The Marmot’s Hole

Nine years is apparently long enough. From the Korea Times:

A civic group campaigning to stamp out crimes by U.S. troops stationed here said yesterday it has decided to end its weekly rallies held in front of the Yongsan garrison in Seoul for nearly a decade.
“We decided to end the Friday rallies to concentrate on more issues such as protecting the legal rights of victims of U.S. crimes and revising the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA),” said Lee So-hee, secretary-general of the National Campaign for Eradication of Crime by U.S. Troops in Korea.

Read: people are getting tired of their bullshit, and with Rummy lookin’ for any excuse to pull out 8th Army, I’m sure they’ve been leaned on a bit by Noh and Co.

Today’s rally, its 439th, will be the civic group’s final regular weekly protest. Its first was held on Dec. 28, 1994, to protest the inhumane treatment a Korean mother and her daughters received from U.S. military police during questioning.
Since then, activists have gathered in front of a gate at the U.S. military headquarters every Friday for the past nine years, seeking to bring to light crimes involving U.S. servicemen stationed here and pressure the Korean and U.S. governments to revise SOFA regulations, which they view as unfair to Koreans.

Unfair to Koreans, but apparently not to East Timorese, Kyrgyz, Kuwaitis, Iraqis, and the peoples of other states with whom Korea has signed nearly identical SOFA treaties.

The rallies have dealt with major incidents such as the 1992 murder of a U.S. club barmaid Yoon Kum-e, the Nogun-ri civilian massacre, and the two school girls who were run over by a U.S. armored vehicle in June last year.

Yeah, and things like the 1995 Seoul subway riot in which American servicemen “provoked” a bloody riot with Korean passengers after one of the former “sexually harassed” a Korean woman. Of course, nowhere in their write-up on this incident is it included that the victim of the “sexually harassment” was one of the servicemen’s wife (and he slapped her on the ass, horror of horrors), and that she was arrested together with the servicemen.

“When we first started out in 1994, there was no one calling attention to U.S. crimes here. But now the movement has significantly increased, and I think the rallies did some part in raising awareness of those crimes, for the Korean public as well as U.S. soldiers themselves,” Lee said.

No one was calling attention to US crimes here? Could that be, perhaps, because they happen, like, next to never. And if groups like the National Campaign for Eradication of Crime by US Troops in Korea have raised the awareness of anyone, it’s that of the American taxpayer who now openly questions why he/she should be forced to foot the bill to protect a people who are, in many Americans’ opinion [an opinion I don't share, BTW], little more than ungrateful xenophobes.

She said partly through these efforts, the number of crimes by U.S. soldiers has markedly decreased to about 500 to 600 cases a year from the more than 1,000 reported in 1991.

500 to 600 cases - almost entirely traffic violations. And there are going to be a lot less of those traffic violations thanks to Ms. Lee and her racist minions as the Americans begin to withdraw their forces over the next couple of years. But hey, as long as the Korean taxpayer can live in a “migun beomjwe-ga omnneun sesang” (a world without crimes by US servicemen), it’ll all be worth it, right?

The group will mark the 10th anniversary of its founding on Sunday.

Don’t let me forget to mark that down on my calender.