Anger at U.S. troops

last updated 8 January 2015

Seoul

More than 50,000 Koreans demonstrated this week against the U.S. military presence in South Korea, angered by the deaths of two teenagers in a traffic accident involving a U.S. armored car. The two soldiers in the car were acquitted of negligence at a U.S. court-martial several weeks ago. Outraged, citizens formed the Pan-Korean Committee for Two Girls Killed by U.S. Armored Vehicles and began calling for a personal apology from President Bush. “Our people don’t understand why nobody has been held responsible,” President Kim Dae Jung told visiting U.S. senators. In South Korea, all traffic accidents are treated as crimes.