Author Topic: Washington Demands NKorea Release 85-Year-Old 'War Criminal'  (Read 891 times)

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Online mystery-ak

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Washington Demands NKorea Release 85-Year-Old 'War Criminal'
« on: December 01, 2013, 01:49:51 pm »
http://www.newsmax.com/PrintTemplate.aspx?nodeid=539235

 Washington Demands NKorea Release 85-Year-Old 'War Criminal'
Saturday, November 30, 2013 06:08 AM

By: REUTERS

The United States called Saturday for the "immediate release" of Merrill Newman, an 85-year-old Californian detained in North Korea since last month.

"Given Mr Newman's advanced age and health conditions, we urge the DPRK to release Mr Newman so he may return home and reunite with his family," National Security Council spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden said.

Earlier Saturday Pyongyang had accused Newman 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 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-paneled meeting room. At the end, he bows and places a finger print on the document.

"I realize that I cannot be forgiven for my offensives (offenses) but I beg for pardon on my knees by apologizing for my offensives (offenses) 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.

Swedish diplomats in Pyongyang visited Newman in custody on Saturday, the State Department said, the first access to him by Western officials since his arrest in late October.

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 Oct. 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 U.S. 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 U.S. 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 U.S. officers worked as "advisers" to groups of anti-communist partisans during the Korean War.

These officers trained Korean anti-communist guerrilla units to launch attacks behind enemy lines.

Newman belonged to the 8240th Unit, nicknamed the 'White Tigers', said guerrillas who were trained by him.

"We co-operated and helped with each other and fought," Kim Hyeon who lives south of Seoul said in an interview with Reuters. Hyeon remained in touch with Newman after the war and visited him with his family in 2004.

"In the past we couldn't even speak up (about our activities,)" said Kim, who served as a staff officer of the Kuwol Regiment of partisans, referring to the clandestine operations it conducted under Newman's supervision.

Newman's family has appealed to the North Korean government for his release saying they believed "some dreadful misunderstanding" was behind the detention.

"If Newman was with the partisans that may explain his detention," Bruce Cumings, an expert on the Korean War at the University of Chicago, told Reuters.

"The North Koreans would treat someone like that with much more disdain than a regular line soldier or officer in the American forces."

The State Department had previously refused to provide any details of the arrest other than confirming the detention of a U.S. citizen.

After serving in the war, Newman worked as a manufacturing and business executive before retiring in 1984, according to a biography of him in a February 2012 newsletter from Channing House, his retirement home.

North Korea is also holding another American, Christian missionary Kenneth Bae of Korean decent, arrested last year and sentenced in May to 15 years of hard labor on charges of committing hostile acts against the state.

Newman's family has not commented on the latest developments. Phone calls and email queries to his son, Jeff Newman, a real estate executive in the Los Angeles suburb of Pasadena, were not answered.

KCNA said Newman had asked his guide to help look for any surviving soldiers he would have fought against or their families.

"Shamelessly I had a plan to meet any surviving soldiers and pray for the souls of the dead soldiers in Kuwol Mt. during the Korean war," he said.
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Offline Chieftain

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Re: Washington Demands NKorea Release 85-Year-Old 'War Criminal'
« Reply #1 on: December 01, 2013, 01:55:37 pm »
About frackin time!  This poor bastard has been a captive of the NORKS since before Halloween, and the US is just now getting around to demanding his release!!??

This whole thing is just obscene.


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Re: Washington Demands NKorea Release 85-Year-Old 'War Criminal'
« Reply #2 on: December 01, 2013, 02:10:18 pm »
The sad truth.....if North Korea were to publicly execute him for crimes against the People, Barack Obama wouldn't respond using military assets.

Here we have the capability to drop a ballistic missile into his bedroom window....literally, from a console in Nevada or on a ship in the middle of the Pacific, and instead, we'll use" economic sanctions", which only provide more ammunition to showcase America's supposed inhumanity.    Do I need a [/s]?
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Re: Washington Demands NKorea Release 85-Year-Old 'War Criminal'
« Reply #3 on: December 01, 2013, 02:13:31 pm »
The tyrants of the world are just laughing at Obama.
There are some among us who live in rooms of experience we can never enter.
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Re: Washington Demands NKorea Release 85-Year-Old 'War Criminal'
« Reply #4 on: December 01, 2013, 02:21:48 pm »
The tyrants of the world are just laughing at Obama.

Exactly......Washington has no credibility....maybe if this was a Reagan or Bush admin it would be different...Obama is a joke and the whole world knows it.
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Re: Washington Demands NKorea Release 85-Year-Old 'War Criminal'
« Reply #5 on: December 01, 2013, 02:27:07 pm »
Was the fact that the planes carrying our American hostages for 444 days in Iran literally left Iranian airspace at the moment Ronald Reagan was reciting his Oath of Office....more a case of fearing Ronald Reagan?   Or...was it a final shoe thrown at Jimmy Carter?

Did Ronald Reagan say anything on the campaign trail about what he'd do as POTUS to get our people out of Iran?
"It aint what you don't know that kills you.  It's what you know that aint so!" ...Theodore Sturgeon

"Journalism is about covering the news.  With a pillow.  Until it stops moving."    - David Burge (Iowahawk)

"It was only a sunny smile, and little it cost in the giving, but like morning light it scattered the night and made the day worth living" F. Scott Fitzgerald

Online Lando Lincoln

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Re: Washington Demands NKorea Release 85-Year-Old 'War Criminal'
« Reply #6 on: December 01, 2013, 02:30:17 pm »
Was the fact that the planes carrying our American hostages for 444 days in Iran literally left Iranian airspace at the moment Ronald Reagan was reciting his Oath of Office....more a case of fearing Ronald Reagan?   Or...was it a final shoe thrown at Jimmy Carter?

Did Ronald Reagan say anything on the campaign trail about what he'd do as POTUS to get our people out of Iran?

Without researching/refreshing all the details in my mind, I always believed it was a measure of both.
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Re: Washington Demands NKorea Release 85-Year-Old 'War Criminal'
« Reply #7 on: December 01, 2013, 02:35:38 pm »
Without researching/refreshing all the details in my mind, I always believed it was a measure of both.

Perhaps it was because of Reagan's public opinions on the Soviet Union and Totalitarianism in general that moved Iran to let them go.

But you're right....it was probably a little of both.
"It aint what you don't know that kills you.  It's what you know that aint so!" ...Theodore Sturgeon

"Journalism is about covering the news.  With a pillow.  Until it stops moving."    - David Burge (Iowahawk)

"It was only a sunny smile, and little it cost in the giving, but like morning light it scattered the night and made the day worth living" F. Scott Fitzgerald

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Re: Washington Demands NKorea Release 85-Year-Old 'War Criminal'
« Reply #8 on: December 01, 2013, 02:42:00 pm »
Perhaps it was because of Reagan's public opinions on the Soviet Union and Totalitarianism in general that moved Iran to let them go.


Yes, I think you are right DCP.  I recall that RR stayed away from specifically talking about the hostage situation so as not to inflame anything.  But, his strident messaging regarding Totalitarianism in general was plenty.
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Offline Cincinnatus

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Re: Washington Demands NKorea Release 85-Year-Old 'War Criminal'
« Reply #9 on: December 01, 2013, 07:09:37 pm »
Quote
Washington Demands

Oh, wow, I bet the NKs are just quaking in their hwas.
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