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The president, at a ceremony announcing plans to create a park when the U.S. Forces Korea vacates the Yongsan Base on Thursday, said, "Yongsan is a place of painful history; Qing China troops were stationed here to control our national administration. After Japan occupied Korea, Yongsan was used as a stronghold for an imperialist country¡¯s invasion and rule. And after Korea achieved liberation, the U.S. military stationed there reminded us of the fact that Korea relies on the U.S. for national defense. But a park will be built in the area to symbolize the independence and peace of Korea and bid farewell to the history of invasion, domination, war and suffering."
Hearing of the projected Yongsan Park, many are buoyant with happy expectations. Imagining the birth in the center of Seoul of a 810,000-pyong (1 pyeong = 3.3 sq. m) park with woods, lawns, walks and lakes, who would not be delighted? Announcing such a project should be a happy occasion, but the president felt the need to devote a considerable part of his address to emphasizing that the place has a history suffering and disgrace.
It's true that Yongsan housed the troops of Yuan Shikai, a Chinese military official and politician during the late Qing Dynasty and the early Republic of China, of Japan¡®s imperialist forces and North Korean and Chinese invasion forces. Now U.S. forces are stationed there. But it is not Yongsan alone that was trampled down by Qing China and Japanese troops. What part of our country is free from the wounds of colonization and the pain of national division? The president will have made the remarks in a bid to give the impression that the withdrawal of the U.S. forces from Yongsan is a way of freeing the country from military subordination, and that the present administration is treading the path of independent defense.
Who can object to the dignity of an independent nation? But no administration has given America what it asked for more than the current one without getting anything of substance in return. It dispatched the biggest contingent of troops apart form the U.S. and U.K. to Iraq, yet it got little thanks for it. It bragged about resisting ¡°strategic flexibility¡± for the U.S. Forces Korea, but the final decision was what Washington wanted. The president hails our planned sole exercise of operational control of our troops as the "flower of a sovereign state," an achievement estimated to require defense outlays of W620 trillion (US$1=W959) until 2020. And the money will be spent on weapons from which country? You guessed it.
President Syngman Rhee agreed in 1954 to place South Korean forces under the UN forces' operational control and secured $420 million military assistance and $250 million in economic aid. President Park Chung-hee, by dispatching troops to South Vietnam in the face of the criticism that they were "U.S. mercenaries," obtained more than $700 million. The president would say, "Once abroad, we get really marvelous treatment." We are well treated because this president¡¯s predecessors built the foundations that allowed us to become the 10th largest economy in the world by safeguarding our national interest, harnessing foreign power with a national strength much smaller than ours is at present. If he gets so much on account of his predecessors, the president could at least spare a thought for his successors.
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