Prisoners killed in Korean War
■ U.S. Army officers
witnessed execution of
leftists by South Koreans.
DOKCHON, South Korea (AP) -
South Korean soldiers and police,
observed at times by U.S. Army offi
cers, executed more than 2,000 politi
cal prisoners without trial in the early
weeks of the Korean War, according to
declassified U.S. military documents
and witnesses.
Supreme commander Gen.
Douglas MacArthur became aware of
at least one of the mass shootings,
according to documents originally
classified “top secret.”
The new information, detailed in
reporting by The Associated Press and
a Korean researcher, substantiates what
some historians have long believed:
Large numbers of South Korean leftists
arrested by the right-wing regime were
secretly killed as its forces retreated
before the North Korean army in mid
1950, apparently to keep them from
collaborating with the communist
invaders.
Subsequently, during their brief
occupation of the south, the North
Koreans executed many suspected
rightists. Those killings, once discov
ered, were widely publicized in the
Western press.
Information about the South
Korean government’s mass executions
was suppressed for decades under this
country’s former military rulers.
Relevant South Korean records were
destroyed, researchers believe.
But victims’ families recently
began speaking out, and human bones
have been unearthed at mass burial
sites.
Witnesses describe brutal mass
shootings. A retired South Korean
admiral told the AP that 200 people,
never put on trial, were taken offshore
to be shot and dumped into the sea.
Villagers in the Dokchon area remem
bered truckloads of civilians, trussed
together, brought to the hills here and
executed by South Korean military
police.
The AP learned it was a U.S. Army
account of those Dokchon killings that
reached MacArthur. Although the leg
endary U.S. general also commanded
the South Korean military at the time,
he referred this report on its actions to
American diplomats “for considera
tion” and “such action as you deem
appropriate.”
The U.S. ambassador, John
Muccio, later reported back that he
urged President Syngman Rhee and
Defense Minister Shin Sung-mo to end
summary executions deemed illegal
and inhumane.
“I urged Captain Shin to see that the
Korean Army, Police and Youth Groups
carry out executions of captured mem
bers of the enemy forces, including
guerrillas, only after due process of law
has been observed and that when car
ried out they should be in a humane
manner,” Muccio wrote in an Aug. 25,
1950, letter to MacArthur’s top subor
dinate, the U.S. 8th Army commander
Lt. Gen. Walton L. Walker.
South Korean soldiers had shown
“extreme cruelty” toward the con
demned prisoners at Dokchon, a U.S.
military police investigator, Sgt. 1st
Class Frank Pearce, said in a written
report to his company commander on
the shootings.
Memorials mark Columbine tragedy
■ Governor, Littleton
residents commemorate
anniversary of shooting.
LITTLETON, Colo. (AP) - As a
gentle breeze blew, people of
Colorado hugged, wept and observed
a poignant moment of silence
Thursday to remember the 13 people
slain at Columbine High one year
ago and, in the words of one survivor,
to “let go of the anger.”
“Today is about the angels who
are watching over us, helping us to
heal and helping us to remember,”
Gov. Bill Owens told a crowd gath
ered at the state Capitol in Denver.
“We came through that tragedy
with a stronger sense of community
and with a resolve to ensure that the
deaths of the victims will not be in
vain.”
Owens presided over a moment
of silence at 11:21 a.m., the time the
Columbine attack began one year
ago today. As distant church bells
tolled 13 times and a bagpipe played,
the governor and his wife planted
columbines, the state flower that
gave the school its name, beneath a
flagpole outside the Capitol.
At a later community remem
brance service near the school in
suburban Littleton, at least 2,500 stu
” I want today to
also mark the
day I let go of
the anger.”
Patti Nielson
teacher
dents, teachers, parents and residents
gathered, listening as each student’s
name was read aloud as a bell tolled.
Principal Frank DeAngelis told
the crowd he has drawn strength this
year from his memories of the vic
tims.
He often thinks of them as he sits
on a deck outside his home, looking
at the sky as he searched for inspira
tion.
“Their loving, caring souls never
let me down,” he said.
Said a Columbine student, Matt
Varney: “On this anniversary today,
don’t forget to remember. It is in the
act of remembering that we give dig
nity to our suffering.”
Teacher Patti Nielson, who was
wounded, recalled being holed up in
the library, where most of the stu
dents died.
She said she “prayed for the chil
Lalropui Keivom/Newsmakers
A YOUNG GIRL CRIES during the statewide memorial service April 25,1999,
in Littleton, Colo., for the 12 students and one teacher killed during the
April 20 shooting rampage at Columbine High School.
dren who were being shot and for the
children who were shooting them.”
Her 911 call is apparently the only
recording of the massacre there.
“I want today to also mark the
day I let go of the anger,” she said.
Survivors and loved ones had
their private moments, too. Earlier in
the day, about 1,000 students,
staffers and alumni attended a closed
assembly at the school, while about
500 parents were at a separate serv
ice in the auditorium. Many wore T
shirts with blue-and-silver lettering
that read, “We are Columbine.”
“Obviously, there’s a lot of crying
and a lot of hugging, a lot of solemn
remembering,” said Rick Kaufman,
a Jefferson County School District
spokesman.
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White-owned farm
attacked in Zimbabwe
HARARE, Zimbabwe (AP) -
Nearly 200 attackers rampaged
through a white-owned farm
Thursday, beating dogs to death and
burning down dozens of workers’
homes a day after a leader of the farm
occupations promised to end hostili
ties.
The attack was the latest violence
by armed squatters who have occupied
nearly 1,000 white-owned farms
across Zimbabwe over the past two
months. In the past week, two farmers
have been killed, six others have been
abducted and beaten and several farm
houses set ablaze.
The white farmers are considered
supporters of the Movement for
Democratic Change, an opposition
party with support far beyond
Zimbabwe’s 70,000 whites. Two black
party activists were killed in a fire
bombing Saturday.
Occupation leaders had promised
- after meeting Wednesday with farm
leaders and President Robert Mugabe
- to end the violence, though they said
they would not leave the farms.
However, Associated Press
Television News videotaped neatly
200 youths carrying whips, sticks and
rocks attacking Alan Windram’s farm
in Arcturus district, 35 miles northeast
of Harare on Thursday.
They first ran to the farmhouse,
which Windram had abandoned after
receiving threats, and began beating
his six dogs.
Groups of youths surrounded
some of the dogs and bludgeoned
them to death with sticks. Other dogs
were stoned to death, their crushed
bodies left scattered about the yard.
The attackers then ran to the workers’
houses, kicking down doors, smash
ing windows and setting at least 30
homes on fire as the workers watched
stunned.
The farm was targeted because it
was an Movement for Democratic
Change headquarters, said a man
directing the attackers, who identified
himself as David Mazhandu.
“Our people have been suffering
because of these people,” he said.
Militant squatters marched onto
another nearby farm Thursday, forcing
the owners to flee, neighbors said.
Mugabe reiterated Thursday that
he would not deploy police or soldiers
to maintain security on die farms, say
ing the police wanted to give the
squatters time to stop the violence on
theirowH.
■ Pennsylvania
U.S. Marshal spots fugitive’s
missing finger, arrests him
PITTSBURGH (AP) - Martin
Agurs slipped through authorities’
fingers time and time again by using
the names of dead men and moving
from city to city. After 19 years on
the lam, it was his missing right
pinkie that gave him away.
Agurs was collecting his mail at
a Pittsburgh YMCA when U.S.
Marshal Bob Holtz spotted the miss
ing digit.
“I called him by his real name,”
Holtz said. “He was shocked. I was
just in the right place at the right
time.”
The 58-year-old fugitive plead
ed guilty Wednesday to armed rob
bery for taking $ 1,859 and nearly
4,000 prescription pills from a
Pittsburgh pharmacy in 1980.
■ Philippines
Transcripts: Jet reported
poor visibility before crash
DAVAO, Philippines (AP) - The
pilot of an Air Philippines jet report
ed poor visibility minutes before the
plane crashed Wednesday, killing all
131 people aboard, airport tran
scripts obtained Thursday showed.
The transcripts from the
Philippines’ worst aviation disaster
also indicated air traffic controllers
tried at least twice to hurry another
plane off the runway so Flight 541
could land.
But the pilot of the doomed air
liner reported that the other plane,
Philippine Airlines flight 809,
remained on the runway, so he cir
cled and tried to put down from the
opposite direction, slamming into a
coconut grove on Samal Island near
Davao city in the southern
Philippines.
Searchers on Thursday recov
ered the battered and charred
remains of more victims, as well as
the flight data recorder of the 22
year-old jet.
■ Washington, D.C.
Clinton says Elian should be
reunited with hither
WASHINGTON (AP) -
President Clinton said Thursday that
Elian Gonzalez should be promptly
reunited with his father, saying
“there’s now no conceivable argu
ment” to keep them apart after a fed
eral court ruled the boy cannot leave
the United States.
“I think he should be reunited in
as prompt and orderly way as possi
ble,” Clinton said.
Clinton spoke a day after a three
judge panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit
Court of Appeals in Atlanta said that
Elian must remain in the United
States until the court decides
whether he should get an asylum
hearing. A hearing was set for May
11.
■ Ontario
Teen stabs four students,
employee at high school
OTTAWA, Ontario (AP)-A 15
year-old boy armed with a kitchen
knife stabbed four students and a
school worker during a fight at a
high school Thursday, police said.
None of the injuries was consid
ered life-threatening, and the boy
later turned over the knife to the
school principal.
Ottawa-Carleton regional police
spokesman Leo Jandeau said the
motive for the stabbings at Cairine
Wilson High School was unclear. -
The fight occurred on the first
... anniversary ofthe Columbine High
School shootings.