Query advised to focus on N.K. role in shootings
Official Ministry of Defense documents obtained by the media seem to suggest the existence of a ministry ’code’ of trying to focus inquiry on North Korean responsibility for the No Gun Ri incident, rather than the role of the U.S. military. The ministry in 1999-2000 investigated the 1950 events in No Gun Ri, in which a U.S. division killed several hundred refugees in an attempted communist purge. In a report titled, "No Gun Ri Incident Fact-Finding Inquiry: Mid-term Report," written in December 1999 by the Defense Ministry’s investigation team and obtained by the Kyunghyang and Pressian newspapers, the ministry advised investigators to focus on North Korea’s responsibility to infiltrate its guerrillas into refugee camps at the time. Such an angle of query by the investigators might aid the U.S. military’s argument that the shootings at No Gun Ri were unavoidable in order to target North Korean soldiers hidden among the refugees.In another official document from March 2000 addressed to the organization responsible for official Korean War commemoration activities, the ministry asked the organization to emphasize that the fundamental responsibility of the No Gun Ri killings should be assigned to North Korea’s provocation of war. The ministry also ordered the administration to publicize again the U.S. military’s contribution during the Korean War and the perils they faced. The document said these measures represented the Defense Minster’s "spoken orders." Another document, penned in November 2000 by the inquiry team’s planning and coordination division chief, advised the ministry to fully reflect upon the U.S. position in the No Gun Ri incident, to emphasize the sacrifices of U.S. soldiers during the Korean War, and to vow to build up new South Korean-U.S. relations by "wrapping up" the past. The ministry, in an April 2000 document titled “Plan for Aftermath of No Gun Ri,” drew up plans to minimize moves from families of victims of No Gun Ri and similar incidents to appeal for compensation. The U.S. Defense Ministry began an inquiry into the No Gun Ri killings, documented in a Pulitzer Prize-winning story by The Associated Press in September 1999. In 2001, the Pentagon concluded the No Gun Ri killings were an unfortunate tragedy of shootings by some panicked soldiers. However, the Associated Press this year reported later that a 1950 letter from Ambassador John J. Muccio to Assistant Secretary of State Dean Rusk showed prior consultation regarding granting American soldiers permission to shoot refugees upon approach. Meanwhile, the Defense Ministry denied the existence of such documents, saying it could not locate any such “No Gun Ri documents.”
