since the Korean War, many say it is time for Washington to vastly reduce its forces here and clean up its act.
"U.S. troops are getting morally careless and taking advantage of the SOFA agreement," says Kim Il Hyun, 58, a Seoul businessman, referring to the Status of Forces Agreement that governs U.S. military operations in South Korea, where 90 American bases constitute much of the U.S. military muscle in Asia.
Environmental problems at some bases as well as soldiers' crimes and unpaid parking tickets are adding to the feelings of resentment. Tensions also were fueled by recent allegations that U.S. troops massacred hundreds of civilians at No Gun Ri during the war.
Protests at Maehyang Ri came to a head last month after a fighter jet malfunctioned and the pilot preventively unloaded six live bombs off the village's coast.
"These issues are coming at a time when most observers say the U.S.-South Korea relationship is at one of its high points," says Scott Snyder, the Asia Foundation's Korea representative and a security expert. "There is a risk that if it blows up into something bigger, the anti-military sentiment could be translated into broader anti-American feelings."
Brig. Gen. Jeff Kohler, the vice commander of the 7th Air Force in South Korea, has seen Koon Ni from the air--he has dropped bombs from F-16s--but he hasn't seen it from the ground. Nonetheless, he insists that the field is safe for civilians as well as essential for pilot training and war readiness.
Most of the planes originate from Osan Air Base, the United States' most "forward-deployed" base: It's just 48 miles from North Korea. In an interview at his office at Osan, Kohler stresses that North Korea remains a threat and that the two sides technically are still at war.
"The key element is that our units are ready to fight tonight," Kohler says. "In order to be ready tonight, we have to practice."
Many of the young pilots, in South Korea on one-year tours, are just out of basic training and drill extensively on simulators before dropping live ordnance at Koon Ni, one of the few bases in Asia where they can get immediate readings on whether their bombs have hit their targets.
Kohler displays a detailed map of Koon Ni in his office. It shows an easement around the practice field where no development was supposed to occur after the U.S. began operating the field in the 1950s--but which now sports a steel factory, a Kia automobile assembly plant, a bus depot and houses.
"They weren't there when we started," he says.
There's nothing the U.S. government can do about the squatters, he says--that's the purview of the South Korean government.
"We've discussed either moving the range or moving the residences," Kohler says. "But there's virtually no chance of finding an alternative location." South Korea's rapid growth and industrialization have left little open space in this country, which is only slightly larger than Indiana.
Despite the encroachments, Kohler insists that it's safe for the pilots to operate. He says that there has been just one casualty, a woman who was hit by a piece of bomb shrapnel while walking on the beach. That was before 1978, when the U.S. stopped using live explosives in bombs and bullets.
A spokesman for South Korea's Defense Ministry says that the agency is "studying ways of relocating people" and that 80% of the people in the areas closest to the base--a total of about 720 families--are willing to move if they receive compensation. No offers have been made, but Seoul would probably foot the bill.
But if interviews with numerous villagers gathered at a neighborhood protest center are any indication, most have no intention of leaving the place where their parents and grandparents are buried.
"Sixty-two generations of my family have lived here," says Choi Sun Cha, 43. "We shouldn't be the ones who have to leave."
Choi's husband, Chun Man Ku, has been on a crusade to stop the bombing missions for 12 years, even moving his family out of its house and into the small building on the field's edge that serves as the neighborhood's "protest central."
Chun was arrested June 16 for entering the field during a demonstration by several hundred protesters. Six students were arrested two days later in demonstrations at the protest hall.
Chun began sacrificing himself for the movement after his father committed suicide, which neighbors say Chun blamed on the constant disruptions of practice bombs. "My husband says he doesn't want our four children to have these problems," Choi says.
The village's farmers and fishermen--who are prohibited from fishing and tending oyster beds on weekdays while the bombing goes on--say casualties over the years include a trio of brothers who were injured playing with unexploded ordnance containing uranium years ago; two died and one was permanently disabled. Another time, a woman was so frightened by the noise that she fainted and died, villagers say. Four years ago, a practice bullet made a clean entry and exit through a fisherman's hand.
Chi Sook Son, 49, says she had two miscarriages and that a third child died 10 days after birth because he was "so stressed from the noise."
Hu Sang Kun, 50, once raised chicks but gave up because they grouped together so tightly when the planes flew by that they died.
The noises are undeniably frightening.
When an A-10 suddenly approaches--barely cresting trees, utility lines and rooftops--and begins strafing targets, it emits a sound like a phonograph needle scratching a record, amplified thousands of times.
"That's nothing" compared with the bombings, Chi says, as several more planes follow suit.
Taxi driver You Son Nam, who lives near the Osan Air Base and knows well the roar of the aircraft takeoffs and landings, is astonished that this din is so much worse.
"I asked three or four villagers if they'd hooked up a microphone to the planes," he says. (They hadn't.)
On this evening, it once again becomes quiet--except for the singing and chanting of student protesters--for several hours before the night bombings begin. They are much later than usual. About 9:40 p.m., a noise like a foghorn erupts.
Suddenly, high in the sky, a pair of planes shoot across the star-filled sky, their lights flickering next to the Big Dipper. They circle, hovering over the uninhabited target islands marked with red lights. But within minutes, a cover of clouds moves in, blanketing everything in a thick fog. The only things visible are the red neon cross atop a church on the field's edge and a red light spinning atop a police car near the protest hall--lights nerve-rackingly close in color to those on the target islands.
Villager Chu concedes that, in the last few years, "the technology has gotten better so they almost always hit [the targets], compared with the '80s and '90s, when they hit farms and the Kia factory."
On this night, the planes continue to circle above for several more minutes before retreating without unleashing their bombs. By 11 p.m., many of the residents have left the protest center, which is hung with banners reading "Yankey Go Home" and "Bombing is hurting sky, earth and sea and taking away our place to live."
Two priests--one South Korean, one American--are packing it in after a hard day of demonstrating outside the practice facility.
"The enemy isn't North Korea or Russia or anybody else," says Father Robert Sweeney, a priest from Niagara Falls, N.Y., who has been doing missionary work in Korea for 36 years. "It is us." *****
Yoshie