US Indicted for Environmental Pollution in S Korea
U.S. Indicted for Environmental Pollution in S. Korea
Pyongyang, February 22 (KCNA) -- The National Reunification
Institute issued a white paper Monday indicting the U.S.
imperialist aggression forces for their environmental
pollution during their 60 year-long occupation of south
Korea in connection with the recent disclosure of part of
the environmental pollution by the U.S. forces in their
military bases that has lashed the whole Korean nation into
fury. The white paper said:
There are a total of 850
U.S. military bases in the world but south Korea is the only
region which has offered so vast area to all branches of the
three services of the U.S. forces densely deployed there.
There are 101 military bases of all kinds in south
Korea which cover at least 73.2 million phyong.
Residential areas except for land, forestry, factories and
business centers there cover a little over 100 million
phyong. But a vast area almost equal to those residential
areas is occupied by at least 37,000 U.S. soldiers.
450,000 hectares of arable land are occupied by barracks of
U.S. forces in south Korea and tens of millions of phyong by
the firing ranges for the exclusive use of U.S. forces.
It is possible to measure the area of the land usurped by
the U.S. military bases but with nothing can the occupation
forces compensate for the land so severely destroyed and
damaged by them.
The U.S. forces stationed in the
U.S. military base district in Ryongsan which occupies an
area of 820,000 phyong in the central part of Seoul
discharged without warning all sorts of contaminated oil and
cancer-causing substance whose pungent odor can be smelt
even in the place 1 km away from it, thus polluting 491,000
phyong out of 820,000 phyong.
Camp Long in Wonju
City, South Kangwon Province, U.S. airforce base in Osan
City, Kyonggi Province and Camp House of the U.S. second
division in Phaju City in the same province and most of the
areas occupied by the U.S. military bases are seriously
polluted.
Anti-north war exercises conducted by the
U.S. forces almost every day in south Korea cause unlimited
environmental pollution.
U.S. madcap war exercises
left Mt. Thaebaek range, backbone of the great Mt. Paektu
range, in the state of breakdown as 2 million phyong of it
have been dug out. And a big rock island in waters off
Maehyang-ri, Hwasong City, Kyonggi Province was lowered 15
meters due to mock nuke dropping exercises conducted by the
U.S. forces without letup. At least 90 U.S. fighter bombers
fly into a drill ground in Maehyang-ri in a day from U.S.
airforce bases in Kunsan, Osan, Suwon, Taegu and other areas
for mock nuke dropping exercises.
Deafening noise by
these planes caused 80 per cent of the inhabitants in
Maehyang-ri to suffer from hearing disorder, dizziness,
dyspepsia, nervousness, stillbirth and all sorts of other
diseases.
Inhabitants in areas around U.S. airforce
base in Osan, Kyonggi Province also suffer from mental
disorder, heart trouble and hallucination due to noise.
At the recent "negotiations" held between the U.S. and the
south Korean authorities over the issue of relocation of the
U.S. forces in south Korea the U.S. forces side, pretending
to be generous, said that they would "return" to south Korea
by 2011 28 base districts which have so far been under their
control.
They also said they were ready to return
780,000 phyong out of 820,000 of their base in Ryongsan,
Seoul, by 2008.
They, however, requested south Korea
to offer 3.49 million phyong in Phyongthaek and Osan areas
instead, more than four times the land occupied by their
base at present.
The issue of U.S. military bases in
south Korea is an issue related to more than 37,000 U.S.
troops present there but an issue related to the fate of
more than 48 million south Koreans.
The nation can
lead a genuine life only in the land free from outsiders,
the paper said, calling on all Koreans to force the U.S.
forces to withdraw from south Korea to the last man under
the banner of three forms of cooperation--cooperation for
national independence, cooperation for peace against war and
cooperation for reunification and patriotism--and hand down
a reunified land to
posterity.