War crimes
Declassified U.S. document says: "It is reported that large groups
of civilians, either composed of or controlled by North Korean soldiers, are
infiltrating U.S. positions. The army has requested we strafe all civilian
refugee parties approaching our positions. To date, we have complied with the
army request in this respect." The document goes on to recommend
establishing a policy revising the practice.
When parts of South Korea were under North Korean control, political killings,
reportedly into the tens of thousands, took place in the cities and villages.
The Communists systematically killed former South Korean government officials
and others deemed hostile to the Communists, and such killing was intensified
as North Koreans retreated from the South.
South Korean military, police and paramilitary forces, often with U.S.
military knowledge and without trial, executed in turn tens of thousands of
leftist inmates and alleged Communist sympathizers in the incidents such as
the massacre of the political prisoners from the Daejeon Prison and the
bloody crackdown on the Cheju Uprising. Gregory Henderson, a U.S. diplomat
in Korea at the time, put the total figure at 100,000, and the bodies of
those killed were often dumped into mass graves.
Recently, the South Korean Truth and Reconciliation Commission has received
reports of more than 7,800 cases of civilian killings in 150 locations across
the country where mass killings of civilians took place before and during the war.
In the other incidents, South Koreans also blew up several bridges that were crowded
with fleeing civilians when they could not clear the bridges before the enemy arrived.
Korean forces on both sides routinely rounded up and forcibly conscripted both
males and females in their area of operations; thousands of them never returned home.
According to the estimate by R. J. Rummel, a professor at the University of Hawaii,
some 400,000 South Korean citizens were conscripted into the North Korean Army. Before
the September 1950 liberation of Seoul by the U.S. forces, an estimated 83,000 citizens
of the city were taken away by retreating North Korean forces and disappeared, according
to the South Korean government; their fate remains unknown. North Korea insists the
South Koreans defected voluntarily and were not held against their will.
For a time, American troops were under orders to consider any Korean civilians on
the battlefield approaching their position as hostile, and were instructed to "neutralize"
them because of fears of infiltration. This led to the indiscriminate killings of hundreds
of South Korean civilians by the U.S. military at places such as No Gun Ri, where many
defenseless refugees — most of whom were women, children and old men — were
shot at by the U.S. Army and may have been strafed by the U.S. Air Force. Recently,
the U.S. admitted having a policy of strafing civilians in other places and times.
Crimes against POWs
Prisoners of war were severely mistreated by the North Koreans Various historical
accounts reported frequent beatings, starvation, forced labor, summary executions and
death marches imposed by the Communist forces on UN prisoners. North Korean forces
committed several massacres of captured U.S. troops at places such as Hill 312 and
Hill 303 on the Pusan Perimeter, and in and around Daejeon; this occurred particularly
during early mopping-up actions. According to the U.S. Congressional report:
"More than 5,000 American prisoners of war died because of Communist war atrocities
and more than a thousand who survived were victims of war crimes. Approximately
two-thirds of all American prisoners of war in Korea died due to war crimes."
The Communists claimed that they had captured over 70,000 South Korean soldiers
overall, but they returned only 8,000 of them. In contrast, 76,000 North Korean POWs
were repatriated by South Korea. In addition to some 12,000 deaths in captivity, up
to 50,000 South Korean POWs may have been illegally pressed into the North Korea
military. According to the South Korean Ministry of Defense there were at
least 300 POWs still alive being held captive in North Korea in 2003. Recently, a
South Korean soldier escaped from North Korea and returned home in 2003, the then-latest
of more than 30 South Korean prisoners who have managed to escape the North since 1994.
Pyongyang denies holding any POWs.
Legacy
The Korean War was the first armed confrontation of the Cold War and set the
standard for many later conflicts. It created the idea of a limited war, where the
two superpowers would fight in another country, forcing the people in that nation
to suffer the bulk of the destruction and death involved in a war between such
large nations. The superpowers avoided descending into an all-out war with one
another, as well as the mutual use of nuclear weapons. It also expanded the Cold
War, which to that point had mostly been concerned with Europe. The war eventually
led to a strengthening of alliances in the Western bloc and the splitting of Communist
China from the Soviet bloc.
The Korean War damaged both Koreas heavily. Although South Korea stagnated
economically in the decade following the war, it was later able to modernize and
industrialize. In contrast, the North Korean economy recovered quickly after the
war and until around 1975 surpassed that of South Korea. However, North Korea's
economy eventually slowed. Today, the North Korean economy is virtually nonexistent
while the South Korean economy is expanding. The CIA World Factbook estimates North
Korea's GDP (PPP) to be $40 billion, which is a mere 3.34% of South Korea's $1.196
trillion GDP (PPP). The North's per capita income is $1,800, which is 7.35% of South
Korea's $24,500 per capita income.
A heavily guarded demilitarized zone (DMZ) on the 38th Parallel continues to
divide the peninsula today. Anti-Communist and anti-North Korea sentiment still
remain in South Korea today, and most South Koreans are against the North Korean
government. However, a "Sunshine Policy" is used by the controlling party, the
Uri Party. The Uri Party and President Roh, the current South Korean president,
have often disagreed with the United States in talks about North Korea. The Grand
National Party (GNP), the Uri Party's main opposing party, maintains an anti-North
Korea policy today.
The war affected other nations as well. Turkey's participation in the war helped
it become a NATO member. The entrance into the war has been criticized inside the
country, however.
According to a September 7, 2007 NPR report, President Bush stated that it is his
administration's position that a formal peace treaty with North Korea was possible
only when the north abandoned its nuclear weapons programs. According to
Bush, "We look forward to the day when we can end the Korean War. That will end —
will happen when Kim verifiably gets rid of his weapons programs and his weapons."
Some have characterized this as a reversal of Mr. Bush's stated policy of regime
change with respect to North Korea.
At the second Inter-Korean Summit in October 2007, South Korean President Roh
Moo-hyun and North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il signed a joint declaration calling
for international talks towards a peace treaty formally ending the war.
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