PETITION (WRITTEN BY Karam @Kids/Hana) To Whom It May Concern: This letter concerns the recent terrible incident in which an old Korean grandmother and her two daughters suffered terrible inhumane treatment by several American soldiers who were on duty at the gatepost of Hannam Village at Yongsan, Seoul, Korea on October 25, 1994. We are writing this letter to strongly urge you and other authotities about the necessity for an immediate reinvestigation of this incident and appropriate actions against the soldiers for the reasons discussed below. We warn you strongly that if you do not respond to our request with appropriate actions, hostile feeling among Koreans toward not only American soldiers and the US government but also American civilians in Korea will grow deeper and spread very rapidly among Koreans and that this collective feeling will result in an undesirable and detrimental damage to the relationship between Korea and the US in general, and between Korean people and Americans in Korea in specific. We will not quit until this incident undergoes a fair reinvestigation and justice is achieved for these Koreans. We will list three reasons for our wish for a reinvestigation of the incident. Please refer to the enclosed English translation of Ms. Seol's report for more detailed information. The first one is that the soldiers exercised excessive physical force unnecessarily when they handcuffed Ms. Seol and her sister. They not only hit Ms. Seol with a nightstick but also twisted her arm excessively hard to handcuff her. This is evidenced by the fact that Ms. Seol suffered severe skin damage as well as bruises on her right arm and had to receive medical treatment for ten days afterwards. They also used the same physical force for handcuffing Ms. Seol's sister, and consequently she had to receive medical treatment for two weeks. Those five "giant" soldiers were NOT dealing with a monstrously strong male criminal. It was two weak small Korean women. In no way could an old woman and two small Korean women pose any physical threat to five big, tall American soldiers with a gun and a nightstick. There is no doubt that these soldiers unnecessarily exercised excessive physical force against the women. How can we accept the conclusion that the soldiers acted appropriately? All the brutal physical violence was absurd and unforgivalbe in every sense. The only possibility we can think of is that the incident started when the soldiers suspected that the old mother might be carrying drugs. However, even this possibility does not justify what the soldiers have done to the women. They should have explained their suspicion to Ms. Seol and her sister and asked for cooperation. In no way can their blunt and inhumane disregard of human rights be excused. The second reason is that the soldiers were dreadfully careless about the four-year-old son of Ms. Seol's sister who was at the scene of his mother's arrest. As Ms. Seol's letter describes, the poor child cried frantically shouting, "My mom's dying, my mom's dying," while witnessing the soldiers' inhumane and violent handling of his mother. Even if handcuffing the mother was necessary, it was not a life-and-death situation, and the soldiers could have taken the child away before they did it. It does not require a child psychologist to guess that the child is likely to suffer permanent psychological damage from the incident. They could have avoided such devastating psychological damage to the child. To make the matter even worse, they heartlessly rejected the offer from a neighbor to babysit the child while the three women were taken to the military base for an investigation. Why did they have to take the four-year-old kid to the base? The third reason is the soldiers' inhumane and callous treatment of Ms. Seol's old mother. She was almost seventy years old and too old to endure the physical and mental shock. How could they merely look on her so indifferently seeing her faint down to the floor from a chair and uncontrollably urinate in her cloths. How could they disregard the daughter's plea to call an ambulance for her mother for more than half an hour? What if Ms. Seol's mother had suffered a heart attack at the time? This soldiers' inhumane behavior has nothing to do with any military investigation procedure and cannot be forgiven. We were all appalled and enraged by the inhumane and unthinkable behavior of the soldiers. Furthermore, your recent investigation reported no faults on the soldiers' part and accused the Korean women of interference with official duties. This report was even more shocking and led many Koreans to lose trust in Americans and experience a feeling of betrayal. The fact that your investigation was so unfairly and outrageously in favor of the soliers, overlooking the soldiers' obvious wrongdoings discussed above, has made our anger soar even higher like gasoline poured on fire. Please notice that this incident has a far-reaching effect in the way Koreans will think of the US military and even the US government as the inconsiderable human rights violation was committed by soldiers during their service hour, unlike past crimes done by American soldiers, which were committed in their private life. It will be viewed by many Koreans as an indication that the US military is willing to allow US soldiers to intentionally ignore Koreans' humans rights and that it will justify the results of its soldiers wrongdoings even by distorting or overlooking the truth, if necessary. The result will be an unprecedentedly enormous surge of anti-American movement among Koreans, as mentioned at the beginning. For this reason, we strongly demand the aforementioned immediate reinvestigation and appropriate actions against the soldiers. Thank you.