Crime and impunity

Contents

Under the Status of Forces Agreements (SOFA)
which surround the establishment of US military
bases (see page 14), US personnel are protected
from legal action even in the case of the most serious
crimes. In some cases American soldiers cannot
be prosecuted for actions undertaken while they
are on duty or crimes towards other US military
employees, while in others they are completely safe
from legal action in the host country even for
crimes committed while they were “in civvies”.
In the most extreme cases, as with the SOFA negotiated
between the USA and East Timor in anticipation
of bases being set up there, US military personnel
are granted full diplomatic immunity from all
prosecution. This means that, whatever a US soldier
might do in East Timor, the domestic authorities
would be unable to arrest or hold them, charge
them with any crime, extradite them for crimes
committed elsewhere or hold them financially or
legally responsible for any civil matters, including
child maintenance payments.

Even when the conditions of a SOFA allow for soldiers
to be tried by the host country, as in Japan,
the protection offered can prove controversial.
Although soldiers can be prosecuted, they are not
actually handed over to the Japanese authorities
until they have been formally charged. This can
make the investigation of crimes and interrogation
of suspects difficult, causing controversy in an environment
where crimes by US military personnel and
contractors – ranging from traffic violations to robbery
and murder – are said to be on the increase.
The US authorities argue in turn that the differences
between US and Japanese courts (such as the less
frequent use of jury trials there) would make it
impossible to expect soldiers to serve there.

Particularly alarmingly, many such protective
agreements also cover employees of companies
subcontracted by the US army. The most notorious
effect of this has been the failure of any
authorities – US or European – to bring to justice
a number of workers from Dyncorp, who were
exposed as being involved in the trafficking of
women and children as sex slaves in Bosnia.

In addition, many recent agreements made
around US military bases – including the East
Timor treaty – have included commitments that no
US personnel will be sent to the International
Criminal Court, an attempt at global human rights
protection which the US government has repeatedly
refused to ratify.

Korea

In November 2002 a US military court recorded a
not guilty verdict in the case of two soldiers, a tank
driver and navigator, who that June had killed two
teenage girls as they walked to a birthday party.
The soldiers were sent back to the USA immediately
after the decision, and the US army paid civil
damages to the families of the girls. The acquittals
caused protests across Korea, including the occupation
by student activists of a US military base, which
they entered by cutting through wire fencing. An
apology from President Bush did little to placate
Koreans, whose anger had been worsened by the
rejection of a request by the Korean authorities that
the men be tried in local courts.

The case of the two girls was the most high profile
of at least 52,000 crimes which Korean campaigners
say have been committed by US servicemen
between 1967 and 2002.

According to the National Campaign for
Eradication of Crimes by US Troops in Korea, these
crimes have included shootings, assaults, rapes and
murders. Korean civilians have been killed by US
troops for acts as minor as smoking too much,
intervening in quarrels or in acts of sexual jealousy.

Unjustified killings of Koreans by US soldiers began
with the shooting dead of two people who had
gathered on the docks at Incheon to welcome the
US navy in 1945, but it was the 1992 murder of a
bar worker in a town near a US base which caused
widespread shock, after details of the gruesome
torture to which a GI subjected her was publicised.
A civil society coalition brought together political,
religious and campaign organisations to demand
justice for the woman, Yoon Geumy. They worked
for a year to defy the terms of the Status of
Forces Agreement (SOFA) in Korea so that the
solider concerned could be tried in Korea. He was
eventually sentenced to 15 years imprisonment by
the Korean Supreme Court, a term considered
tokenistic by campaigners, given the extraordinary
violence of the crime.

The temporary coalition that came together over
this case resulted in the formation of more longterm
organisations and campaigns. These have
raised awareness of the high and rising crime
rates around US military bases in Korea, and
linked these to the failure to hold the US to
account for other problems arising from the presence
of bases, such as the fathering of children by
soldiers and massive environmental pollution and
accidents involving toxic chemicals.

These organisations have succeeded in having the
terms of the SOFA revised to remove some of the
impunity granted to US soldiers, but they continue
to campaign for the rights of victims and ultimately
for the removal of US military bases from Korea.