PYONGYANG: North Korea accused a detained US veteran yesterday of killing civilians during the Korean War 60 years ago and showed a video of the 85-year-old making a full confession and apology as if the battles are still raging.
The North’s KCNA news agency said Merrill E Newman, a former special forces officer, was a mastermind of clandestine operations and had confessed to being “guilty of a long list of indelible crimes against DPRK government and Korean people.”
In the patchy video, Newman appears composed and is shown reading aloud from a handwritten statement dated Nov 9, 2013 in a wood-panelled meeting room. At the end, he bows and places a finger print on the document.
“I realise that I cannot be forgiven for my offensives (offences) but I beg for pardon on my knees by apologising for my offensives (offences) sincerely toward the DPRK government and the Korean people and I want not punish me (I wish not to be punished),” Newman, who has a heart rhythm disorder, was quoted as saying by KCNA.
DPRK is short for the North’s formal name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. One of the world’s most isolated states, it nourishes memories of the 1950-53 war with South Korea and the United States to keep its impoverished people distracted and the family of founder Kim Il Sung in power. His grandson, Kim Jong Un, is North Korea’s current ruler.
It remains technically in a state of war with the South and with the United States because the 1950-53 conflict ended with a truce, not a peace treaty. Newman, a pensioner from Palo Alto, California, was pulled off an Air Koryo flight in North Korea minutes before it was due to depart for Beijing on October 26. His wife, Lee Newman, told CNN earlier this week that her husband went to North Korea to “put some closure” on his time during the US military. It was “an important part of his life,” she said.
Newman worked as an “adviser” to a partisan regiment during the Korean War as “part of the Intelligence Bureau of the Command of the US Forces in the Far East,” KCNA said in a separate report. “He is a criminal as he masterminded espionage and subversive activities against the DPRK and in this course he was involved in killings of service personnel of the Korean People’s Army and innocent civilians,” KCNA said.
Newman, in his statement carried by KCNA, said he trained scores of men in guerrilla warfare against the North, including how to sabotage communications and transport lines and disrupt munitions supply.
“In the process of following tasks given by me, I believe they would kill more innocent people,” Newman said in the statement.
Public documents in South Korea and the United States show US officers worked as “advisers” to groups of anti-communist partisans during the Korean War. The conflict pitted the Communist North, backed by China and the Soviet Union, against the republican South, backed by the United States.
These officers trained Korean anti-communist guerilla units to launch attacks behind enemy lines. Newman belonged to the 8240th Unit, nicknamed the ‘White Tigers.’ REUTERS
