SOFA: mea culpa

SOFA: mea culpa
May 20, 2000

An illusion, often repeated, becomes paranoid delusion.

There has been the basic fallacy on the part of the South Koreans that their country is a sovereign state exercising in full extent the power of nation mandated by its people without any foreign interference, mainly from the United States.
The bottom line is people forget the fact that one nation is subjugated in every form to another country when one is subjugated in economic, cultural and military form to another. Therefore it is abundantly clear that the treaty between two nations on an unequal standing produces an unfair and one-sided provisions that favor the nation in higher echelon.

In case of the Status of Forces Agreements, it is rather a product of force-fed agreement than the mutual and equal standing in collusion with above-mentioned subjugated status.
The South Koreans have been gaga over the unfairness of the Agreement only because the DJ government with the help of the mass media has been fanning the illusion of the South Korean sovereignty over the U.S. imperialism that has been prevalent in every aspect of Korean life since 1945. And recently, this illusion appears to develop into the paranoid status of delusion when DJ Kim drummed up the farfetched idea that he and the North’s great leader are the key players in the regional conflicts forgetting the 37,000 strong of the American Imperial Army stationed in his backyard.

The South’s subjugated relationship with Uncle Sam has begun at the start of the Korean War in 1950, when the United States Army took away the right of operation and control in the Korean Army, and after the armistice in 1953, Uncle Sam has introduced Korea-US Defense Alliance Treaty that allowed longtime stay of the US army in the South, contrary to the people’s belief that the Americans stay under the UN flag. This deal codified that the United States established a full control over the South in every aspect of Korean life.
Therefore, it would be somewhat crazy for the American soldiers that they, as the master, are subjected to the Korean laws, the barbaric and uncivilized servant’s regulations.
In addition, Uncle Sam have fostered the arrogant superiority complex that they were the liberator and defender of the South Korea whose dimwit president has begged them to stay permanently in the country even after the unification, and the servant could not judge the master’s acts no matter how seriously it hurts the servant.

No one doubts that SOFA was unfairly put into effect in 1967,when then-military dictator, Gen. CH Park, was in collusion with Lyndon Johnson to send 50,000 South Korean mercenary forces in Vietnam War in return for an additional economic aids, and some of the notorious provisions remained unchanged after the revision in 1991.
Among the unfair provisions, the police jurisdiction on the American soldiers under suspicion is critical matter in the conviction of the crimes, and the waiver clauses, that allow US immunity from the environmental damage and forbid compensation to the Korean victims by the soldiers, are the most egregious violation of reciprocity and mutuality.
The American soldiers know too well that they won’t to be arrested and prosecuted by the servant cops until their legal authority intervene to query his alleged crimes

In addition to the arrogant mentality of the imperial forces, the South Korean governments from Syngman Rhee to DJ Kim have been the willing servants to provide anything, fresh bodies of young women, free use of vast land, and even young conscripts (KATUSA) for cleaning and running errands for the master.
In 1998, the South Korean police have dealt with only 3.9 percent of all crimes committed by US soldiers because they alleged most cases are misdemeanors that do not warrant the prosecution.
When the U.S Government has postponed unilaterally the meeting in the revision of SOFA in 1995, the South has no alternative to force Uncle Sam to come forward until recent bombing fiasco and the murder case of a prostitute provoke the anti-US sentiment in the region.

As in the preparation talks between the North and the South where the North still refers to the DJ government as an U.S. colony (few South Koreans know this because the media clam up), it is fair to predict that coming SOFA talk would not bring about any clear-cut revision in unfair provisions, because the subjugated status of the South vis-a-vis the US imperialism has remained unchanged since its partial revision in 1991.
It is also highly unlikely that the people of the South are willing to discard the delusions of grandeur that the nation enjoys the absolute sovereignty and to accept the term “mea culpa” that allowed Uncle Sam to become their master.
Therefore, chances are more bickering between the arrogant master and the unruly servant resulting in more crimes committed by the master soldiers and more Molotov-cocktails thrown by the servants.