They said the Clinton administration's decision was based on a recently completed U.S. Army investigation of its conduct at No Gun Ri. Details of the Pentagon's yearlong "investigation" are expected to be officially released in January.

In response to this announcement, survivors of the No Gun Ri massacre held a news conference in Washington December 19 to condemn the U.S. Army's report as a "whitewash."

"They killed us as if they killed animals," said survivor Chung Eun-yong. He described the incident as an "annihilation" carried out jointly by U.S. Army and Air Force troops.

Lawyers for the group of survivors said they intend to organize mock trials at law schools in Seoul and Washington in mid-January to dramatize evidence of the massacre already presented by Korean witnesses and U.S. soldiers.

In September 1999 the Associated Press reported, based on interviews with ex-GIs, on the slaughter carried out by U.S. military forces at the No Gun Ri railroad bridge from July 26 to 29, 1950. U.S. warplanes killed about 100 refugees and U.S. Army troops then killed about 300 more.

For decades, both the U.S. and south Korean governments dismissed claims by Korean civilians that a massacre had taken place there. However, after publication of the AP report, both governments announced they would open investigations of this incident.

The Korean War broke out on June 25, 1950, as Washington, London, and other imperialist powers launched an invasion by thousands of troops in response to what U.S. president Harry Truman called a "communist invasion of the south." The U.S.-led imperialist assault was waged under the cover of the United Nations flag.

On July 26, 1950, south Korean peasants in two nearby villages were forced from their homes by U.S. troops under the pretext that north Korean soldiers were advancing.

After U.S. Army officers ordered the peasants to walk on railroad tracks, U.S. warplanes swooped in and rained bombs and bullets on the area where the peasants were gathered. Those not killed scrambled for cover under a nearby bridge. For three nights, U.S. soldiers fired on the tunnel where the peasants, many of them women and children, were trying to hide. "People pulled dead bodies around them for protection," recalled survivor Chung Koo Ho.

"We ended up shooting into there until all the bodies we saw were lifeless," former GI Edward Daily told the Associated Press.  
 
Over 3 million Koreans killed in war
During the course of the 1950–53 war in Korea the U.S. rulers conducted saturation bombing of northern cities, factories, and mines, as well as many areas in the south, resulting in the deaths of 2 million civilians in the north, 1 million civilians in the south, and 500,000 north Korean soldiers, out of a total population of 30 million. Some 5.7 million U.S. troops were involved in the war and 54,000 were killed. In addition, the war claimed the lives of 900,000 Chinese volunteers who joined with the Korean combatants in repelling the imperialist assault, which was also aimed at the Chinese revolution. In the end, Washington failed in its bloody attempt to overthrow the workers state in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

Commenting on the Pentagon's investigation of events at No Gun Ri, U.S. Army secretary Louis Caldera declared that the "loss of life" in that town "was very regrettable" but this could not be called a massacre because it was not an "intentional killing." While admitting that "some" of the many civilians killed in the Korean War "were at the hand of American soldiers," Caldera asserted that the Koreans who survived had developed "corporate" or "collective" accounts of what happened and could not be believed.

"We cannot accept his statement," commented Chung Koo-do, a spokesman for a committee in south Korea representing survivors of the massacre.

Meanwhile, Donald Gregg, former CIA agent and U.S. ambassador to south Korea, and now head of the "civilian advisory panel" advising the U.S. military brass on their investigation, commented that "a central part of our response to No Gun Ri must be symbolic." He suggested building a monument near the bridge at No Gun Ri with inscriptions satisfactory to both the Korean and U.S. governments. The White House is also considering whether to erect a monument in honor of all civilians killed in the Korean War.

In early December, U.S. officials went to Seoul to get south Korean officials to sign a joint "statement of mutual understanding" prior to the release by Washington of its report, but the government there refused. However, after two days of talks at the Pentagon a couple of weeks later, south Korean officials reportedly reached a "broad agreement" December 21 with their U.S. counterparts.

According to Chung Koo-do, Washington and the U.S.-dependent regime in south Korea are trying to avoid investigating 61 other complaints that have been filed alleging killings of civilians by U.S. troops.

"If they investigate those other incidents, the fact that there were orders from above will be revealed," Chung stated.  
 
 
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