Growing suspicions

Swift, transparent action prevents diplomatic disasters

The stir created by the reported burial of defoliants at U.S. bases in southeastern Korea is showing few signs of calming down. The two governments have yet to launch joint probes, but testimonies from veterans are pouring in. This is no time for the officials to dally, and yet their initial handling of the scandal is far from reassuring.

According to ``Korean War Project,” an Internet site for U.S. veterans who took part in the 1950-53 Korean War, there were orders in the late 1970s to get rid of dioxin, which is said to be the most virulent material produced by humans and a key component of the Agent Orange, left in all warehouses of the U.S. 2nd Division.

The timing roughly coincides with the alleged dumping of defoliants at Camp Carroll, about 300 km southeast of Seoul, in 1977-78. It was also the time when the so-called Love Canal scandal broke out in America, in which dioxin and other toxic chemicals buried by a U.S. chemical company in the 1940s caused various diseases among residents in the Niagara, N.Y. region.

The U.S. veteran, Larry Anderson, also wrote on the website that the U.S. government sprayed defoliants in the 1960s and ’70s not just in the DMZ but in various other areas of Korea, but lied to deny such facts. In another testimony, a U.S. veteran also alleged the U.S. Forces Korea dumped hundreds of gallons of ``every imaginable chemical” in the former Camp Mercer, a U.S. military base in Bucheon, southwest of Seoul, later returned to the Korean government.

What all these allegations say is the scheduled joint probes may have to expand to other U.S. bases, former and present, instead of being limited to Camp Carroll, as suggested by USFK Commander Walter Sharp.

Regrettably the U.S. military authorities are giving the impression of scaling down the issue. On Monday, Lt. Gen. John D. Johnson, commanding general of the Eighth U.S. Army, said they couldn’t affirm the existence of defoliants among pesticides, herbicides, solvents and other chemicals that were excavated and re-buried in other areas later, adding that it was not known whether these materials were taken out of Korea. There were also wide gaps in the amount of dumped chemicals between the veteran’s testimony and Gen. Johnson’s report.

The U.S. officer’s remarks leave at least three questions: whether the old documents tried to camouflage the existence of Agent Orange in the generalized list of herbicides; where is the re-burial site and whether the Korean government knew and endorsed the lethal contamination of the land.

We welcome the unusually swift and positive U.S. attitude in getting to the bottom of this controversy, which reflects their recognition of the potential impact it could have on bilateral relationships. The two governments should know why an increasing number of Koreans are calling for the revision of the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA).

The U.S. has maintained a ``none-of-my-business” stance in handling almost all the 47 previous cases of environmental contamination. Don’t let distrust beget distrust.