Residents hold rally against deal to keep U.S. military unit in Dongducheon

About a thousand residents of a city near the tense inter-Korean border held a mass rally Wednesday to protest a recent South Korea-U.S. deal to keep an American military unit in the city, police said.

Last month, Seoul and Washington agreed to retain the 210th Fires Brigade under the 2nd Infantry Division in Dongducheon until "the mid-2020s" to bolster deterrence against North Korea.

A 2004 deal had called for relocating the U.S. military unit to a new location south of the Han River that runs through the South Korean capital by the end of 2016.

The latest agreement has ended the city's plan to develop the land to be vacated by U.S. troops, sparking anger among residents in Dongducheon.

Earlier in the day, the residents held a rally against the decision at a parking lot in front of Camp Casey in Dongducheon, according to police.

A civic group said U.S. forces have been stationed in Dongducheon for 60 years, which has stigmatized it as "a military town." They called for the government to pay compensation to the residents if the retainment is inevitable for national security.

"Over the past 63 years, citizens in Dongducheon sacrificed themselves by letting more than half of the city's land be used for national security without any reward," said Han Jong-gap, head of the civic group that is against the retainment of the American military unit. "It is an irresponsible decision that makes the citizens' sacrifice useless."

Oh Se-chang, the mayor of the city, also joined the rally, claiming that there should be compensation for the residents if they have to bear the brunt again for national security.

Those who participated in the rally insisted that they had suffered an economic loss of 324 billion won (US$298 million) per year for 60 years since 1952 as the stationing of U.S. forces has prevented the city from creating economic development.

The brigade's artillery, including the Multiple Launch Rocket System (MSLR) and the ATACMS surface-to-surface missile system, is seen as a strong deterrent to North Korea's long-range artillery threats.

Some 28,500 American troops are stationed in South Korea to help defend its Asian ally from aggression by North Korea, a legacy of the 1950-53 Korean War that ended in a truce, not a peace treaty. (Yonhap)