[Editorial] Renegotiating Pyeongtaek is possible

By Yu Jeong-jae
Secretary General of Solidarity for Peace and Reunification of Korea

The government says the expansion of the U.S. military facility at Pyeongtaek is a state project agreed to by the U.S. and Korea and ratified by the National Assembly, and thus cannot be renegotiated. However, renegotiating the deal is not entirely impossible.

To begin with, in both the agreement for moving the main United States Forces Korea (USFK) facility from Yongsan and the Land Partnership Plan (LPP), there exists the legal basis for adjustment or termination. That being the case, we need to consider "in cases where there is considerable change to the requirements for USFK facilities and areas" as a reason for renegotiation.

In the case of the Yongsan facility, the U.S. and Korea agreed at last year’s Security Consultative Meeting that the USFK command and the U.S. 8th Army command would be either moved to Hawaii, dismantled, or reduced in size. When former White House National Security Council senior director for Asian affairs Michael Green said there would be a reorganization of the structure of U.S. military command throughout Northeast Asia, that was part of what he was talking about.

In April, U.S. Pacific commander William Fallon and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld each strongly hinted there would be a reduction in the size of USFK. It is just a matter of when and by how much, because these were official statements from high-ranking U.S. officials and because the premise that Korean forces be able to assume more defense obligations is being met.

Mr. Green talked about reducing U.S. military presence in Korea on a rotational basis, rather than the current situation of a large land force stationed indefinitely. In accordance with such plans, the U.S. Army is creating the "501st Sustainment Brigade" and a rotating deployment brigade of 3,000 members.

If the USFK see additional reductions, the 14,491 U.S. troops in Pyeongtaek could very likely be reduced by more than half. It is only a matter of course that the scale of the installation be reconsidered if there are large reductions in troop size. Halting or changing the nature of U.S. troop relocation is not without precedent. In 1990 the U.S. and Korea signed an agreement on moving the base at Yongsan, but the project came to a halt for reasons of cost. The U.S. and Korea also agreed on plans to build a new U.S. embassy on part of what was Deoksu Palace, but those plans were scrapped after a three-year struggle.

There is clearly basis for renegotiation, and there have been previous examples where agreements between the U.S. and Korea have been changed or suspended, so the government needs to halt the current process and begin renegotiating the agreement. If the government continues to force the implementation of the base expansion project because it is worried about offending the U.S., despite the fact that there will be troop reductions, it is highly likely that there will be a "surplus of facilities," as noted by the National Assembly’s budget and policy office. Who is ready to bear responsibility for the resulting destruction of people’s lives and the social and financial waste?