<부시 미합중국 대통령에게 보내는 항의 서안>
December 12, 2002
To Mr. George W. Bush, the President of the USA
On June 13th, two Korean girls(Shin Hyo-soon and Shim Mi-sun) were crushed by an armored vehicle during U.S. military training at Yangju, Gyeonggi province. But according to the U.S. military trial held on November 20th and 22nd, no one is responsible for the two girls’ death.
During the process, the U.S. neglected Korean request of participating the investigation. Even if the accident occurred accidentally(though most Korean don’t think so), there must be someone responsible for the accident and the responsible person must be punished. The U.S. didn’t fulfill its responsibility and neglected the proper request of the Korean people. Moreover, we wanted you to apologize with your own word, but you are still not responding.
Watching this tragic situation, we clearly realized that there are two underlying reasons. One is the arrogant attitude of the U.S. toward other countries including Korea. The attitude of the U.S. from the beginning of the situation was very self-oriented and arrogant. Every Korean felt to be severely insulted. Disrespect to others cannot bring peace. The other is the inequality of the SOFA. The U.S. claims that your actions are suitable to the SOFA articles, but the SOFA between Korea and the U.S. itself is very unfair even compared to other SOFAs contracted between the U.S. and other countries.
If you want to build peace in north-east Asia and in the world, and if you want to share companionate relationship with us(which we also want), you should rearrange the unequal SOFA articles and change your self-oriented attitude.
The souls of the two girls and the hearts of every Korean are being hurt by your careless attitude.
And we, the Korean people, are deeply worry about U.S. warmongering and militaristic activity in the Far East and Middle East Asia. We, the people working in health care field in Korea, as essentially peace lover, should make the strong protest against U.S. invasion plan to Iraq and warn that any invasive and militaritic action of US in Korean peninsula and Middle East will face world wide strong protest of people.
Our demands are listed below.
1. Mr. George W. Bush, the President of the USA must apologize openly with your own words.
2. Revise the unequal SOFA articles.
3. Reinvestigate the accident under the jurisdiction of Korean court and find out who is responsible for the accident.
4. Stop US warmongering action in Korean peninsula and Middle East Asia.