WashingtonThe US forces dropped plague-infected fleas on North Korea in March 1952, according to report on germ warfare released online.
The report published in February 2018 mentioned one episode of the dropping of plague-infected human fleas on a single small village.
In it mentioned in the report that Pak Yun-Ho, a 26 year old peasant born and raised in the village was woken up by what he and later others identified as an American plane that had been circling above the village around 4:00am.
The enemy plane flew away after circling several times without strafing or bombing. I couldnt sleep again after this, Pak told local investigators then. Song Chang-Won and I thought that these numerous fleas floating on the surface of water must have been dropped by the American plane circling over our village before dawn. We, therefore, immediately informed the chairman of the Village Peoples Committee of this incident, Pak told interviewers
In September 1952, the International Scientific Commission for the Investigation of the Facts Concerning Bacterial Warfare in Korea and China (ISC) issued a report finding that the US had conducted biological warfare during the Korean War.
The ISC linked Paks death to the discovery of plague-laden fleas in his village, adding to the chain of evidence in the case proving US germ warfare.
Since the beginning of 1952 numerous isolated foci of plague have appeared in North Korea, always associated with the sudden appearance of numbers of fleas and with the previous passage of American planes. Seven of these incidents, the earliest dating from 11th Feb., were reported in SIA/1, and in six of them the presence of the plague bacteria in the fleas was demonstrated. Document SIA/4 added the statement that after a delivery of fleas to the neighbourhood of An-Ju on the 18th Feb., fleas which were shown bacteriologically to contain Pasteurella pestis, a plague epidemic broke out at Bal-Nam-Ri in that district on the 25th. Out of a population of 600 in the village, 50 went down with plague and 36 died, the report noted.
The report also included a testimony from a Marine Corps colonel about how the US conceptualized its germ warfare campaign.
The general plan for bacteriological warfare in Korea was directed by the United States Joint Chiefs of Staff in October, 1951 . The basic objective was at that time to test, under field conditions, the various elements of bacteriological warfare, and to possibly expand the field tests, at a later date, into an element of the regular combat operations, depending on the results obtained and the situation in Korea, Colonel Franck Schwable, Chief of Staff of the First Marine Aircraft Wing said in a statement when he was given to Chinese interrogators after his plane was shot down on July 8, 1952.
Despite constantly claiming that it would prefer a diplomatic solution, Washington has time and again escalated the crisis by making military threats against the North.
US President Donald Trump and the White House have kept the shadow of war over the Korean Peninsula by sending troops and military equipment to the region in order to hold joint war games with its regional allies South Korea and Japan.
The thaw between the two neighbors, which have been separated by a heavily-militarized border since the three-year Korean War came to an end in 1953, has been endangered by the Trump administration.
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