Korean fishermen in decades-old battle against Air Force range

KOON-NI RANGE, South Korea - Old fishermen call them ''shriekers'' - U.S. military jets that swoop down and strafe practice targets only 550 yards from the nearest village.

''The whole house shakes. I can't watch TV. Babies are startled,'' said Choi Joong-bin, 64. ''It gets worse in the summer when I have to leave the windows open.''

Choi is among several thousand people here who say they cannot sleep or work in comfort as long as the United States, their country's main military ally, keeps an air force range near their west coast village of Mae Hyang, 50 miles south of Seoul.

Villagers say the 5,000-acre Koon-Ni tidal flat range is the cause of deaths, injuries and miscarriages among humans and livestock. They say at least nine people have died in accidents linked to the range, including a pregnant woman killed when a practice bomb hit her in 1967 and four children killed the following year when they tinkered with an unexploded bomb. In 1994, they say, roofs caved in and walls cracked in 100 houses when range workers accidentally detonated bombs.

Most recently, a May 8 bombing slightly injured several villagers and cracked walls or shattered windows of hundreds of homes, villagers say. More than 100 students were detained in subsequent days for trying to march on the U.S. embassy in Seoul to demand the relocation of the range and the withdrawal of U.S. troops from the South.

At South Korean President Kim Dae-jung's urging, U.S. officials halted firing on the range for 10 days during a joint investigation. Investigators say they have not found evidence of major damage or injuries.

Some 2,800 residents from 10 villages around the range have filed a lawsuit seeking $27 million in compensation from their government.

''We want to live in peace!'' barks a slogan painted by villagers on a cinderblock warehouse overlooking the tidal flat.

The U.S. military has about 20 bases scattered around South Korea and operates several ranges. Washington also still keeps 37,000 troops in the South. Under a treaty, Seoul must provide the U.S. military with land for its facilities, but no provinces want the range in their backyards.

The Koon-Ni range opened during the 1950-53 Korean War, when U.S. troops led U.N. forces to fight North Korean invaders. It used to consist of three islets and a beach where huge bulls-eye targets are held up by poles for strafing exercises by U.S. helicopters and jets. Repeated bombing has flattened an islet into the tidal flat. A second island is all but gone.

U.S. jets now practice war on a third island, firing rockets and strafing discarded cars used as targets, five days a week from 9 a.m. to 10 p.m.

The U.S. military considers the range essential for preparation against any threat from communist North Korea.

''In order to help defend South Korea, as we are requested by the South Korean government, we do need to be trained and we need areas where we are allowed to train,'' said Lee Ferguson, spokeswoman for the U.S. military command.

U.S. and South Korean authorities have made little progress with the villagers. A government offer to relocate the villagers' homes was rejected.

On weekends, bombing stops and villagers collect oysters along the tidal flat, which is strewn with practice shells, rusty bullets and bomb shreds.

''You feel angry but helpless when at night, planes thunder overhead and your baby wakes up and cries out,'' Chun Man-kyu, 45, said as he trudged the flat.