ILLEGAL “UN COMMAND”

Sixty years have passed since the Korean Armistice Agreement had been signed on July 27, 1953. It does not mean the end of the Korean war. Worse still, the AA, which was barely maintained, became nullified, driving the situation on the Korean peninsula to the brink of another war. One of the major factors is the existence of the United Nations Command, or UNC, in south Korea.

UNC was illegally organized by the initiative of the United States to enlist troops of its vassal states in the Korean war and execute its right of command. On June 25 1950, the very day when south Korea, at the instigation of the US, started an armed invasion of the DPRK, the US had the UN Security Council convene a meeting to railroad Resolution 82 (1950) through, defining the DPRK as the “aggressor.” On July 7 it cooked up Resolution 84 (1950) on dispatching the armed forces of UN member nations to the Korean front, putting them under the control of the US-led combined command and making the command use the UN flag.

Paragraph 3 of Article 27 of the UN Charter stipulates that decisions of the Security Council on all other matters, except procedural ones, shall be made by an affirmative vote of all the permanent members of the UNSC. However, the abovementioned resolutions were all adopted in the absence of the former Soviet Union, a permanent member. The UNC is also illegal in its structure, command system and financial aspect. The UN Charter defines in Article 43 that the UN armed forces shall be organized, on UNSC’s call and in accordance with agreements to be concluded between the Security Council and member nations.

But the United States and other 15 countries sent their troops to the Korean front without having concluded relevant agreements. It must be the UN, if it has jurisdiction over the UNC, that appoints its commander, but successive commanders of the UNC have been Americans appointed by their government. And the UNC now present in south Korea has no other troops of the UN member nations but the US under its control. The expenses of the organs under the United Nations shall be borne by the UN, but it has never supported the UNC financially, even during the Korean War.

Illegality of the UNC is admitted by the Americans themselves. Mark W. Clark, who assumed command of the UN forces in the last days of the Korean War, confessed that he had no idea what orders he was given from the UN during the war. The UN itself has denied its relations with the UNC.

Boutros Boutros-Ghali, the then secretary-general of the UN, said in June 1994 that the UNC was not a subsidiary organ established by the UN Security Council. Kofi Annan, former secretary-general of the UN, disclosed in December 1998 that none of his predecessors had allowed the United States to relate with the name of the UN neither the military troops the US dispatched to the Korean front nor its command. The UN spokesperson confirmed in July 2004 and March 2006 respectively that the UNC is controlled by the United States, not by the UN. In June this year deputy spokesperson for the UN secretary-general made public that the UN played no visible role in commanding the armed forces deployed in the Korean peninsula. In November 1975 the 30^th session of the UN General Assembly passed a resolution on dissolving the UNC in south Korea.

However, the US is still insisting that the US troops stationed in south Korea are UN forces. What makes the international community feel more wary is that the US is attempting to develop the UNC, far from dissolving it, into an instrument for carrying out operations command and munitions supply of its vassal states in an emergency on the Korean peninsula. Actually it is maneuvering to involve the troops of its vassal states on a regular basis in the military exercises jointly conducted with south Korea, like Key Resolve and Ulji Freedom Guardian with an aim of bringing back the UNC-led command system of combined forces. In March the US invited to the Key Resolve and Foal Eagle joint military exercises the troops of the UK, Canada and Australia.

What the US plans is to show the belligerent relations between the US and the DPRK as the ones between the UN and the DPRK, so that the UN could be automatically engaged in the second Korean war when it breaks out. The UN must not allow the UNC to usurp its name any more and dismantle the illegal UNC in south Korea.