Re: Germ war thing again

["Young Kim" <y_s_k@worldnet.att.net>]

Hi, list members:

North Korea is pushing the "US germ warfare in Korea" again
(http://www.kimsoft.com/2000/dprk04.htm).

After 50 years, we ought to settle this issue one way or the other:  Did the
US use BC weapons in Korea or not?


ysk

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III. Mass Killing by Germ and Chemical Weapons:

The international treaties including the "Geneva Protocol of June 17 1925
For the Prohibition of the Use in War of the Asphyxiating, Poisonous or
Other Gas and of Bacteriological Methods of Warfare" strictly prohibit the
use of mass destruction weapons, including poison gas, germ weapons and
toxic chemical weapons, in a war and stipulate that any violator shall be
punishable as a war criminal.

The U.S. aggressors, however, did not hesitate to massively use germ and
chemical weapons in the Korean War in flagrant violation of human morality
and international laws.

A. Mass Killings by Germ Weapons

After the U.S. repeated setbacks on the whole front in face of the heroic
battle of the Korean People's Army, U.S. President Truman ordered them to
use any type of weapon in Korea, including A-bomb. Acting upon this order,
the U.S. aggressors buckled down to a germ warfare.
While fleeing from their temporarily occupied areas of the northern half of
Korea they spread smallpox and other contagious germs there. As a result,
smallpox rapidly spread 7-8 days later in Pyongyang, South Phyongan
Province, Kangwon Province and Hwanghae Province, which were liberated from
the U.S. temporary occupation from mid-December, 1950 to January 1951. In
April 1951 the number of smallpox cases reached as many as 3,500 and 10
percent of them died.

Their germ warfare engulfed the whole of the northern half of Korea in 1952.
On Jan. 28, 1952 U.S. planes massively dropped flies, flees, bedbugs and
other poisonous insects carrying contagious viruses over Ichon area and
again spread lots of flies and fleas the next day. Flies, mosquitoes,
spiders and fleas were dropped over Pyongyang and its adjacent areas on Feb.
15, 16 and 17.

Insects carrying germs were massively dropped over Sohung County, Hwanghae
Province, Pakchon County, North Phyongan Province, Junghwa County, South
Phyongan Province, Kowon County, South Hamgyong Province, and other areas on
March 1 and 4. In the period from January to March 1952 when they began an
all-out germ war the U.S. aggressors dropped various germ bombs about 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 northern half of Korea
participated in the germ war. Some days their number reached 480 planes.

The US brutally killed POWs of the KPA by using them as guinea pigs for germ
weapon experiment. A warship commanded by Brigadier General James, the then
"chief for health and welfare" of the "UN Forces General Command," was
secretly at anchor close to the shore of Koje Island to put POWs of the KPA
to a germ weapon test in March 1951.

The UP news said on May 18, 1951 that 36 germ experts made at least 3,000
tests using north Korean POWs as guinea pigs in the laboratory aboard a ship
every day. 1,400 of those imprisoned on Koje Island were infected with a
serious disease and 80 percent of the rest contracted unknown illness, the
news added.

B. Mass Killing by Chemical Weapon

It was one of the most serious crimes of the U.S. aggressors during the
Korean War that they used a chemical weapon of mass destruction. They
heavily bombed Nampho City four times and dropped poison-gas bombs over it,
killing 1,379 innocent civilians on May 6, 1951. They dropped lachrymatory
and toxic poison-gas bombs over several areas of Wonsan and South Hwanghae
Province, poisoning scores of civilians and killing others on July 6 and
September 1, 1952.
They used chemical weapon not only against cities but a small number of
farmhouses. They dropped five toxic poison-gas bombs over scores of
farmhouses in Haksong-ri, Munchon County, Kangwon Province on January 9,
1952,killing or poisoning innocent civilians. They made 33 poison-gas bomb
attacks against various areas of the northern half of Korea from Feb. 27,
1952 to April 9. They used at least 15 million Spa napalm -shells, a mass
destruction weapon.

Their planes dropped even food, leaflets and fake money containing poisonous
substance. 100 won note fake money and leaflets were massively spread over
areas of Kanri, South Phyongan Province, and Yonan, South Hwanghae province
at night in September 1952 to poison people, and poison-treated shell-fish
was dropped over Taedong County, South Phyongan Province, on May 18, 1952.

They also unhesitatingly killed POWs of the KPA by using them as guinea pigs
for a poisonous substance test. The chief of the concentration camp on Koje
Island took 120 POWs of the KPA belonging to its Fourth Battalion on two
separate special trucks where they were detained for four hours under the
pretext that they were mobilized for some work on July 7, 1952. They
conducted a gas weapon test on them, making it impossible for all of them to
open their eyes for two months or rendering them crippled.

On August 13, 1952, the U.S. aggressors herded many POWs of the KPA into a
small wire entanglement in the second camp on Ryongcho Island and ordered
two platoons to explode at least 1,000 gas shells there, inflicting serious
burn upon at least 350 POWs, leaving 44 POWs unconscious and killing four
others. On June 10, 1952, 27 tanks and 12 artillery pieces of the U.S.
aggressors fired chemical shells at POWs of the KPA in the 76th camp on Koje
Island, massacring 227 of them.

IV. Massacre of POWs

The 1949 Geneva Convention on the treatment of POWs and other international
laws call for a humanitarian treatment and protection of POWs under
detention and ban acts of killing them or endangering their health. And they
consider such acts as grave crimes and call for legal actions against them.

The U.S. aggressors, however, 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 killed the POWs of our
side by conducting various type weapon tests on them.

They took the POWs who served in KPA artillery units out of the POWs in the
seventh camp under the 100th POW camp in Koje-ri, Pusan on November 20, 1950
to a point six kilometers away from southeast of the camp. The tanks, which
had been deployed 200 meters from it, machine-gunned them when they were
forced to sit or lie down on the ground, killing all of them.

In flagrant violation of the publicly international recognized law 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 refused to comply with their
demands.

As POWs of our side rejected "private interview and screening" at the 76th
camp on June 10, 1952, they mobilized more than 4,000 soldiers, 22 tanks, 20
artillery pieces, 40 heavy machine-guns and light machine-guns in
discriminate firing, poison-gas spraying and hand-grenade throwing for four
hours, killing 276 POWs and wounding many others.

On May 27, 1952 at least 800 POWs were killed by flamethrowers at the 77th
camp on Koje Island for rejecting "voluntary repatriation" and insisting on
their repatriation to the northern half of Korea.

Some 1,000 U.S. soldiers encircled the 62nd POW camp on Koje Island on
February 18, 1952 and fired 25 heavy machine guns and 63 light machine-guns
killing 102 POWs of our side and wounding 260 others, for the mere reason
that they refused to sign the application for "civil detainee."

These massacres were committed in all the POW camps and mass killings took
place in more than 20 camps from March to April 1952.

According to a survey made at that time, GIs killed at least 33, 600 POWs of
the KPA and tens of thousands of POWs were wounded or crippled. Indeed, the
massacres committed by the U.S. aggressors during the Korean War were
hideous crimes against humanity as they were a wanton violation of the
publicly recognized international law and war law and regulations.