Residents in the central Seoul district of Yongsan sued the government Wednesday over its decision to keep the South Korea-U.S. Combined Forces Command there instead of relocating it as promised earlier.
A total of 33 people lodged a lawsuit with the Seoul Administrative Court against Defense Minister Han Min-koo, calling the decision to retain the CFC in their neighborhood a “breach of trust.”
Last October, Seoul and Washington agreed to delay the transfer of wartime operational control from this year to the mid-2020s.
The change in plans from a 2004 deal also included keeping the CFC headquarters at the Yongsan Garrison instead of moving it to Pyeongtaek, some 70 kilometers south of Seoul, as other U.S. troops have.
Prior to the agreement, South Korea had told residents that the Yongsan Garrison would be turned into a park upon its relocation.
The U.S. military has often been a source of trouble to the locals, as some of its personnel have been apprehended for violent crimes.
In Gyeonggi Province, which houses the most U.S. troops in South Korea, more than 400 U.S. military personnel committed violent crimes such as murder, robbery and rape in the first nine months of last year, up from 100 in 2010, according to police data.
“We’ve tolerated the U.S. troops for the promise of getting our neighborhood back,” the residents said in a statement. “Instead, the government ridiculed us by keeping the CFC there.”
Some 28,500 American troops are stationed in South Korea to help defend it from North Korean aggression, a legacy of the 1950-53 Korean War that ended in a truce, not a peace treaty.
In October, South Korea and the U.S. also decided to retain a key artillery unit under the U.S. Army division at its current location in Dongducheon, close to the inter-Korean border, until at least 2020. (Yonhap)
