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Space per person in a standard Korean Army barracks is 0.7 pyeong (2.31 square meters), while about 400 people use a bathroom designed for 25, and long queues form in front of the latrines every morning.
These are the realities of barracks in Korea, ironically one of the world's Top 10 economies. In the 21st century, the country maintains 1960s-level barracks and base facilities more akin to concentration camps. Some 30-40 soldiers sleep inside these quarters that serve as their living space.
About half the force consists of only children that have had rooms to themselves since childhood. Just having to sleep cooped up with dozens of strangers is tremendously stressful for them. Add to that the lack of air conditioning, and many cannot sleep during the sweltering mid-summer months when temperatures stay above 30 degrees even at night.
The Defense Ministry and politicians have vowed to improve base facilities since the dilapidated state of Korea's military barracks, which have remained unchanged for 40 years, started attracting public interest in 2003. The key was to take platoon-level barracks with bare bunks and turn them into squad-level facilities with proper beds, so that a space previously used by a platoon of 30 would be used by a squad of nine.
But high costs mean that barracks due to make the conversion by the end of the year number no more than 14 percent of the total. In the case of the guard post where Sunday's rampage left eight dead, about 30 men were sleeping in a room of no more than 15 pyeong.
The government has now prioritized modernizing the barracks and said it will speed up the original schedule. But even then it will take at least until 2009 to modernize even half of them. If the current trend holds, it will be 2020 before all the nation's barracks are equipped with beds.
Field unit officials say that along the old-fashioned latrines offer another culture shock to new recruits and represent an accident hazard. "The young kids who enter camp sometimes get constipated for several days because they are unused to the toilets," One training center official said.
The poor condition of base facilities not only makes life uncomfortable, it leads to suicide and other incidents. In 2003, military intelligence reported to authorities the poor state of barracks was stressing the young generation of soldiers and was a factor in suicides. It said the barracks were "concentration camp¡± style, and it was difficult to find the like anywhere else in the world.
Experts say Korea and its Army can no longer afford such shoddy housing. "We need national and public interest in improving barracks facilities to guarantee the human rights of soldiers and prevent accidents,¡± a Defense Ministry official said. ¡°Because it will take a lot of time and money to change all the facilities, we must push the plans alongside cuts in troop strength and try to attract private capital."
(englishnews@chosun.com )
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