The gamecock. (Columbia, S.C.) 1908-2006, October 04, 1999, Page 4, Image 4
Students protest alleged U.S.
involvement in civilian killings
by Sang-Hun Choe
Associated Press
Seoul, South Korea — Waving
signs and chanting, a South Korean stu
dent group rallied in downtown Seoul on
Sunday, demanding that the United States
punish those responsible for the alleged
mass killings of civilians by U.S. forces
at the start of the Korean War.
It was the first public reaction from
South Korea’s largest student group, called
Hanchongryon and known for its anti
U.S. views, regarding last week’s news
report on the alleged killings in July 1950.
“The U.S. government must punish
people responsible for the massacre!” a
group of 40 students chanted, pumping
their clenched fists into the air.
Last week, The Associated Press re
ported accounts by American veterans,
corroborating those of South Korean vil
lagers, that their unit killed a large
number of civilians at No Gun Ri,
/o < • t
South Korea, during the early days of the
Korean War. The villagers say 400 died.
The AP also found once-classified
documents showing that U.S. comman
ders ordered their troops to shoot civil
ians as a defense against disguised enemy
soldiers.
At the rally in Seoul’s main railroad
plaza, the students demanded that the
United States apologize to South Korea
and the victims’ families.
Riot police stood around the protesters
but did not intervene. No clashes were
reported.
“Americans are beasts wearing masks
of human beings!” the group said in a
statement.
Hanchongryon has led violent
street protests in the past, but its influ
ence has decreased sharply imecent years.
The government outlawed the group
because it supported the withdrawal of
37,000 U.S. troops based in South Korea
as well as other key demands made by
communist North Korea. The group says
the U.S. military presence increases ten
sion on the divided Korean peninsula.
Aging South Koreans who said they
survived the killings said Friday that they
would not allow anti-American sentiment
to affect their search for the truth behind
No Gun Ri.
They said they recognized the im
portance of friendly relations between
Washington and Seoul and understood the
.valuable security role the United States
plays in deterring threats from the com
munist North.
The two Koreas are still technically
at war because no peace treaty was signed
at the end of the 1950-53 Korean War.
Their border is the world’s most heavi
ly militarized.
After the AP report, the U.S. and
South Korean governments promised
thorough investigations into the No Gun
Ri killings. Both governments had pre
viously dismissed the survivors’ claims.
/■ » t
A student shouts slogans during a protest rally Sunday in Seoul, South
Korea Many Koreans want the U.S. to punish those responsible for
the alleged mass killings of civilians by American forces during the
Korean War in No Gun Ri.
rz—:-----:---:—i
sensation opens to an overiiow or an lovers
by Larry McShane
Associated Press
New York — If you build it — even with elephant dung,
bisected pigs and a severed cow’s head — and call it art, they
will come.
They did by the hundreds Saturday at the Brooklyn Mu
seum of Art, where the much-maligned and mega-hyped “Sen
sation” exhibit drew an overflow crowd of art lovers, scene
makers and the merely curious — all at $9.75 a head.
By 7 p.m„ more than 7,000 people had toured the show,
filling the space to capacity. The lines persisted through the
pvpnimr and nnlirp nlannpd remain on sitR
until the museum closed at 11 p.m., though
authorities said'the scene was calm.
The crowd began queuing up three hours
before the opening, which attracted scores
of angry protesters upset by art that was
deemed religiously offensive or pro-animal
cruelty. Several museum visitors said that
Mayor Rudolph Giuliani’s bitter opposi
tion to the show had actually prompted
them to attend.
“Rudy got me here,” Marvin Schnei
der said after checking out the controver
sial British show. “I was interested in see
ing this after what he said.”
The controversy began Sept. 22 when
the mayor announced that he was cutting off the museum s $7
million in annual funding unless the exhibit was pulled. Giu
liani attacked the exhibit with escalating insults: “sick” “Catholic
bashing,” and finally “pedophiles on parade.”
Museum officials in turn sued Giuliani. The city respond
ed by suing the museum in an effort to evict it from the city
owned building where it’s resided for more than a century. Both
lawsuits are pending.
Cora Ferrer, 54, said the furor also brought her to the show.
“The mayor did me a favor,” she said. “If he kept his mouth
shut, I never would have heard of this show. If I listened to him,
I would have missed all the beauty inside.”’
The beauty included a dissected cow and pig, castrated male
dummies lashed to a tree, and the infamous painting “The Holy
Virgin Mary” with its splash of elephant dung.
A police sergeant somberly stood watch alongside the paint
ing by artist Chris Ofili. The exhibit, which consistently stopped
visitors in their tracks, was also protected by a plastic screen.
“What if this was done to your mother?” asked a sign
held by a protester outside the museum, which has generally
kept a much lower profile since opening in 1823.
The exhibit opened promptly at 11 a.m., with ticket buy
ers passing through just-installed metal detectors as the sound
. oi protesters reciting me nan Mary
echoed across the museum’s plaza.
A sign outside the museum cautioned,
“Sensation. Be Warned.” The line to get
inside stretched past the museum’s prop
erty, with a steady stream of visitors pour
ing inside.
About 200 supporters of The Catholic
League protested the opening, singing
hymns and praying the rosary. League Pres
ident William Donohue handed out com
plementary “vomit bags” to people
waiting to see the exhibit.
“This is hate speech, people,” Dono
hue told his troops. “This is not art.”
f” rirAth DrAiun /lir ArrrAA/1 T-Trt AnniA
with his 7-month-old son, whose stroller carried a small sign
reading, “Pro-art, anti-Giuliani.”
“Art should provoke discussion and controversy, and this
does,” Brown said while waiting in line. “Controversy is not
a bad thing.”
Museum director Arnold Lehman opted not to dump fuel
on the fire Saturday. “There has been a lot of comment on all
sides over the past few days,” Lehman said. “Today’s the day
to let the art speak for itself.”
‘‘Art should provoke
discussion and contro
versy, and [the
‘Sensation' exhibit]
does.”
Gareth Brown
Brooklyn Museum visitor
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scientists hope to clone Mammoth
BY JOLYN OKIMOTO
Associated Press
Flagstaff* Ariz. — It sounds like a
movie plot come to life: A Northern
Arizona University geologist aims to
excavate and clone a woolly mammoth
fromDNA.
Larry Agenbroad concedes that
cloning the animal is unlikely. Still, he
says biologists remain optimistic and he
is excited about the project
Agenbroad is part of an international
team of scientists whose first task is to
cut the cloning candidate — the likes
of which roamed the earth about 23,000
years ago — from a Siberian ice field.
The adult male mammoth, estimat
ed to be about 40 years old when it
became frozen, was found by a 9-year
old nomadic reindeer herder in 1997.
It’s been named Jarkov, after the boy’s
family.
“To feel the skin and touch the flesh
of the mammoth will be quite spec
tacular. It’s the closest I’ve gotten to an
animal I’ve been chasing for more than
30 years,” said Agenbroad, sitting in
Mammoth seepages
World Briefs
Italian town, ski lift
company seek
damages
Trento, hwy (AP) —The town of Cav
alese and the ski lift company that oper
ated a cable car clipped by U.S. Marine
jet have filed nearly $25 million in
damage claims, an Italian news agency
reported Sunday.
The town has asked for $9 million
and the lift company for $16 million,
ANSA reported Sunday.
The 20 people aboard the cable car
were killed when a Marine jet from a
nearby military base sliced through the
cable.
The requests for damages were sub
mitted to the Italian Defense Ministry
under an international convention that
permits claims to be paid out by the NA
TO nation where the damage occurred.
Under the same agreement, the host coun
try and the country responsible then di
vide the costs.
The pilot, acquitted by a U.S. mili
tary court of manslaughter, was sentenced
earlier this year to six months in prison
and dismissed from the Marines for help
ing destroy a videotape of the flight. The
navigator of the EA-6B Prowler anti-radar
jet was also dismissed from the Marines.
Student sent to
principal’s office
escapes on a plane
Fairfax, Va. (AP)—A 12-year-old boy
sent to the principal’s office for misbe
having walked out of the school and made
his way to the airport where he boarded
a plane without a ticket and flew to St.
Louis.
No one knew where Christopher
Peregory had gone until he called his
mother from the St. Louis airport later
that day.
“He was practically hysterical,” said
his mother, Renee. She said he had nev
er run away before. “He’s a very good
child. It was just an adventure.”
Peregory walked out of Belle View
Elementary School on Wfednesday, hopped
a Metro train to Reagan National Airport
and picked the Trans World Airlines flight
to St. Louis at random. He had no ticket
or boarding pass.
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