Above photo: Republic of Korea soldiers during Freedom Shield 25 on March 12. US Army.
The call to cancel the military exercises takes on increased urgency given the military accident last week.
South Korean jets bombed their own citizens in the region bordering North Korea during the preparation of yet another joint military exercise with the US.
Pressure continues to grow against the ongoing Freedom Shield 25, a joint military exercise between the US and South Korea.
The International People’s Assembly (IPA) and International League of Peoples Struggle (ILPS) joined Nodutdol, an anti-imperialist Korean diaspora group, in launching a joint statement calling for the Freedom Shield military exercises to be cancelled, claiming it is drumming up threats of war on the Korean peninsula. The anti-imperialist and anti-war platforms bring together hundreds of people’s movements and organizations across the world.
“Freedom Shield 25 has dire implications for regional and global peace and stability. As part of Washington’s New Cold War against China, the NATO bloc and its Asian and Oceanian partners are escalating in East Asia, using the Korean peninsula as a staging ground. Freedom Shield poses a most immediate threat to the stability of the region, but its effects also extend far beyond,” the statement reads.
It adds, “Freedom Shield 25 provides another opportunity for these rogue actors to refine their interoperability, and therefore their capacity to wage war around the world. In a time of escalating economic, ecological, and political crises across the world, international cooperation is desperately needed to seek solutions to the common dilemmas afflicting humanity.”
The international call was initiated after the militaries of South Korea and the US decided to go ahead with the Freedom Shield exercise on Monday despite widespread opposition. In the letter, organizations also called on the members of the so-called “UN Command”, namely Australia, Belgium, Canada, Colombia, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, the Philippines, South Africa, Thailand, Türkiye, and the United Kingdom, to reject the invitation from the US and South Korea to participate in the exercise.
The 11-day exercise includes urban combat operations, field artillery exercises, air assault training, air defense artillery asset deployment and validation, and joint assault exercises.
Over a hundred organizations in the US called on the Donald Trump administration to cancel the Freedom Shield exercises and “cease all future war threats against the Korean people.” Noting that the time of such military exercises is dangerous for the region as it “swarms with armed soldiers” and militaries on high alert when “even a slight misunderstanding could lead to full-blown war.”
Civilian Deaths In Military Accident, Harbinger Of Militarized Future
The statements against Freedom Shield gain even more significance in the light of the recent accidental bombing of civilians in Pocheon near the North Korean border by South Korean jets.
Two South Korean KF-16 military jets dropped eight MK-82 bombs on a civilian area in Pocheon near the North Korea border during a warm up live-fire drill on March 6 in the run up of Freedom Shield. At least 30 civilians were injured with at least two of them in critical conditions. The bombing also destroyed a large number of residential buildings in the neighborhood.
In an unusual move arousing suspicion among the civil society groups in South Korea, the country’s military already claimed the bombing was a result of a mistake by the concerned pilots.
Holding the South Korean military responsible for the accident at Pocheon, Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU) questioned the quick admission of the mistake by the military even before any formal inquiry.
KCTU claimed the haste shows a “military’s trick to ease the political burden on the large-scale South Korea-US joint military exercise” and to cover up “the accident with the pilot’s mistake.”
KCTU expressed its sympathy to the residents of the border region who suffered mental, physical, and property damage from the accident that should not have occurred and demanded the government provide adequate compensation to them.
Military Exercises Risk Actual War In The Region
The KCTU alleged that the South Korean and US military authorities are attempting “to induce war through live-fire drills in the border area, raising military tensions on the Korean Peninsula, and threatening the lives and safety of residents in the border area” in the statement issued on March 6 following the Pocheon incident.
It demanded that all “war exercises that bring about a war crisis on the Korean Peninsula should be stopped.”
Trade unions, left organizations, and civil society groups in South Korea have repeatedly claimed that joint military exercises between the US and South Korea, which have increased in number and intensity in the last couple of years, could raise military tensions on the Korean Peninsula and lead to an accidental war, and have called for an end to all such large-scale war exercises.
North Korea too has repeatedly warned that military exercises joined by the US in the region are provocative and risk physical conflict on the Korean Peninsula. It has termed the growing number of military exercises in the region as threats to its security and vowed to strengthen its defenses.
The US and Republic of Korea “are getting more frantic in military exercises than ever before. The largest ever joint military exercises, kicked off again this year, clearly show who is the arch criminal aggravating the situation on the Korean Peninsula under the eyes of the world,” North Korea said in a statement on Monday.
North Korea also highlighted the incident at Pocheon as a hint of possible disasters. “If a bomb had been dropped” a little further to the north across the border as it could have caused a nuclear war, it said in a statement on Tuesday.
Many in South Korea have questioned the real objectives of the repeated joint military exercises with the US claiming the ruling establishment was completely disregarding the interest of the people particularly at a time when the country just avoided a coup attempt by a war mongering administration.
“Despite the unprecedented situation in which the commander-in-chief of the South Korean military was arrested on charges of mobilizing the military to cause a civil war, the South Korean and US military authorities have pushed ahead with live-fire drills in the border area” as country’s military authorities seek war over peace in the region, KCTU said in its statement.
KCTU pledged to “fight together to realize peace on the Korean Peninsula through stronger solidarity with the residents of the border region.”