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DPRK Foreign Ministry memorandum on GI mass killings


Pyongyang, March 22 (KCNA) -- The DPRK Foreign Ministry issued a memorandum yesterday documenting the truth about the U.S. troops' mass killings of innocent Koreans during the Korean War (June 1950-July 1953). The memorandum said that the truth about the U.S. troops' mass killings has been recently disclosed by a series of U.S. official documents and testimonies by GIs involved in them, victims and eyewitnesses.

The disclosed massacres are all but the tip of iceberg of the countless crimes committed by GIs. The lengthy memorandum had four sub-titles "mass killings by indiscriminate bombing and bombardment," "the U.S. aggressors' massacre during their temporary occupation of North Korea," "mass killings by germ and chemical weapons" and "massacre of POWs."

The U.S. aggressors carried out indiscriminate bombing and naval bombardment against all urban and rural areas in the north, the memorandum said, and continued: More than 10,000 U.S. war planes made over 250 air raids on Pyongyang from July 11 to August 20, 1951 in which they dropped as many as 4,000 bombs, killing at least 4,000 innocent civilians and wounding 2,500. In the whole period of the war, the U.S. aggressors made more than 1,400 air raids on Pyongyang in which they dropped over 428,000 bombs, destroying all industrial establishments, educational, health and public service facilities and dwelling houses and killing many innocent civilians. They made air raids not only on local cities such as Hamhung, Chongjin, Sinuiju and Wonsan but on rural villages, even on a separate house deep in a mountain. The U.S. aggressors amassed warships in the east and west seas of Korea to commit an indiscriminate bombardment on the coastal areas almost every day.

In August 1951, U.S. military planes dropped 2,122 bombs over North Hamgyong Province and its naval guns fired 6,098 shells at it, leaving 2,857 peaceable people dead. In the three-year war U.S. air force planes made 800,000 sorties and planes of the U.S. marines and navy 250,000 sorties into the North Korea 85 percent of which was to bomb and strafe civilian targets and people. Napalm and other bombs dropped by U.S. warplanes totaled nearly 600,000 tons, which was over 3.7 times the 161,425 tons of bombs they dropped over Japan proper during the pacific war. This means that so many bombs were dropped over the territory of the North Korea less than one-third of the Japanese territory.

The fact-finding group of the Women's International Democratic Federation, in its report on the investigation made into the GIs' atrocities in the North Korea during the war, said: "Every fact proves that this was a war of mass destruction, in which much more houses and food rather than military targets and war supplies were destroyed and more women and aged men than combatants killed. This war was against life itself."

The U.S. aggressors mercilessly killed Korean people wherever they went in the North Korea. They committed monstrous massacres in Sinchon county that baffled human imagination. The U.S. aggressors herded innocent civilians into the air-raid shelter and set fire after pouring gasoline over them, massacring them. They separated babies from their mothers and herded them into different warehouses. They poured gasoline upon the crying babies, instead of letting them suck their mothers' milk, and set fire to them. Not content with this, they threw hand-grenades over them, massacring all of them. The U.S. aggressors roped people, each group made up of 10-20 persons, and threw them into a shaft with stone or straw bag of earth on their back. They killed innocent civilians in such a brutal manner as chopping them with straw-cutter or skinning them off. 

According to the preliminary results of investigation into GIs' massacres during their temporary occupation of areas of the north, they killed more than a million innocent civilians: Over 15,000 in Pyongyang, 35,380 in Sinchon county, 19,072 in Anak county, over 13,000 in Unryul county, some 6,000 in Haeju, 5,998 in Pyoksong and at least 5,000 in Anju. The U.S. aggressors did not hesitate to massively use germ and chemical weapons in the Korean War in flagrant violation of international laws.

In the period from January to March 1952 when they began an all-out germ war the U.S. aggressors dropped various germ bombs a total of 804 times over 169 places in alpine, coastal and mountainous areas of the north. One fourth of the planes involved in air raids on the North Korea participated in the germ war. Some days their number reached 480 planes. The U.S. aggressors brutally killed POWs of the Korean People's Army by using them as guinea pigs for germ weapon experiment. They committed serious crimes to use a chemical weapon. They made 33 poison-gas bomb attacks against various areas of the North Korea from Feb. 27 to Apr. 9, 1952. They used at least 15 million spanapalm-shells. Their planes dropped even food, leaflets and false money containing poisonous substance. They also unhesitatingly killed POWs of the KPA by using them as guinea pigs for a poisonous substance test. The U.S. aggressors massacred POWs of our side as they pleased during the Korean War in gross violation of the publicly recognized international laws and war law and regulations. They staged such farces as "voluntary repatriation," "private interview and screening" and "petition for release" in a bid to detain POWs of the KPA by force. They mercilessly killed everyone who did not comply with their demands.

On may 27, 1952 at least 800 POWs were killed by flame throwers at the 77th camp on Koje Island for rejecting "voluntary repatriation" and insisting on their repatriation to the North Korea. At least 33,600 POWs of the KPA were killed by GIs and tens of thousands of POWs were wounded or crippled. The Korean people will surely make the U.S. aggressors pay for the blood shed by the Korean nation and for the misfortune imposed by them upon it. The United States can never evade its responsibility for its brutal massacre of millions of innocent Korean people during the Korean War. It is a commitment of the U.S. as a criminal state to strictly punish those criminals who organized and commanded the mass killings or took part in them during the Korean War and formally apologize to our government and people and fully compensate for them.

As required by the objective and mission of its charter, the United Nations should thoroughly investigate the GIs' atrocities during the Korean War and set up a special tribunal to take an urgent measure for a severe punishment of the criminals under the international law. Given that GIs' massacres during the Korean War were committed under the name of the "UN forces", the UN can not evade its responsibility for allowing the U.S. to abuse its name. The UN should take an urgent step to dissolve the "UN forces command" in South Korea in view of its idea and objective or its purpose to liquidate its inglorious past.

The DPRK Ministry of Foreign Affairs expresses its expectation that all the governments, international organizations, non-governmental organizations and personages that treasure peace, justice and human rights, will render positive cooperation in the efforts to thoroughly probe the truth about GIs' mass killings and severely punish the war criminals under the international law.


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