Agent Orange
June 24, 2011
Agent Orange is a defoliant known to cause cancer, birth defects and other illnesses. Some activists say the US military has been getting away with polluting South Korean soil for years. While residents of Waegwan, just over 200 kilometers south of Seoul, are waiting for results of an investigation into whether the US military buried Agent Orange under the ground near a US military base, vegetable and fruit vendors are having trouble selling their goods.
Fruit sales going down
54-year old Ba sells locally grown fruit in a covered market. She says the most famous fruit from the region is chamae, a type of small yellow melon. But ever since news about a possible Agent Orange contamination came out, she says not many people are buying them. "Customers don’t want to eat chamae because they know they come from here," Ba says." Sales have gone down by about half of what they were before."
Allegations made by former US soldiers last month that they buried Agent Orange at the nearby Camp Carroll has some locals here feeling uneasy. This week, investigators from the US military and the South Korean government released a progress report on their findings. Colonel Joseph F. Birchmeier of the US 8th Army read a statement at the base on Thursday: "So far, no evidence of Agent Orange has been found in Camp Carroll or in the adjacent community."
Problems galore near US bases
The US military’s report acknowledges that other chemicals were buried at Camp Carroll in the late 70s, but were dug up and removed soon after. Those did not include Agent Orange. The investigation will issue its final report in July. But environmental contamination caused by the US Forces isn’t only a problem at Camp Carroll, says activist Jung In-chul of Korea Green United. He says,"In the past 20 years we’ve seen 47 cases of environmental problems near US bases. The most serious incident was in 2000 when they dumped formaldehyde into the Han River in Seoul."
The US military’s Yongsan Garrison in Seoul, where that incident took place, is one of 26 American camps slated for return to South Korea by 2018. Environmentalists want those facilities handed back in their natural state and want the US to cover all the clean up costs. But according to the US-Republic of Korea Status of Forces Agreement, or SOFA, the treaty that governs how the military operates in South Korea, the US is not obliged to do either. And analysts say this issue could hurt US-South Korean relations. Scott Snyder is director of the Center for US-Korea Policy at the Asia Foundation in Washington. He says, "There does need to be a certain measure of responsibility on both sides and I think if looked at in the context of financial cooperation, hopefully it will be possible to manage in an effective way."
But outside Camp Carroll, protestors have made it very clear what they want. Banners call on the US to tell the truth and compensate the citizens for the damage they’ve caused.
Author: Jason Strother
Editor: Sarah Berning