Claimants Want Washington to Show Them the Money

The Korea Times is running an article about the claimants from Nogun-ri demanding more compensation from the US government:

The controversy continues over how to settle a civilian massacre that U.S. troops committed during the Korean War at Nogun-ri, a rural village in central South Korea, as Washington considers the case closed.

The U.S. Department of Defense said Thursday that it stands by its announcement in 2001, when then U.S. President Bill Clinton offered a memorial and scholarship fund. The Koreans rejected the proposal, calling it insufficient.

It is not that the compensation is insufficient it is more like the compensation isn’t going directly into their pockets:

The dispute centers on who should benefit from the $1 million monument and the annual scholarship fund of $560,000 that will run for five years.

The White House intends them to cover all South Korean civilian victims of the Korean War, while the Nogun-ri victims say the beneficiaries should be restricted to that single incident.

(…)

He said that since 2001 the U.S. Department of Defense has set aside roughly $500,000 each year to fund the scholarship program.

“Each year, the funds have been returned because there have been no applicants for these scholarships, but they are still available,’’ Hicks said.

The U.S. Embassy in Seoul was not immediately available for comment, however a spokesman there assumed the families had been notified of the American fund but said it had not received any applications.

Concerning the $1 million budget for the memorial monument, the Pentagon said some of it has already been paid to a Korean firm to design the monument. He did not specify the amount, but the Korean families claim one-tenth of the fund was spent in 2003.

There is compensation available for the claimants that can be used to give a college education to members of their families. IMHO the reason they are not using the college scholarship fund is because they are still holding out hope that the US government will eventually just give them direct compensation to put this issue at rest. If the US gives them direct compensation I guarantee the government would be setting a precedent that would cause more people to come forward demanding compensation from other tragedies of the Korean War, real or imagined.

I don’t think the Korean govnernment wants direct compensation either because their own ROK soldiers and secret police are also accused of killing civilians during the war. Direct compensation may also cause people to demand compensation from the Korean government as well.

The idea of the scholarship fund and memorial plus a public statement of regret from President Clinton I believe is fare compensation for a tragedy that was largely caused by the mass confusion and conditions of the early period of the Korean War. I’m still waiting for North Korea and China to start a scholarship fund for all the civilians they killed during the war as well. How come nobody is demanding compensation from them?

For more on the Nogun-ri tragedy check the Focus On: No Gun Ri series.

Check out the Korea Sojourner’s take on why the Korean media is suddenly making a headline story out of this.