With reference to the letter of the Counsellor of the Embassy of the Republic of Korea regarding the two articles I wrote in Frontline that was published in Frontline (October 11), I would suggest that before he accuses others of "wilful historical ignorance", he should look at the facts he has distorted.
He suggests that the U.S. invaded Korea only when, on June 25, 1950, "North Korea launched an unprovoked, full-scale invasion of the South". He ignores the fact that the U.S. had other reasons to be interested in occupying Korea. In November 1943, President Roosevelt had insisted at the Teheran Conference on putting Korea under trusteeship for 40 years. The suggestion was rejected. Again, at the Yalta Conference, in February 1945, the U.S. stated that it would be necessary to put Korea under 20 or 30 years of trusteeship so as to "cultivate the ability of the Koreans for self-government". As late as January 28, 1949, Report No. 4849 of the Information and Investigation Bureau of the U.S. State Department said: "In view of the strategic position held by Korea in North East Asia, establishment of control over Korea and her people... will considerably strengthen our country."
That the U.S. was prepared to go to any lengths to subvert any Korean movement for independence is evident from two trends in U.S. policy with regard to Korea prior to 1950. The first was the shameless collaboration with the Japanese fascist administration. Secondly, it could not send its army to Korea because of "insurmountable obstacles such as too far distance" and "shortage of manpower," while the Soviets and the KPRA swept Manchuria and Korea in a wave of popularity. So, it relied on Koreans favourable to the U.S. like, Syngman Rhee and Kim Song Su, to set up a separate government for South Korea in complete opposition to the decision of the three Foreign Ministers' conference held in Moscow in December 1945.
On August 20, 1945, Mac Arthur sent a cable to Abe Nobuyuki, the Japanese Governor General of Korea, that he and the commander in chief of Japanese troops "should maintain public peace in South Korea entirely on their own responsibility". No one else was allowed to maintain it and if they tried, they would be punished. So the fascist administration automatically became the "peace-keepers' of the U.S. in Korea. Contrary to the official's statement, the "advance contingent" of 45,000 U.S. troops landed at Inchon on September 7, 1945, instituting the military occupation of Korea under General Hodges, preserving the property of landlords and capitalist collaborators of the fascist regime, and prohibiting political activity. English was enforced as the official language, and death penalties were made enforceable by a "Military Occupation Court". On September 9, Hodges entered Seoul and took over the military, police and administration of fascist Japan as his own, dissolving the people's committees that had emerged all over the country in the process of liberation. This cannot be read as a declaration of Korean independence.
Mark Gayn, a U.S. journalist, has stated in his Japan Diary: "We were not a liberation army. We rushed there in order to occupy it, in order to watch whether the Koreans obey the conditions of surrender. From the first days of our landing we have acted as the enemies of the Koreans". South Korea is still under U.S. occupation with no less than 1,000 nuclear warheads to prop it up, whatever the legal fiction the U.S. and its series of puppet regimes of short life and varied character may invent to cover up this reality.
On June 25, 1950, when my critic claims that "North Korea launched an unprovoked, full-scale invasion of the South", the facts are the reverse. From 1949 on, Chae Pyong Dok, Chief of General Staff of the South Korean "Army", and others have made statements like "The only way of reunifying North and South Korea is for the ROK to restore the lost territory, North Korea, by force" and calls for a march to the north have been given more than once.
The Japanese were again involved in a plan to push forward and attack, with U.S. forces under Gen. Robets in control of a carefully vetted South Korean army. He reported to Syngman Rhee, the South Korean President: "Why should we appoint June 25 as the D-day of the Korean war? Because that day is Sunday. Sunday is the Sabbath to Christian countries like USA and South Korea. Nobody can believe that we would launch a war on Sunday. And so, they will be convinced of our innocence." A map for this attack was seized by the Korean Peoples Army when it captured Seoul on June 28, 1950 after repulsing a well-planned attack by the U.S. and South Korean forces. Also intrusion into the North sharply increased from 270 instances in 1947 to 2,617 by the end of 1949. Immediately before June 1950, the South Korean army was suddenly deployed along the 38th Parallel. Roberts also masterminded every attack on the North, according to Mon Hak Bong, adviser to the U.S. occupation forces. In fact, in a press interview on June 5, 1950, Roberts stated clearly: "My military Advisory Group is a living demonstration of how an intelligent and intensive investment of 5,000 combat-hardened American officers and men can train 100,000 men who will do the shooting for you". This was the actual nature of the U.S. invasion of the North. At the same time, to prevent an uprising in the South, no less than 118,621 people were arrested under newly promulgated draconian laws, according to the report of the U.N. Commission on Korea (September 5, 1950).
According to the U.S. historian Hershel D. Meyer's Modern History of America, "the North Korean Army was surprised by the Republic of Korea (South Korean) army and retreated two to three kilometres from the 38th Parallel before finally switching over to a counter-attack". These events do not reflect a Northern attack, but rather the reverse. The fact that the North was able to counter this and subsequent attacks reflect the support it had among the Korean people as a whole and it still enjoys.
As regards the U.N. vote, John Frat, Chief of the far Eastern Section of the British intelligence Bureau, is on record as saying: "The verdict of guilty given against the DPRK was based on the telegram sent by the U.N. commission in Seoul which said that there was no evidence as to which side had launched the attack."
So, to cut the long story short, my critic's memory needs a little more awakening than mine does.
Suneet Chopra New Delhi
