Army Admits GIs Massacred Civilians

Korean War killings blamed on confusion

Elizabeth Becker / New York Times 12jan01

Washington -- After a yearlong review, the U.S. Army officially acknowledged yesterday that American soldiers shot and killed unarmed Korean civilians near the village of No Gun Ri in the early days of the Korean War, but officials said the deaths were a result of confusion and even fear, and were not deliberate.

President Clinton then offered his regrets for the deaths of the Koreans, who were shot after fleeing the advance of the North Korean army, but his statement fell short of the apology many Koreans have demanded.

"To those Koreans who lost loved ones at No Gun Ri, I offer my condolences, " he said. "Many Americans have experienced the anguish of innocent casualties of war."

The investigation by the Army inspector general concluded that it was impossible to determine how many Koreans were killed at No Gun Ri despite South Korean records that report 248 civilians killed, wounded or missing.

COMBAT CONFUSION BLAMED

The Army study described how American soldiers fired on Korean civilians in July 1950, although sometimes over their heads or at the ground. But the study rejected the contention that the soldiers were under orders to kill civilians, and instead ascribed the shootings to the confusion of combat and the poor training of the soldiers, who had been rushed to the Korean battlefield from occupation duty in Japan.

"We have determined, however, that U.S. soldiers killed or injured an unconfirmed number of Korean refugees," Defense Secretary William Cohen said at a press conference.

In his statement of regret, Clinton emphasized that American and South Korean soldiers "fought shoulder to shoulder in the harshest of conditions," and won the war that eventually led to the creation of a democracy in South Korea.

To emphasize American sympathy, Clinton telephoned President Kim Dae Jung last night to discuss the report and his statement of regret.

He also announced that the United States would erect a monument in South Korea to honor the more than 1 million Korean civilians who died in the war, and establish a scholarship fund for Koreans studying in their homeland or the United States.

In a joint memorandum by the separate investigative teams, both sides stated their agreement that it was also possible that Korean civilians had been hit by U.S. airplanes bombing and strafing the area.

For several decades, survivors and relatives of the victims of No Gun Ri had petitioned the government in Seoul for compensation, but they were routinely rejected for lack of proof. These wartime deaths entered a broad public debate only when the Associated Press published an extensive report on the killings in September 1999, including eyewitness accounts by American veterans who said they had been ordered to fire on the refugees.

The AP won a Pulitzer Prize for the investigation, and Cohen ordered a thorough review of the incident. However, aspects of the AP report were questioned after one of the key veterans quoted by the wire service changed his mind and admitted he had not been near No Gun Ri at the time of the shooting.

NO RECORD OF ANY ORDER

The South Korean investigative team agreed with the Army that American soldiers were not ordered to shoot at the refugees, as had been reported in the AP account. After interviewing more than 100 veterans and examining more than 1 million pages of documents, Army investigators failed to find a written record of any order.

The study also said that the Army veterans "who fired at refugees stated that they did not receive any order to fire."

In the early days of the war, refugee columns were infiltrated by North Korean soldiers dressed as civilians, and refugees came to be considered hostile targets by some troops. Investigators found that American soldiers were "given an order to stop civilians and not to let them pass their position. "

"The order not to let refugees pass could have been misinterpreted to be an order to fire," said Lt. Gen. Michael W. Ackerman, the Army inspector general.

Charles L. Cragin, principal deputy undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness, who helped lead the investigation, said yesterday that the soldiers' actions were not deliberate attempts to kill innocent civilians, but actions driven by fear and taken to protect themselves in the "desperate opening weeks of defensive combat in the Korean War."

Cragin said the incident was an unfortunate example of the "fog of war."

For Koreans, Clinton's personal regrets over No Gun Ri spoke to other issues.

"It was important that the statement of regret came from the president and not from the Army," said Kongdan Oh, a Korean expert at the Institute for Defense Analyses. "The president gives the statement dignity."

But No Gun Ri survivors angrily denounced the Army report as a whitewash.

"It's full of excuses," said Park Hee Sook, a 66-year-old woman who said she witnessed the incident at the South Korean hamlet. "The Americans need to be more frank about their past wrongdoings."

"We don't need the scholarship and monument," said 62-year-old Chun Choon Ja. "We want a more sincere apology, not a vague statement of regret, from the U.S. government."

"I wish I could see President Clinton right now and ask him what he is talking about and tell him that he doesn't know what we went through at No Gun Ri," Chun said.

RESPONSE WATCHED BY JAPAN

The U.S. response to No Gun Ri will be carefully weighed in Japan, where officials have been under pressure to offer full apologies and expressions of guilt to Korea for the crimes that Japanese troops committed during World War

II.

Unlike Germany, Japan has refused to admit the scale of its war crimes and apologize to the people of the nations it brutally occupied. Indeed, in the Korean translation of various documents, the word haksal, or massacre, was deleted to ensure that Japan could not compare its war crimes with the events at No Gun Ri.

"No Gun Ri was the result of actions by a good-intented ally whose soldiers were risking their lives and making a mistake," said Oh. "This can not be used by Japan as an excuse not to apologize fully to us for their war crimes."

The Pentagon's No Gun Ri report follows within weeks the successful negotiation of a revised Status of Forces agreement between the United States and South Korea that includes how American soldiers are treated when they are arrested for crimes in South Korea. These were the two outstanding defense issues between the allies that Clinton wanted to resolve before leaving office.

But some cautioned that Clinton's statements and the Pentagon report on No Gun Ri would leave many unsatisfied.

A TRAGEDY OF WARA dozen American veterans of the Korean War have told the Associated Press their 1st Cavalry Division unit killed a large number of South Korean refugees,

many of them women and children, trapped beneath a railroad bridge in late July 1950. Korean survivors say about 400 were killed. Ex-GIs speak of 100, 200 or "hundreds" dead..How the events at No Gun Ri unfolded1. July 23, 1950: Koreans ordered out of village of Chu Gok Ri by American soldiers who warn that North Korean invaders are approaching. Villagers flee to nearby Im Ke Ri.2. July 24-27: Orders issued in 25th Infantry Division to treat civilians in battle zone as enemy. U.S. officers fear North Korean infiltrators among South Korean refugees.3. July 25: Koreans ordered out of Im Ke Ri by American soldiers and sent on road toward Hwanggan.4. July 26: Refugees ordered off road near No Gun Ri by men of 1st Cavalry Division's 7th Cavalry Regiment, and onto railroad track.U.S. warplanes then strafe refugees. "Lots" were killed, veterans say. Koreans say 100 died. Refugees take cover in nearby culvert and are fired on by troops of 2nd Battalion, 7th Cavalry. Rifle companies cease fire. Hundreds of refugees are led by troops into underpasses of concrete railroad bridge.5. July 26-27: That night or early next morning, soldiers open fire on refugees from nearby machine-gun positions. Some veterans say they recall gunshots out from underpasses. Others do not recall hostile fire. 6. July 29: After three days of periodic fire into underpasses, 2nd Battalion pulls out in early morning. Koreans say 300 were left dead at the bridge. .Associated Press Graphic