NORTH KOREA OFFERS AID ON

PROBE OF WAR KILLINGS

News-Gazette, Champaign, IL

November 21, 1999

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) – North Korea proposed Saturday that it form a joint team with rival South Korea to investigate allegations that American soldiers killed hundreds of civilians during the Korean War.

The U.S. and South Korean probe already underway is "a deceptive trick to put down the wrath and anti-American feelings" and "designed to cover up the crimes and flee from responsibility," the North’s committee in charge of relations with South Korea said in the unusual proposal, reported by the communist state’s Central News Agency.

The North said it sent the proposal to South Korean civil organizations, indicating it would prefer to deal with them than the government. North Korea has shunned peace talks with South Korea, calling it a U.S. puppet.

On Sept. 29, The Associated Press reported that U.S. Army veterans, corroborating the accounts of Korean villagers, said their unit killed a large number of civilian refugees at the South Korean hamlet of Nogun-ri in July 1950.

##