It looks like the anti-US groups in Korea will have a new statue they can vandalize and try to tear down:

After being turned away by one of its own cities, a South Korean civic group has finally found a home for a monument to the American general it credits with saving the country — on an American military base few South Koreans are allowed to enter.

The Korea America Friendship Association, or KAFA, plans to unveil a $770,000 statue of Lt. Gen. Walton Walker at U.S. Army Garrison-Yongsan on Dec. 23, the 58th anniversary of the general’s death in a jeep accident near Uijeongbu. Walker successfully led the defense of a critical line around Busan, the only pocket of South Korea not captured by communist North Korea in the early months of the Korean War. [Stars & Stripes]

Unsurprisingly take a look at the difficulties the KAFA group had trying to find a place to erect the statue:

KAFA asked Busan’s United Nations Memorial Cemetery in 2005 if it could put a statue of Walker there. Some of the 11 countries whose soldiers are buried there said no, because the statue wouldn’t represent the United Nations.

“He is just a symbol of the U.S.,” said cemetery spokeswoman Park Eun-jung.

The association then asked the city of Daegu — home to the U.S. military’s Camps Henry and Camp Walker, named after the general — if it could erect the statue there. KAFA made its request during election season and during a period of elevated anti-Americanism, following the deaths of two South Korean schoolgirls killed by a military vehicle driven by U.S. soldiers three years earlier. City officials said they would review the plan after election, but civic groups protested, and the new mayor rejected it. A Daegu city spokesman said Friday he was unable to comment on the matter.

Earlier this year, former U.S. Forces Korea commander Gen. B.B. Bell agreed to let the group put the statue at Yongsan, Seo said. The base is scheduled to return to South Korean control in 2012, and the area where the statue will be erected will be open to the public, Seo said.

First of all General Walton Walker does represent the United Nations since he was the ground commander for the 8th Army during the war that included troops from UN member nations that were dispatched to aid in the defense of South Korea.  With that said the statue shouldn’t be built in Pusan anyway, Daegu would probably be the most fitting place since it was the key city on the frontlines of the Pusan Perimeter:

It was the Pusan Perimeter defense that was General Walker’s greatest legacy during the war and Daegu should be the city any memorial to General Walker should be constructed.  It is a shame that once again anti-Americanism is preventing the construction of this statue in a city that General Walker and his men so valiantly defended from North Korean aggression.

Since the statue is being built on Yongsan Garrison, it will be interesting to see in the coming years when the land is opened to the Korean public whether General Walker’s statue will be vandalized and tried to be tore down by the anti-US groups.

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