TRCK relaxes U.S. bombing investigation criterion under new president

Posted on : 2010-07-16 12:23 KST Modified on : 2019-10-19 20:29 KST
Observers say the organization has dropped a greater number of investigation petitions under the new conservative president

By Kim Min-kyeong

After receiving 157 petitions over the past four years by civilians claiming damages from U.S. military bombings, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of South Korea, under President Lee Young-jo, made the decision to investigate 56 of the cases, or 35.6 percent. This number is conspicuously lower than the overall 85.2 percent investigation rate for received cases.

Individuals from both within and outside the commission have stated that the organization has been stingy in investigating U.S. military bombing cases following the appointment of the conservative-leaning President Lee Young-jo in December of last year. Decisions to investigate were made on all 28 of the cases presented to the Committee of the Whole prior to his assuming office. After he took over, however, decisions were put off on the U.S. bombing cases before the remaining 129 were finally presented simultaneously to the Committee of the Whole on June 29 and 30, just before the close of investigations. Among these, some 101 cases, or 78.2 percent, were deemed “impossible to investigate.” Even those that the commission did decide to investigate were only recognized as “low-level illegalities.”

The cause of this lay in a change of standards. Lee’s predecessor, Ahn Byung-wook, focused on whether the U.S. military “took minimal measures to reduce loss of life among civilians.” In its investigation report for a U.S. military bombing case in Heungan Village, Pohang, for which an investigation decision came down in December 2008, the committee took a strong position.

“Even if preventive bombing was a military necessity, the U.S. military cannot circumvent responsibility for violations of international humanitarian law and laws of war by conducting bombing without taking minimal measures to reduce loss of life among civilians,” the committee said in its report.

Following Lee’s arrival as president, however, the criterion changed. The new criterion evaluates whether there was an “acute need in terms of military operations.” When speaking with reporters, Lee stated his position that “deliberateness and illegality need to be proven, and regardless of moral issues, legally there was no problem.”

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