Bush Apologizes for South Korean Schoolgirl Deaths
By REUTERS
Filed at 4:30 a.m. ET
SEOUL (Reuters) - President Bush apologized to the South Korean people on Wednesday for a road accident in which a U.S. Army vehicle crushed two schoolgirls to death, prompting anti-American protests.
The accident in June, and the court martial acquittal of the vehicle's driver and navigator last week, sparked angry street demonstrations and calls for the withdrawal of 37,000 U.S. troops stationed in South Korea.
The emotive court case concluded as South Korea and the United States were grappling with North Korea's newly revealed nuclear arms program, which requires a delicate balancing of interests between Seoul and Washington.
At a special news conference on Wednesday following days of protest, including the student firebombing of a U.S. Army base, U.S. Ambassador Thomas Hubbard passed on Bush's apology.
``President Bush, who has visited Korea and has a special feeling for the Korean people, has been touched by this tragedy,'' Hubbard said.
``Just this morning, the president sent me a message asking me to convey his apologies to the families of the girls, to the government of the Republic of Korea and to the people of Korea.
The accident, in which the two 13-year-olds were crushed by a mine-clearing vehicle while walking on a village road near the heavily fortified border with North Korea, have prompted apologies from several U.S. commanders as well as Secretary of State Colin Powell.
The court martial's finding that the two soldiers were not guilty of negligent homicide prompted political parties to demand a revision of a bilateral treaty granting the U.S. military legal jurisdiction in cases involving soldiers on duty.
Shouting ``Punish the soldiers!,'' around 300 protesters attempted to march toward the main U.S. military base in Seoul on Wednesday, but were blocked by riot police.
Last week, about 40 placard-carrying students marched toward the U.S. embassy in central Seoul shouting slogans and burned a U.S. flag.
North Korea and some activists in the South have seized on the accident to press for the withdrawal of the U.S. troops stationed in South Korea under a 50-year-old alliance set up to deter aggression from the communist North.
North and South Korea are still technically at war as the truce which ended the 1950-53 conflict, in which the Americans backed the South and the Chinese backed the North, never led to a peace treaty.
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