Devildogg4ever
08-12-03, 04:08 AM
By JONG-HEON LEE, UPI Correspondent
SEOUL, Aug. 11 (UPI) -- South Korean student activists continued anti-U.S. protests Monday, describing American troops as the gravest threat to peace on the Korean peninsula.
Officials and analysts in Seoul warned a new round of such protest, highlighted by last week's surprise raid by activists of a U.S. shooting range, would hurt relations between the two countries. Government officials apologized for the intrusion onto the U.S. military base and promised measures against the protestors.
The conservative opposition blamed the progressive President Roh Moo-hyun for encouraging the violent anti-U.S. protests by protecting illegal radical student and civic groups.
Left-wing student activists, some of them members of banned groups, however, vowed to push for more anti-American demonstrations, and called for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from South Korea.
On Monday, some 5000 college students staged an anti-U.S. demonstration in front of the Yongsan Garrison in Seoul, the main U.S. military base in South Korea. They chanted anti-U.S. slogans and demanded the withdrawal of U.S. troops.
"We oppose war on the Korean Peninsula!" they shouted.
Protestors accused the ongoing exercise in a South Korean border city by the U.S. army Stryker platoon, a mobile and combat-ready Special Forces unit, of heightening military tension on the divided peninsula. They said the drills and another joint war game scheduled to begin next week were aimed at preparing for possible military action against North Korea. Pyongyang has made the same claim.
The activists vowed to stage all-out rallies against the U.S. military presence and its alleged war plan.
The rally was held under beefed-up security around U.S. facilities across the country in the wake of the illegal entry by student activists into a U.S. military base near the border with communist North Korea. In a rare statement, the U.S. military called the intrusion a "violent crime." It asked that protesters be prosecuted "to the fullest extent possible."
"It is unfortunate that U.S. soldiers who are conducting high levels of training to defend the Republic of (South) Korea are disrupted by a student radical group," Lt. Gen. Charles Campbell, commander of the Eighth U.S. Army, said in a statement.
A dozen student activists barged into the Rodriquez Range Complex, an American military shooting range in Pocheon, about 30 miles northeast of Seoul, where a U.S. quick-strike brigade was conducting live firing exercise. They climbed atop an armored vehicle, shouted for the pullout of U.S. troops and burned U.S. flags. They scuffled with U.S. soldiers, police said. All 12 protestors were detained.
"The military exercise by the unit aimed at familiarizing itself with South Korea's geographical features is a clear military threat against the North and a blatant expression of the U.S. war plan for the Korean peninsula," said the group in a statement. In Seoul, another group of student activists threw bottles of red paint at the main gate of a U.S. military base.
The student activists belonged to an outlawed leftist group called Hanchongryon, which has a pro-North Korea ideological platform.
The protest was the most recent anti-U.S. rally staged by the group, which was branded as anti-government by the Supreme Court in 1998.
U.S. Forces Korea commander Gen. Leon LaPorte made a telephone call to Kim Jong-hwan, the head of South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff, to express regret over the incident and call for strong measures.
He warned that the break-in could result in the spread of anti-Korea sentiment in the United States, eventually undermining relations between the two allies.
"It was the strongest protest ever made by the USFK," a Defense Ministry official told United Press International on condition of anonymity.
U.S. Army officials said that entering an installation where armored vehicles are engaged in live firing training is dangerous and can result in loss of life to the intruders as well as to the soldiers on duty.
Roh apologized for the intrusion, calling it a "shameful incident."
The president, who took office in February, was elected with a pledge of less reliance on the U.S. protection, enjoying strong support from civic activists and college students who led anti-U.S. protests late last year.
"It is an irresponsible act that should never happen to damage the allied relationship," he said, adding his government would take a zero-tolerance policy on the lawbreakers by imposing the heaviest sentences the law permits.
Prime Minister Goh Kun met with LaPorte Monday to soothe relations.
"It is extremely regrettable that some radical South Korean students forced their way into a U.S. military training facility and held a protest rally," Goh told the U.S. commander.
As part of preventive measures, the government also announced it had designated major U.S. facilities in Seoul as special security zones, in which police patrols would be strengthened and more riot police would be deployed to head off a surge of anti-American demonstrations.
Last week's intrusion was the latest in a series of challenges to the half-century alliance between the two countries, which reached its worst level last year after a wave of anti-American sentiment swept across the country following the deaths of two girls who were killed in a road accident by a U.S. military vehicle.
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SEOUL, Aug. 11 (UPI) -- South Korean student activists continued anti-U.S. protests Monday, describing American troops as the gravest threat to peace on the Korean peninsula.
Officials and analysts in Seoul warned a new round of such protest, highlighted by last week's surprise raid by activists of a U.S. shooting range, would hurt relations between the two countries. Government officials apologized for the intrusion onto the U.S. military base and promised measures against the protestors.
The conservative opposition blamed the progressive President Roh Moo-hyun for encouraging the violent anti-U.S. protests by protecting illegal radical student and civic groups.
Left-wing student activists, some of them members of banned groups, however, vowed to push for more anti-American demonstrations, and called for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from South Korea.
On Monday, some 5000 college students staged an anti-U.S. demonstration in front of the Yongsan Garrison in Seoul, the main U.S. military base in South Korea. They chanted anti-U.S. slogans and demanded the withdrawal of U.S. troops.
"We oppose war on the Korean Peninsula!" they shouted.
Protestors accused the ongoing exercise in a South Korean border city by the U.S. army Stryker platoon, a mobile and combat-ready Special Forces unit, of heightening military tension on the divided peninsula. They said the drills and another joint war game scheduled to begin next week were aimed at preparing for possible military action against North Korea. Pyongyang has made the same claim.
The activists vowed to stage all-out rallies against the U.S. military presence and its alleged war plan.
The rally was held under beefed-up security around U.S. facilities across the country in the wake of the illegal entry by student activists into a U.S. military base near the border with communist North Korea. In a rare statement, the U.S. military called the intrusion a "violent crime." It asked that protesters be prosecuted "to the fullest extent possible."
"It is unfortunate that U.S. soldiers who are conducting high levels of training to defend the Republic of (South) Korea are disrupted by a student radical group," Lt. Gen. Charles Campbell, commander of the Eighth U.S. Army, said in a statement.
A dozen student activists barged into the Rodriquez Range Complex, an American military shooting range in Pocheon, about 30 miles northeast of Seoul, where a U.S. quick-strike brigade was conducting live firing exercise. They climbed atop an armored vehicle, shouted for the pullout of U.S. troops and burned U.S. flags. They scuffled with U.S. soldiers, police said. All 12 protestors were detained.
"The military exercise by the unit aimed at familiarizing itself with South Korea's geographical features is a clear military threat against the North and a blatant expression of the U.S. war plan for the Korean peninsula," said the group in a statement. In Seoul, another group of student activists threw bottles of red paint at the main gate of a U.S. military base.
The student activists belonged to an outlawed leftist group called Hanchongryon, which has a pro-North Korea ideological platform.
The protest was the most recent anti-U.S. rally staged by the group, which was branded as anti-government by the Supreme Court in 1998.
U.S. Forces Korea commander Gen. Leon LaPorte made a telephone call to Kim Jong-hwan, the head of South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff, to express regret over the incident and call for strong measures.
He warned that the break-in could result in the spread of anti-Korea sentiment in the United States, eventually undermining relations between the two allies.
"It was the strongest protest ever made by the USFK," a Defense Ministry official told United Press International on condition of anonymity.
U.S. Army officials said that entering an installation where armored vehicles are engaged in live firing training is dangerous and can result in loss of life to the intruders as well as to the soldiers on duty.
Roh apologized for the intrusion, calling it a "shameful incident."
The president, who took office in February, was elected with a pledge of less reliance on the U.S. protection, enjoying strong support from civic activists and college students who led anti-U.S. protests late last year.
"It is an irresponsible act that should never happen to damage the allied relationship," he said, adding his government would take a zero-tolerance policy on the lawbreakers by imposing the heaviest sentences the law permits.
Prime Minister Goh Kun met with LaPorte Monday to soothe relations.
"It is extremely regrettable that some radical South Korean students forced their way into a U.S. military training facility and held a protest rally," Goh told the U.S. commander.
As part of preventive measures, the government also announced it had designated major U.S. facilities in Seoul as special security zones, in which police patrols would be strengthened and more riot police would be deployed to head off a surge of anti-American demonstrations.
Last week's intrusion was the latest in a series of challenges to the half-century alliance between the two countries, which reached its worst level last year after a wave of anti-American sentiment swept across the country following the deaths of two girls who were killed in a road accident by a U.S. military vehicle.
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