A picture of the Dokdo islets taken from a Korean Navy P-3C maritime patrol aircraft

The Voluntary Agency Network of Korea (VANK), a group trailing the Internet for what it says are distortions about Korea, said Sunday it found CIA factbooks from 2002 to 2005 biased towards Japan’s claim to the islands, giving the international community the impression that the Dokdo Islets were subject to an "unresolved dispute".

The CIA factbook’s section on Korea (http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/ks.html) includes Dokdo in its section on international disputes, along with the Military Demarcation Line between North and South Korea. The site, which was updated last month, points to an “unresolved dispute with Japan over the Liancourt Rocks (Tok-do/Take-shima).” It also points to friction over fishing rights, reflecting an argument used by Tokyo.

Liancourt was the name of the French whaling ship that first told the West of the location of the islets in 1849. VANK claims the use of the name for the uninhabited islets in the East Sea reflected a Japanese campaign to dilute Korean claim of sovereignty over the territory.

Many international websites use the CIA factbook as their standard in marking the territories of each nation. Of 12 overseas websites that received protests from local Internet users last year over simultaneously marking the rocks “Dokdo” and “Takeshima,” two declined to make any change and nine said they would take their lead from the CIA World Factbook. VANK director Park Gi-tae said the number of websites using both Dokdo and Takeshima grew from 622 in July 2004 to 2,180 in March 2005.

Park said the Japanese government had been conducting a "worldwide lobbying campaign" for many years to foster international understanding that the Dokdo Islets are Japanese territory. He said the CIA was reproducing the Japanese view in an international forum and called on Koreans to protest.

(englishnews@chosun.com )