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Mar. 29  2024
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Reform of the US-South Korean SOFA is long overdue.

We write out of concern for the current impasse in the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) negotiations between the United States and Republic of Korea. Your administration, together with President Kim Dae-Jung's visionary leadership, has made astounding progress in changing the security environment on the Korean peninsula over the past year.

Source  : 

December 15, 2000

President Bill Clinton
The White House
Washington DC 20500

Dear President Clinton:

We write out of concern for the current impasse in the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) negotiations between the United States and Republic of Korea. Your administration, together with President Kim Dae-Jung's visionary
leadership, has made astounding progress in changing the security environment on the Korean peninsula over the past year. We urge you to extend this momentum to revising the SOFA before the end of your term in office.

The SOFA talks have now been underway for over a year, with the most recent rounds in September, October and December of this year. The lack of progress in revising the agreement appears to be largely due to US intransigence on questions of criminal jurisdiction and accepting responsibility for environmental damage.

The negotiations have been conducted under high levels of secrecy, with little if any substantive information available to American or Korean citizens. In late September, the Asia Pacific Center hosted a delegation of Korean civil society groups seeking to reform the SOFA. Although several members of Congress took time to meet with them and address their concerns, no one at the State Department or the Pentagon was willing to meet with us.

As a result of this perceived lack of transparency and flexibility, Korean citizens have grown increasingly frustrated and impatient. There have been large demonstrations and ongoing strikes in Seoul and other cities. We sympathize with the protesters' actions, and we urge the Korean government to exercise restraint in dealing with them. More importantly, we call on both governments to listen to and meet their demands.

According to People's Action for Reform of the Unjust ROK-US SOFA, a coalition of Korean non-governmental organizations and citizens groups, a revised SOFA should include the following elements:

US soldiers charged as criminal suspects should be placed under Korean jurisdiction until convicted;
The US should provide compensation for environmental damage caused to
land or people living near base areas;
Korean authorities and civilian groups should have the right to inspect and regulate pollution levels on USFK bases;
Timetables should be set for the closure of the most damaging US facilities, such as the Koon-ni bombing range near Maehyang-ri.

Recent revelations about the US Army's illegal dumping of formaldehyde into the Han River, as well as the No Gun Ri massacre and other historical atrocities committed by US forces, have heightened the public mood in Korea to extreme levels.

In order to avoid permanent harm to the critical US-South Korean relationship, we urge you to complete revisions of the SOFA now-before the new administration takes office in January. You and President Kim have previously agreed to end the SOFA negotiations before you left office.
During this time of transition in Washington, it is critical that the momentum for change on the Korean peninsula not be lost. According to a Korea Herald editorial (November 30), the growing SOFA reform movement should be "a wake-up call for the United States...It will serve nobody's interest to exacerbate the budding anti-Americanism among the Korean public by dismissing its repeated calls to amend the biased agreement."

The rapid pace of change on the Korean peninsula has surprised all of us over the past year. Given the progress that has been made, this is no time to hold to Cold War-era negotiating positions and outmoded concepts of security. The US-Japan SOFA has already been revised to reflect the changing realities of East Asian regional relationships.

Sincerely yours,

Miriam A. Young
Executive Director

cc: Frederick Smith, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Asia and the Pacific
Stanley Roth, Assistant Secretary of State for East Asia and the Pacific
Ambassador Stephen W. Bosworth, US Embassy, Seoul
President Kim Dae-Jung, The Blue House, Seoul
Song Min-soon, Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Republic of Korea
Ambassador Yang Sung Chul, Embassy of Korea, Washington
 
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