wfn.org | NCCCUSA on Pentagon's No Gun Ri Report

[CAROL.FOUKE@ecunet.org]

National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A.
Contact: NCC News, 212-870-2227
Web: www.ncccusa.org; E-mail: news@ncccusa.org
01/12/01 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

U.S. Acknowledgment of Massacre at No Gun Ri is an “Important
Step,” NCC Says
Council Calls on U.S. to Take Responsibility, Work with South Korea for Full
Resolution

January 12, 2001, NEW YORK CITY – Thursday’s official U.S.
government acknowledgment that American soldiers killed refugees at No Gun
Ri (alternative spelling: Nokeun-ri) during the Korean War is “an
important step on the still-unfinished journey toward truth, justice and
healing,” said Dr. Bob Edgar, General Secretary of the National
Council of Churches (NCC).

But Dr. Edgar expressed concern that the Pentagon’s report did not
deal adequately with the responsibility of commanders and did not address
demands of survivors and family members for compensation.

“Until justice is done,” he said, “there can be no true
reconciliation between our two peoples, and no lasting peace for survivors,
victims and their families – or for those GIs who killed and wounded
innocent civilians at No Gun Ri.  The U.S. government must continue to work
with the Korean authorities and the survivors of the No Gun Ri massacre and
their families to bring the matter to a satisfactory closure.”

The Army’s acknowledgment Thursday that “an unknown number of
Korean civilians were killed or injured” at the hamlet of No Gun Ri by
U.S. troops in late July 1950 reversed its previous stance that U.S. troops
were not involved.

The (U.S.) National Council of Churches, the nation’s leading
ecumenical organization with 36 member denominations comprising 50 million
adherents, and its South Korean counterpart more than two years ago had
asked the Pentagon for its response to detailed testimony from Korean
survivors and eyewitnesses to the massacre at No Gun Ri of, by their count,
some 400 innocent civilians, mostly women, children and the elderly.

Responding to an official request from survivors and bereaved family
members, the National Council of Churches in Korea (NCCK) Committee for
Justice and Human Rights had recorded survivors' testimonies as part of its
own investigation of the incident, then forwarded the dossier to the NCC
with a request "for your cooperation to resolve this issue."

Victor W.C. Hsu, then the NCC’s East Asia and the Pacific Office
Director, wrote Secretary of Defense William S. Cohen on December 18, 1998,
enclosing the NCCK-assembled dossier and asking the Pentagon's response to
the allegations. "According to the NCCK," Mr. Hsu wrote, "the U.S. Army
'refuses to take responsibility for this massacre' because 'this incident
happened during the war.'"

The investigation was put in the hands of John P. McLaurin, III, Deputy
General Secretary (Military Personnel Management and Equal Opportunity
Policy), who on March 22, 1999, wrote Mr. Hsu to report, "The Army's Center
of Military History reviewed the enclosures to the packet created by the
National Council of Churches in Korea and also available U.S. Army records
for the Korean War for July 1950 located in the National Archives and
Records Administration. Their review found no information to substantiate
the claim that U.S. Army soldiers perpetrated a massacre of South Korean
civilians at Nokuen-ri."

In September 1999, the Associated Press published its own documentation of
the massacre in a series of reports that subsequently was awarded a Pulitzer
Prize.  About 20 ex-GIs interviewed by the AP “recalled orders to
shoot,” the AP reported.

The AP “also found wartime documents showing that at least three
high-level Army headquarters and an Air Force command ordered troops to
treat as hostile any civilians approaching U.S. positions.  At the time,
U.S. forces were in retreat, and thousands of refugees fled for their safety
as the North Korean army advanced south.”

Praising the AP’s reporting, the NCC urged the U.S. government to give
speedy, aggressive attention to the grievance of South Koreans against U.S.
military personnel.  In November 1999, the NCC brought U.S. veterans and
survivors of the No Gun Ri massacre together in Cleveland for a ceremony of
“recognition and remembrance” – the first encounter
between members of the two groups since the tragic event 50 years ago.

According to a January 12, 2001, Associated Press report, Donald P. Gregg,
chief spokesman for an eight-member panel of outside experts appointed by
the Pentagon to monitor the Army inquiry, expressed general satisfaction
with Thursday’s Pentagon report, commenting that the Army had done a
poor job earlier of looking into the allegations.

In his public response to the Pentagon’s report, President Clinton
said, “I deeply regret that Korean civilians lost their lives at No
Gun Ri.”  South Korea’s President, Kim Dae-jung, phoned Clinton
to thank him for his statement, the AP reported.

“Telling the truth takes courage,” Dr. Edgar said.  “We
salute the members of the U.S. military who have stepped forward to right a
wrong.  And we are grateful to the survivors and their families and to the
National Council of Churches in Korea for their persistence in demanding
that the massacre be acknowledged and a just resolution be found.”

-end-