Where 7,000 Korean political prisoners were massacred

TAICHUN, Korea

» HE world is going to hear a
Sj great deal about a little val-
ley half a mile or so from the
little village of Rang Wul which
itself is some five miles southeast
of Taichun in South Korea.” It is
certain though, that the world will
not learn of what happened there
through the American press.

Seven thousand Korean patriots
were butchered in this little val-
ley last month. The shooting and
beheading was done by police of
-Syngman Rhee’s puppet regime.
But American rifle, pistol and
earbine bullets were used to kill
these men—and women—whose
crime was that they loved their
country. The trucks that drove
them to their deaths were Ameri-
ean, and. so were some of the
men who drove those trucks. And
American officers were at the

‘T have spent days investigating
this atrocity. I have seen the great
pits, like those at Belsen and
- Buchenwald, in which the bodies
of the murdered were buried. I
have talked with. villagers who
were forced to dig the great pits
‘and with common criminals in
: Syngman Rhee’s jails who saw
the victims taken to their deaths.

The men and women who died
were a few of the tens of thous-
mds of political prisoners in Syng-
an Rhee’s jails—the total was
‘between 200,000 and 400,000, al-
though the exact number will nev-
er be known. Syngman Rhee,
faced with the defeat of the plan
- which he had confidently expected
: tt make him the puppet ruler of
all Korea, ordered the systematic
‘extermination of those political
opponents within his power. In
this he was no different from

diated regime, Chiang Kai-shek
who, before he fled to the inse-
cure refuge of .Formosa, ordered
he execution of political prison-
“Phis is the story of what hap-
pened as I have been able to piece

it together, checking every detail.

@

On July 2, truckloads of Rhee’s
police rode into the village of
‘Rang Wul and mobilized the vil-

places, at rifle point, to go into
the valley and dig a series of
great pits. There were six of
these, the largest being 650 feet
long, varying between 6 and ‘12
feet wide and 6 feet deep. © :

ready, on July 4, police began
» bring prisoners from the local
ails to the spot in American
trucks, some driven by Americans,
others by South Koreans.

At the jails, the prisoners were
finst beaten unconscious with
heavy sticks and then piled into
the trucks—first a layer of men,

layer of men and so on, like sar-
truckload contained more than 50
prisoners, hands tied behind their
backs with wire.

- Just before the trucks reached

‘the valley, two American jeeps
arrived, with high officers of the

ancther corrupt head of a repu-”

lagers and others from nearby
stamp it down, while

‘As soon as the first pit was.

then one of straw bags, another

dines. On top sat the police. Each ©

The crime of ©
i Rang Wu

American and puppet armies, who
stood around smoking and chat-
ting. The trucks Were driven to
the side of the first pit, and the
prisoners flung out. Some of those
in the bottom layer appeared al-
ready dead, most were half con-
scious from the beatings and be-
cause they had been starved for
three days.

Those in the first two trucks
capable of maintaining a kneeling

position were forced down and

given a volley of six or so shots

from behind. But after the sec-

ond truckload, an American of-
ficer was seen to be arguing with
the puppet officers, making signs

with his fingers and shaking his’

head. After that, each prisoner
got one bullet, in the chest or
back of the neck and, if this
failed to kill, a Japanese sword
was used to do the rest.

Those incapable of kneeling
were shot on the ground or killed
with a sweep of the sword. The
bodies were bundled into the pits
and, as soon as one section was
filled, the peasants were made
to throw in a layer of soil and

the trucks
.~

_ Japan's

By JOHN MORI

APANESE rightist groups
which have been scheming for

the revival of an army ever since

’

VJ-Day have been galvanized in-—

to action by the Korean war,
which they see as their great

chance to achieve this ambition.

According to the magazine
Shinso (Truth), famous in Japan
for its accurate behind-the-scenes

exposes, these men believe the

Korean conflict will lead to Jap-

an’s being rearmed as a U.S. ally

in a third world war. In this

med with prisoners, packed in

rightists from their Hideouts in

moved on to a new section.

This first series of massacres
went on for three days, July 4,
5 and 6, during which more than —
60 truckloads, at least 3000 pris-
oners, were murdered. \
e a

There were no more killings un-
til July 17, but the peasants went
on digging, under the rifles of |
‘Rhee’s police. On the night of
July 16, the People’s Army crossed
the Kum River, 12 miles north
of Taichun. At dawn the, follow-
ing day the jeeps arrived, and
shortly after the trucks started
to enter the valley.

This time the trucks were cram-

the same way, but each holding
a hundred or more—there was
little time left before the People’s
Army would arrive. On this day,
387 trucks were counted—over 3,700
patriots—and ‘the slaughter went
on from dawn until after mid-

night.
j _

Many prisoners were flung into
the pits alive on this occasion
and the dead were piled on top
of them, The American officers.
were seen urging the police to

situation, the militarists see their
own return to power as certain.

Tokyo has become the~ center
of militarist preparations with
the return of many top-ranking

the countryside, the magazine
says. The busiest rightist group,
interestingly enough, has been’
distinguished for its close . con-
tacts with Chiang Kai-shek, who
also banks on a world war to
put him back in the limelight.
One man who has turned up is
former Lieut. Generaj Wataru
Watanabe, who spent the past
couple of years running a profit- ~

' however, and on the

PPT nT Ot And AE Ont nt ae Tae Poe TTT te Te TT
°

AN ON-THE-SPOT
REPORT BY A
NEW CHINA
NEWS AGENCY

“CORRESPONDENT -

a

hurry. Only one prisoner escaped,
He leapt off the truck just as it
was entering the district and man-

aged to. get away.

Villagers often recognized
friends and relatives among the
victims. One even had to watch his
brother shot but no sign of recog-
nition passed between ‘them. In
another case, a peasant saw his
brother-in-law among the victims
and made some horrified exclama-
tion. He was immediately seized,
bound, beaten and shot.

After July iz, the police tried |

to round up the parents, wives
and husbands and chiltiren of the
victims. They had little time left,
ollowing
three|days only a single truckload
went to the valley—but among the
victims were several children, No
Americans were present to witness
this—their forces were in full re-
treat.

I just returned from the valley.
Long before you reach it the ap-
palling smell fills ‘the air. It needs
a physical effort to go near a
pit. So full of bodies are the pits

that only a thin crust of soil covers es ; :
ilitarists prepare for come-back __

able mthitedtins trade 3 Formosa. — ) ae !

Another is former Lieut. General -

Hiroshi Nemoto, who visited For-
mosa secretly last year to ne-
gotiate for authorization of a

“Japanese Volunter Corps” to.

fight on Chiang’s side.
A third is ex-Col, Masanobu
Tsuji, whom both Japanese and

‘U.S. occupation authorities , have

been “hunting” for years but

whom they have strangely failed :
to find despite the fact that he
Jhas published several books and

written pro-war articles in a num-

ber of papers while they have

been “looking” for him.

them and this has been eroded
by the wind and rain so that
‘there are holes through which
the weltering mass of bone and
rotting tissue can be seen.

In many places, what I take to

_ be the action of rigor mortis has ~
».. Caused arms and legs.and heads

to thrust themselves above the
Surface as though in some last
dead effort to reach for air and
life. Half way down the biggest
of the pits, the hands of a woman
bound together with strips of hay,
reach into the air, fixed in a
spasm of agony.

What they call the “parents’
pit,” was dug in the hillside. It is
only half full of bodies and has
not been completely covered. Only
11 days have Passed since these
last victims were killed and in

“the dry air, their bodies are still

very well preserved. 2

They lie here as they were flung
with bullet holes through their
chests, some wth their faces blown
off, some with the backs of their
skulls burst open, all with their
hands tied with wire.

Here lie the bodies of people.

whose crime was to be the. par-
.ents, wives, husbands, children of
democrats who wanted Korea to
be united and free from the dom-
ination of American finance, Not
even themselves “political crim-
inals” but related to them.
Between the pits, which half
fill the valley, the grass is car-
peted with the cases of spent cart-
ridges, each of which killed a
Korean hero—a man or woman |

who fought for freedom against ©

a police state organized with
» American: efficiency, Nazi meth-
ods and the close meshed control -
of a feudal system.
General MacArthur has had a
lot to, say about “atrocities.” But

_ he is silent on this—for genocide
isa war crime.

Tsuji fled from his post in the
Japanese Occupation army in Si-\
‘am just after VJ-Day and made

his way secretly to Chungking. —

There he is reported to have help-
ed “plan Chiang’s ; campaign
against the then Communist capi-
tal of Yenan. After the death in
a plane crash of General Tai Li,
head of tWe Chinese Gestapo, and
‘his personal protector, Tsuji
smuggled himself on to a repatria-

tion boat from China in the dis- ~

guise of a civilian archaeologist
and in this way came back to
, Japan.

.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—AUGUST 25, 1950—PAGE 4

\

a

‘