By Jun Ji-hye
Calls are increasing here for the strengthening of rules for declaration when United States Forces Korea (USFK) brings hazardous materials into South Korea.
Opposition parties and civic groups have demanded the government revise the ROK-U.S. Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA), the bilateral agreement on U.S. troops here, to accomplish this.
The move comes on the heels of a revelation live samples of anthrax were accidentally sent to the USFK’s Osan Air Base, south of Seoul, for tests.
As the controversy has escalated, the two countries agreed to address the issue at talks between U.S. Secretary of Defense Ash Carter and his South Korean counterpart Han Min-koo Saturday in Singapore during the 14th Asian Security Summit, called the Shangri-La Dialogue.
The sending of such samples ― alive or dead ― without notifying the Korean government appears to be a violation of the SOFA obligation of giving notice to the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
The USFK did not make a prior report because it believed the samples were inert and harmless to be used in a training laboratory environment, the Korea CDC said Friday after its joint investigation into the site with the U.S.
The CDC added that the USFK brought the samples in four weeks ago through the global delivery service FedEx.
In its separate press release, also Friday, the USFK said the samples were for laboratory biological defense training, part of the Joint USFK Portal and Integrated Threat Recognition Program (JUPITR) at Osan.
The USFK stressed that it was the first time the training has been conducted, and the purpose was to improve identification and detection capabilities.
“The training was meant to improve USFK and ROK-U.S. alliance capacity to protect alliance forces and defend the Korean people by testing currently fielded equipment and new systems that could better identify toxins and pathogens in the environment,” it said.
It added that there remains no risk to the public or members of the Osan base community.
Government officials said it seems premature to conclude that the USFK violated SOFA provisions, saying channels of the joint Seoul-Washington committee on SOFA are operating to carry out multilateral discussions on the case.
The civic groups are focusing on Article 9 of the agreement stipulating that South Korea does not conduct custom-house inspections of U.S. military cargo.
“It is almost impossible for the government to know how often hazardous material comes in and out of USFK bases here,” lawyer Ha Joo-hee, a member of Lawyers for a Democratic Society, told reporters. “It seems necessary to revise the SOFA so Washington has to make a prior report on issues directly related to the lives and safety of our people.”
Meanwhile, U.S. Gen. Ray Odierno, Army chief of staff, explained from Washington Thursday that human error probably was not a factor in the mistaken shipment.
He noted that the problem may have been a failure in the technical process of killing, or inactivating, anthrax samples.
Barry M. Blechman, co-founder of the Stimson Center, a nonpartisan global security group in Washington, was quoted as saying, “This is an accident that should never happen. You should have double-triple-positive controls over any live, lethal agent.”
According to the USFK, 22 lab personnel at Osan may have been exposed to a suspected sample of anthrax during training Wednesday, but none of them have shown any symptoms of infection. Koreans were not among the personnel.
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