Korean Shooting Charges

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31209, 5 November 1966, Page 15

Korean Shooting Charges

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter —Copyright) TOKYO, November 4. Charges have been made by both North Korea and the United Nations Command on the incident in which a United Nations Command patrol was shot near the demilitarised zone on Wednesday.

In Panmunjom, the United Nations Command charged today that “vicious, bloodthirsty” North Korean Communists murdered the six American soldiers in cold blood “then smashed in the heads of the dead men,” the Associated Press reported. Major-General Richard Ciccolella, of the United States, told the Communists at an emergency meeting of the Military Armistice Commission that the Communist attack eight hours before President Johnson’s visit to South Korea ended was deliberate and the work of an “armed killer group.” His face white with emotion Major-General Ciccolella charged that the Communists

fired 40 to 50 bullets into the bodies of the dead Americans and mutilated and bayoneted the corpses. The North Korean representative on the commission, Major-General Park Chungkook, listened silently. Major-General Ciccolella said the North Koreans entered the area south of the zone armed with automatic weapons and grenades. He charged that the attackers stripped the dead Americans of their money, watches and “looted their personal possession.” North’s View North Korea yesterday accused the United States of attempting to start a new war in Korea and demanded that it stop “reckless provocations against our side at once.” The North Korean agency said the United States fired thousands of bullets at North Korea during the five-day period between October 25 and October 31.

In its report from Pyongyang, the agency said American troops fire! into North Korea with light machineguns at five different points on October 27.

They had also some time ago bombarded its territory with tanks and mortars on the military demarcation line. "This shows that the United States imperialists are frenziedly trying to hot up tension and ignite a new war in Korea,” the agency added. The 4000 yd demilitarised zone separating the two Koreas was established by the 1953 armistice which ended three years of fighting in the Korean War.