North Korea seeks U.N. probe against U.S. for alleged Korean War atrocities

March 25, 2000
Web posted at: 10:31 a.m. HKT (0231 GMT)

From staff and wire reports

UNITED NATIONS (CNN) -- North Korea called Friday for the creation of a U.N. war crimes tribunal to investigate the conduct of U.S. troops in the 1950-53 Korean War.

Li Hyong Chol, North Korea's U.N. ambassador, accused U.S. troops of killing "more than a million innocent civilians" while U.S. forces occupied parts of present-day North Korea under a U.N. mandate. The United States has denied the charges.

Li's Friday news conference followed a North Korean memorandum issued this week listing what were said to have been mass killings that resulted from indiscriminate bombings, chemical weapons use and germ warfare from U.S. forces. He said recent reports of U.S. killings of civilians in South Korea had prompted the Foreign Ministry to take the accusations to the press.

"In recent years, the United States is making much ado, as if it is concerned, about genocide occurring in other parts of the world under the signboard of protection of human rights -- posing itself as the defender of world peace," Li said. "This is nothing more than an attempt for a criminal to cover up its true color and camouflage as an angel."

A U.S. State Department official said the allegations are not new.

"The propaganda is out there. It's been out there," said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. "They're always made, these type of charges. They continue to be untrue now."

For years, North Korea has claimed the U.S. forces committed massacres during the Korean War. The north has stepped up its anti-U.S. rhetoric as the conflict's 50th anniversary approaches.

The war began in June 1950, when North Korean troops, backed by China and the Soviet Union, swarmed over the border with South Korea. Historians say North Korean troops committed far more atrocities than American or U.N. troops, summarily executing U.S. prisoners of war and slaughtering large numbers of South Korean civilians.

U.N. spokesman Fred Eckhard said the United Nations would not comment since it had not seen any request from Pyongyang. The United States holds a veto on the U.N. Security Council and would likely block the creation of a tribunal.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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United Nations
U.S. State Department
U.S. Department of Defense
U.S. Army
North Korean Government
CIA -- The World Factbook 1999 -- North Korea

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