I feel bad for the guy that died trying to stop one of these suicides from happening, but I do think there was probably more going on with these two that killed themselves considering the corruption probe that is happening:
Failure to meet deadlines and pay contractors on time may have contributed to the deaths this past spring of three South Koreans working on the U.S. Army’s massive expansion of Camp Humphreys, according to local police.
Two South Korean workers committed suicide in separate incidents in May, while a third man died from injuries after trying to intervene in one of the deaths.
The head of a subcontracting company set himself on fire May 8 at a Humphreys work site and died at a hospital 10 days later. The man, surnamed Han, claimed to be nearly $1.8 million in debt, police said. Media reports said that Han may not have been paid by the contracting company that hired his firm and may have been unable to pay his company’s taxes.
Another man who tried to save, Han died May 22, police said.
The third man, an employee of Samsung C&T Corp. surnamed Kim, hanged himself May 7 in an off-post dormitory for Samsung employees, a Pyeongtaek police official said.
Kim had been overseeing the base hospital’s construction but failed to meet building deadlines and was demoted to head of construction for the dental clinic, the officer said. Kim killed himself because he was upset over the demotion, police said.
Suicide in South Korea is the fourth-leading cause of death overall, after cancer, stroke and heart disease, according to the World Health Organization. [Stars & Stripes]
It just wouldn’t be a major construction project in Korea without a bribery scandal of some kind and USFK is not immune to this:
Police said Tuesday that they have raided SK Engineering & Construction Co. and its construction site on a U.S. base in central South Korea over slush fund allegations involving a U.S. military official.
The National Police Agency confiscated materials including account books and computer hard disks from the head office of SK E&C in Seoul and its work site at the U.S. Forces Korea base in Pyeongtaek, Gyeonggi Province, a police official said on condition of anonymity.
An SK E&C subcontractor allegedly stashed away about 1 billion won (US$890,000) and handed it over to a then USFK official in 2010, according to the official. The now-defunct subcontractor is headed by a former South Korean field officer.
The police have already obtained witness accounts from former employees of the subcontractor. They are currently investigating whether SK E&C was involved.
They have also sent investigators to the U.S. to ask U.S. law enforcement authorities for cooperation in searching for the former USFK official. [Yonhap]
You can read more at the link, but $890,000 bribe has got to be one of the biggest bribery scandals in USFK history. That is a lot of money. If anyone is wondering, corruption involving USFK personnel is nothing new. What is important is that these people are caught and punished to discourage others from trying to pull off the same scams.
YONGSAN, South Korea – A USFK service member at Camp Humphreys self-reported a potential exposure to the Middle Eastern Respiratory Syndrome virus and is experiencing some symptoms associated with MERS. The service member previously received treatment at an affected Korean hospital before the hospital was identified as having a MERS patient. USFK is continuing to monitor the service member’s health and the individual has been isolated to on-post quarters, pending test results to assess infection. If test results establish that the service member has been infected, the individual will be placed into a special-care facility for MERS treatment and isolation.
For the most current MERS information, please go to USFK.mil and listen to AFN radio and television. [Camp Humphreys Facebook page via a reader tip]
I checked the USFK webpage for any updates and it is currently down. The USFK Facebook page however has a message on there from U.S. Forces Korea commander, Gen. Curtis M. Scaparrotti directing service members, civilians, and their families to contact their chain of command and healthcare providers prior to completing any off-installation hospital referrals within the Republic of Korea. Let’s all hope that if this USFK servicemember does in fact have MERS that he has a speedy recovery.
When I was first stationed in Korea 15 years ago I can remember people both Korean and retired Americans telling stories about how a black soldier was hung by Korean civilians outside of Camp Humphreys for killing a Korean man. I was always skeptical of this claim, but as it turns out there was a grain of truth to the story. I recently decided to research this story to see if I can make a GI Flashbacks article about it. I was pleasantly surprised to find that the always informative Popular Gusts blog had already researched this very topic. The site posted an article from the Stars and Stripes that was published in 1971 that explained what caused a race riot to occur in the Anjeong-ri ville just outside of Camp Humphreys:
Korean protesters in Anjeong-ri hold signs after riot occurred in the ville back in 1971. The sign on the left says BLACK, BLACK, BLACK” and “Go back to cotton field,” and the sign on the right looks like it says “We don’t need any N*****”
Black GIs on Rampage
Riot-Torn Anjong-Ni—Why It Happened
By M. SGT. JIM FREELAND and JIM LEA
S&S Korea Bureau
ANJONG-NI, Korea—A sign hangs on the rear wall of the security guard house at the Camp Humphreys main gate which lists the names of 12 bars.
Beside each is a pair of nails from which a small plaque is hung to tell American GIs who are the life’s blood of this village of perhaps 2,000 population, 60 miles south of Seoul, the situation in each bar. A black plaque means the place is on limits; a yellow one means it is off limits.
Since 9:30 p.m. July 10, all the plaques have been yellow. The sign will remain that way for a very long time, Camp Humphreys commander, Col. John C. McWhorter, says.
A few minutes past 9 p.m. that Friday, 50 black soldiers from Camp Humphreys walked into Duffy’s Tavern, one of the plushest of the bars which line a pathway GIs call “the alley,” climbed up on the stage and told everyone to leave the club. In minutes, they had demolished it and moved on to three other clubs which, they say, discriminate against blacks. Those were demolished too. “They didn’t stay around each place very long,” McWhorter said.
“They hit one place, then moved to the next. Some news stories have said there were whites involved, but that is not true. This was between a group of black soldiers and Koreans.”
More than 200 MPs and Korean National Police swarmed into the area and struggled to separate the combatants. McWhorter ordered the village put off limits and the MPs began moving Americans back up Anjong-Ni’s single dusty street.
“We had about 80 men who were moving back toward the gate with a crowd of Koreans following them. The Koreans started throwing rocks and, to break up the crowd and protect the camp, we used tear gas grenades/’ he said.
“Some shots were fired from .45 cal. pistols.
“No one was shot down here. There are rumors that some people were shot but that isn’t true. All the shots were fired into the air to break up the crowds.”
Four bars were extensively damaged. Four days after the riot, young Korean men loafed amidst the wreckage, playing go (Japanese chess), coming alert only when newsmen came in too look at the damage. Then, they hobbled about.
The bar owners are claiming 20 million won ($54,000) damage and the 8th Army Claims Office is accepting claims. If they are legitimate, they will be paid, an Army spokesman said.
The damage does not appear that extensive.
There were no houses damaged. One shop window was broken, apparently by a rock, and the Koreans reportedly were throwing the rocks.
By 11:30 p.m., most of the Americans were out of the village and safely behind concertina wire which had been stretched across the gate. About 10 U.S. dependents were moved out of the village and onto the compound.
“There was one man down here on leave with his wife. We brought them on the base Friday night and moved them out the next day,” McWhorter said.
Saturday, U.S. MPs swept through the village twice in a door-to-door search for other Americans.
“There was a lot of anger out there, a lot of tension. The men who got caught in it went into hiding. They were afraid,” McWhorter said.
One man, a Negro, was caught by villagers as he tried to make his way back to Camp Humphreys Saturday and was beaten. Police rescued him. Another man, who was injured Friday night, was found during a search and was taken back to the post dispensary.
“This man was not involved in the riot. He’s one of my best EOT (equal opportunities and treatment) men, and he definitely was not involved in it.
“We don’t know, yet, exactly who was involved. We’re investigating, but no one has been charged yet. There were many people hurt, but just because a person was hurt doesn’t mean that he was involved in it. Many were simply bystanders.
Anjong-Ni is not an unusual village.
Its single unpaved, pot-holed street is lined with vegetable stores, a hotel — which the manager says soon will boast a miniature golf course and a swimming pool—tailor and shoe shops which hawk the outlandish fashions of the young and souvenir stores which offer everything from peace beads to intricately etched Korean brassware.
The 12 bars which dot “the alley” are by GI bar standards in Korea, plush, but they are like GI gin mills anywhere. Camp Humphreys is Anjong-Ni’s major industry. It is the reason the village was built and the people and the village could not exist without it.
Its future is now shrouded in a cloud which has put the economy of other towns, other people, in jeopardy: racial discrimination.
Duffy’s, where Friday night’s riot began, is a major source of the discrimination, blacks say.
“We have no place here to relax. The bartenders don’t like to serve us, the girls don’t like to sit with us,” they say.
These are the same complaints that other GIs in Japan, the Philippines, in other areas of Asia, have. They are difficult to prove.
In Friday night’s riot, 14 Americans and Koreans were injured and were treated at U.S. military medical facilities. One Korean, a slim man nicknamed “Johnny,” the manager of Duffy’s, was evacuated to the 121st Evac. Hospital in Seoul for treatment of three stab wounds in the abdomen.
In town, people were saying Johnny was dead and a secret funeral had been held for him Monday.
Monday afternoon, Johnny was returned from Seoul and he was driven from the base to his home in a Pacific Stars and Stripes station wagon, one of the few U.S. forces vehicles allowed into the village that day. As we moved through the concertina wire at the gate, people in a crowd glared at us. The crowd had gathered a few moments earlier when base officials decided to allow Korean women through the gate to visit their boy friends.
Then someone recognized Johnny and word that he was not dead spread quickly down the street. In seconds, the hostility vanished and people ran alongside the car, shouting welcome home and smiling for the first time in four days.
As we took him home, Johnny told us about his club and about what happened.
“I was in the club about 9 p.m. and a bunch of black soldiers came in and told everybody to get out. I ran next door to call the police. We’ve had a lot of trouble here before and I knew, there was going to be trouble again.”
“When I got back to the club, I couldn’t get inside because the black soldiers had pushed everybody out. I could hear them tearing up the place. When they left, I followed them to the street. There were a lot of people around and suddenly someone stabbed me. I don’t know who did it. There were too many people around.”
“I don’t know why they did it. Somebody said it was because there was fight between a black soldier and a white soldier at my club early in the evening. That’s not true. There wasn’t any fight before 9 p.m.
We asked point-blank if there was racial discrimination in Duffy’s.
Johnny lowered his head and answered very quietly, “no.”
“Is the service you give whites any different than that you give blacks?”
He ignored the question and waved out the window at a woman who was running beside the car, waving at him.
The manager of another bar gave at least one piece of concrete evidence of discrimination.
“A lot of it has to do with credit. Many of the bars use chit books. When a soldier doesn’t have any money he can use the chits and pay on pay day. We had a bar owners meeting and some of us argued that the chit books are no good. They only cause problems.”
He said other bar owners will extend credit to white soldiers, but not to blacks. He said his bar does not extend credit, to anyone.
Some people in town — and some on base — say that gangsters have been brought into town to keep the blacks out. They say the gangsters are being paid two million won ($5,400) for the job.
“All I know,” an MP said, “is that since Friday a lot of girls have been leaving and a lot of men have been coming in.”
“Those are rumors,” McWhorter said. “We’ve heard that’s being done and are investigating, but so far we haven’t confirmed it.”
The riot at Anjong-Ni Friday night has served one purpose: It has brought the black soldiers and white soldiers a little closer together.
Monday, when GIs were allowed to go back into the village with an MP escort to pick up their belongings, blacks were not allowed to go.
“No sweat, man,” white GIs said time and again, “I’ll get your stuff for you.”
Anjong-Ni’s bars now are faced with a choice: Either clean up their town and end discrimination or go broke.
“The village will stay off limits indefinitely,” McWhorter said. “It will be off limits until each man who goes out the gate receives the same treatment as the next man.” [Popular Gusts]
I highly recommend reading the whole Popular Gusts article which begins with Part 1 at this link and Part 2 at this link. The comments section above Part 2 is especially informative since servicemembers who were in Korea during this time frame provided further context of what happened. What appears to have happened is that a group of black servicemembers decided to riot in protest of the segregation of the clubs and general discrimination against them in the Anjeong-ri ville. During the riot one of the popular club managers named “Johnny” was stabbed and evacuated to the 121 Hospital on Yongsan Garrison. It is interesting that Johnny and other Koreans that were injured were treated at the military hospital at the time because such a thing would not happen today.
Korea Times article from 1971
However, rumors spread that Johnny had died which caused anger with the Koreans in the Anjeong-ri ville. The Koreans started to hunt down servicemembers in the ville which caused many to go in hiding and wait evacuation, some by helicopter to escape the vigilantes. Despite the vigilantism there was no such incident as a black GI ever being hanged. It seems like this was just a rumor that spread just like the one saying Johnny had died. Fortunately no one did die from this riot in Anjeong-ri, but it shows that Camp Humphreys and Anjeong-ri have had historically a love-hate relationship at times. Some recent example are the Braveheart style battles that occurred in 2005 over the Camp Humphreys expansion and the nasty fight over off limits club bans in 2006.
Seek psychiatric help, Camp Humphreys commander!” is the message on this sign protesting Col. Michael J. Taliento Jr. and his policies concerning access to some off-base establishments in 2006. T.D. Flack / S&SProtesters combat riot police outside of Camp Humphreys in 2005.
Back in 1971 the protests did spread to other bases in Korea such as in the TDC ville outside of Camp Casey which saw only two people injured. However as the above Korea Times article shows three black GIs attacked and stabbed a white GI to death in Busan. It is incidents like this that show how far the Army has come since 1971 and hopefully we never seen anything like this ever happen again.
Note:You can read more GI Flashbacks articles by clicking on the below link:
It is pretty amazing that the level of construction of the Camp Humphreys expansion is the largest US military construction project since the construction of the Panama Canal:
The new Brian Allgood Army Community Hospital under construction at Camp Humphreys, South Korea, on April 24, 2015. Armando R. Limon/Stars and Stripes
Dump trucks are rolling, and more than 10,000 workers are hammering and pouring concrete for 630 new buildings at this sprawling Army post in the South Korean port city of Pyeongtaek.
This is the peak construction year for the $10.7 billion project, which will see Camp Humphreys triple in size to accommodate tens of thousands of soldiers and civilians moving south as the U.S. vacates much of Yongsan Garrison in Seoul and two dozen other facilities used since the Korean War.
“It is, essentially, building a compound the size of (downtown) Washington, D.C.,” Maj. Gen. James T. Walton, U.S. Forces Korea’s director for Transformation and Restationing, said recently.
Construction will continue at a reduced rate next year, when the bulk of U.S. forces are due to move south. By the end of 2017, most of the moves will be complete, he said.
Construction began in November 2006 on the largest U.S. military project since the Panama Canal. The base will house 36,000, including servicemembers, dependents, civilian employees, contractors and Korean augmentees to the U.S. Army (KATUSAs), Walton said. [Stars & Stripes]
Compared to the comfort women the women who used to work as prostitutes outside of US military bases definitely do not receive the same level of social support:
More than 70 aging women live in a squalid neighborhood between the rear gate of the U.S. Army garrison here and half a dozen seedy nightclubs. Near the front gate, glossy illustrations posted in real-estate offices show the dream homes that may one day replace their one-room shacks.
They once worked as prostitutes for American soldiers in this “camptown” near Camp Humphreys, and they’ve stayed because they have nowhere else to go. Now, the women are being forced out of the Anjeong-ri neighborhood by developers and landlords eager to build on prime real estate around the soon-to-be-expanded garrison.
“My landlord wants me to leave, but my legs hurt, I can’t walk, and South Korean real estate is too expensive,” says Cho Myung-ja, 75, a former prostitute who receives monthly court eviction notices at her home, which she has rarely left over the last five years because of leg pain.
“I feel like I’m suffocating,” she says.
Plagued by disease, poverty and stigma, the women have little to no support from the public or the government.
Their fate contrasts greatly with a group of Korean women forced into sexual slavery by Japanese troops during World War II. Those so-called “comfort women” receive government assistance under a special law, and large crowds demanding that Japan compensate and apologize to the women attend weekly rallies outside the Japanese Embassy.
While the camptown women get social welfare, there’s no similar law for special funds to help them, according to two Pyeongtaek city officials who refused to be named because of office rules. Many people in South Korea don’t even know about the camptown women. [Star & Stripes]
You can read the rest at the link, but what few people realize is that many of these former prostitutes were sold to pimps by their families and forced to become prostitutes. Other were abandoned children or orphans that were taken in by the pimps to become prostitutes. Could it be that the same thing was going on in regards to the World War II comfort women and thus the collective amnesia in regards to the former camptown prostitutes?
In a written statement to a Senate Armed Service Committee hearing on Monday, Gen. Burwell Bell said, Without more equitable allied SMA funding, we may be forced to recommend a range of fiscal measures to the U.S. government, including a review of base relocation and consolidation plans.
Commenting on a new Special Measures Agreement (SMA) on Korea’s cost sharing support for the USFK for 2007-2008 concluded at the end of last year, Bell said, The two allied nations should contribute approximately 50 percent each of the non-personnel stationing costs (NPSC) for U.S. forces in Korea.
But Korea paid 38 percent of upkeep last year and is to pay 41 percent this year. Bell said that was still short of the principle of equitable 50-50 cost sharing. He added, I cannot allow readiness to suffer, and I will not allow the quality of life of my service members or families to suffer.
In other base transformation news, if the expanded Camp Humphreys is to be built a contracting consortium has been selected to build the base expansion. There is only one problem, of one of the five contractors chosen; the company’s president is the husband of the commander of the US Army Corps of Engineers Far East District, Colonel Janice Dombi who’s department was responsible for awarding the contracts. Can anyone say conflict of interest?
Seek psychiatric help, Camp Humphreys commander!” is the message on this sign protesting Col. Michael J. Taliento Jr. and his policies concerning access to some off-base establishments. T.D. Flack / S&S
Bar owners objected to Taliento decision, saying the agent who ordered the alcohol was of legal drinking age while the agent who paid was underage. They called it a sting operation in which they were set up to fail.
Kim said USFK personnel on Friday admitted fault in the recent undercover investigations. Kim said future checks are to be conducted by U.S. military personnel, members of the merchant association and Pyeongtaek city officials.
And while bars are required to do everything they can to prevent sales to minors, they wont be held responsible for personnel who legally buy alcohol then sneak it to underage buddies, Kim said.
That is actually a pretty weak case for putting a bar off limits by having an underage person buy a drink for a person of legal age. If that is in fact true I can understand why the bar owners are pissed off. However, this “solution” does nothing to solve the problem of underage drinkers because the people who underage drink will now just get their buddies to buy them alcohol instead. If the command really wants to end the problem put breathalyzers at the gate and that would make the people who want to underage drink have to stay at a hotel because they can’t get in through the gate. That is an additional expense for them plus they would have to get a pass from their commander to stay out. If the commander knows this person may possibly be an underage drinker the commander could not give the soldier a pass. Plus that will keep additional drunks out of the barracks where the vast majority of sexual assaults occur because of alcohol.
Then when these soldiers are caught underage drinking they need to be slammed as in losing rank and doing the maximum extra duty in full combat gear to set an example to anyone else who may be underage drinking. That will shift the underage drinking into the barracks where it is easier to monitor if there is a leadership presence in the barracks which there should be. How come I think we will be talking about off limits bar at Camp Humphreys again in another year?
Big hat tip to Nomad for pointing out this classic piece of journalism from Oh My News. I have always maintained that Oh My News is way left wing in their writing but this article is just plain kooky. At Camp Humphreys located in Pyeongtaek, South Korea; they have a radar dome that towers over the base because the camp is home to a major airfield shared by both the US and Korean militaries. The Oh My News “reporter” speculates that the radar is actually part of a sinister super secret US “Orwellian” plan to rule the world:
“Its been there about seven or eight years. We have no idea what it is; we just thought it might be a water tank or something. People have said is an oil tank, or some kind of antenna. But why should we even bother to try to figure it out. Isn’t it easier if we just consider it as a big ball? I like it because it makes the scene of our village very familiar from a distance.”
A titan standing 30 meters tall, the “ball” is about eight years old. For the residents living near the field of Daechu-ri, located in Pyeongtaek, Gyeonggi Province, their lives have revolved around a mysterious ball mounted in the sky, all the while never knowing exactly what it is.
(…)
“Right now, somebody is watching your every movement.” This may sound like something from a science-fiction movies, but instead, it’s real.
In the greatest surveillance effort ever made, the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) created a global spy system — codename ECHELON — which captures and analyzes virtually every phone call, fax, email and telex message sent anywhere in the world. ECHELON is controlled by the NSA and operated in conjunction with the Government Communications Head Quarters (GCHQ) of England, the Communications Security Establishment (CSE) of Canada, the Australian Defense Security Directorate (DSD), and the General Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) of New Zealand. These organizations are bound together under a secret 1948 agreement, UKUSA, whose terms and text remain under wraps even today.
I wonder if this super secret 007 golf ball is manned by Elvis and Bigfoot? That is just about as credible a theory as the one put forth by Oh My News. What’s next, an article on the Indianhead statue in front of Camp Casey is actually a US homing beacon for UFO’s to land on the camp and dump flemeldahyde into doo-doo creek thus creating the Lochness Monster of Dongducheon? Just when you thought journalism in Korea couldn’t get any worse, it does. Well it’s good that the “reporter” at least has some serious photographic talent because the pictures in the article are quite good. However, he is going to need that photographic talent in the future because he sure isn’t going to make it as an investigative journalist for much longer unless he writes for the Weekly World News.
The US is not the ones feeling the sting of the South Korean priest, the Korean government most notably the Ministry of Defense and the 20 year old mandatory service draftees being assualted by the priests followers are. South Korea has more to lose than the US if the base consolidation plan fails. Failure of this plan would most likely mean the redeployment of at least the 2nd Infantry Division and possibly other elements of USFK. USFK has no intentions of staying in the Yongsan and 2ID footprints for much longer. The loss of USFK means the end to many USFK jobs that South Korean civilians hold along with the loss of international investment once USFK pulls out. Let’s face it, interenational investors feel much more secure in their investments when they know the US military is safeguarding it.
Here is where else the Asia Times is getting it all wrong:
“No US base,” they shout in Korean. “Save our land.”
It is a daily ritual staged in defiance of thousands of South Korean police against a plan to turn the region of rice paddies and orchards into one of America’s largest overseas bases.
The police control the countryside, blocking off traffic, but the farmers cling to this enclave of sturdy brick homes in a standoff that embarrasses the United States and South Korea – and reveals some of the weaknesses in a deteriorating alliance.
It is not the US being embarrassed here. It is the Korean government that is an embarassment. Any government that would allow young mandatory service draftees to be beaten and assaulted like the young men stationed outside Camp Humphreys regularly are is a joke. This is a perfect example of why mandatory service needs to end in Korea. If the government had to worry about reenlisting these guys, I can guarantee they wouldn’t treat them as meat to feed to the protesters to beat on.
Here is something else that really strikes a nerve with me:
The priest, Moon Jeong-hyun, 69, returned here less than a week after holding out for most of a day on the roof of the school building with nine other priests and two National Assembly members defying the riot police, who drove the activists from the building, some of them kicking and screaming.
A distinctive figure with a flowing beard, often seen holding a video camera as he records prayer meetings and confrontations, Moon and his cohorts were promised they would not be arrested before descending down a ladder from the roof on May 4.
The government let this guy go even though he broke the law. This guy is a criminal responsible for the assaults and injuries of many young police officers and soldiers. Here is another criminal that really shouldn’t surprise anyone that was also let go:
Some wonder if the South’s governing Uri Party is actually encouraging the standoff in which an assembly member from the party, Im Jung-in, is playing a leading role.
Im was up on the roof with the priests before they all came down on May 4 – and has appeared again at rallies in the village. He talks frequently on his mobile phone with party officials, and his presence in the village symbolizes support for the farmers and activists in the government.
This is just more evidence of what an embarrassment the current Korean government is. An assembly member from the ruling party is openly endorsing the assault and injury of the nation’s policemen and soldiers. What a disgrace and the Asia Times thinks the US should be embarrassed?
Oh, there is more:
“South and North Korea are reconciling with one another,” says another priest visiting the village. “We don’t need US forces in Korea at all.”
That’s a view that US officials fear may come to dominate the outlook of a South Korea government already seen as left of center as thousands of police face the unpleasant task of finally removing the diehards from their homes – and the troublesome priest from the village chapel.
I’m not sure if ass kissing and appeasement with nothing in return is really reconciliation but apparently the Korean government and the Asia Times thinks so. Also if this person is so bold to say the US is not needed in Korea than he needs to protest his local congressmen instead of attacking soldiers and police officers. Remember Korea has more to lose than US if the base consolidation plan fails.
