Dear South Korea:

Korea rages for the deaths of two middle school girls killed accidentally by Americans. Koreans weep at the verdict that found the drivers not guilty of criminally negligent homicide.

The rage and tears are never-ending. According to photos at Jatong.org there have been 47 demonstrations since the girls were killed, many of them violent, most with burning American flags and chants of ¡°Death to Bush,¡± which the Korean English media airbrushes into ¡°Bush apologize¡± in its coverage.

Many Americans have been targeted by this rage and grief. Several GIs have been hit with bricks and rocks. Others have been beaten. I myself was nearly knocked to the ground by a Korean college student on his way to a protest at the American embassy. My crime, I guess, was being a white person near the American embassy in Seoul.

So, I understand your rage. I know the depths of your grief which will last a thousand summers and a thousand winters after that, to paraphrase the loonies laying siege to our embassy.

But I don't understand the, well, rather fickle and highly selective nature of South Korean rage and grief.

Where was the rage in February when five sex slaves died in the fire in their prison/brothel with bars on the windows and it was revealed that police had been bribed with free use of the sex slaves to ignore the slavery and the fact that the fire exits were welded shut?

Why no national movement to root out sex slavery?

Where was the rage when a Korean police office shot a Mongolian burglary suspect during an interrogation in June?

Why no national movement to root out police brutality? (The cop has yet to be put on trial.)

Where was the rage when Korean men beat to death a guest worker from Kyrgyzstan in June?

Has the Korean public or its press told us anything about his grieving family and their failure to get any compensation or justice? Has anyone in Korean offered them an apology

Why are Ms. Shin and Ms. Shim national martyrs, their photos staring at us from every street corner, while all the deaths I have mentioned were five minute blurbs on the evening news?

And where was the rage when three of the president's sons were convicted of using the Korean government as a private cash register?

Why didn't you not blame DJ for the sins of his sons? All Americans, after all, must answer for the accident caused by Walker and Nino?

Where was the rage when it was reported in May that 30 cases of forced sodomy (male rape) have been reported this year in the Korean army? The army even admitted that those 30 rapes that were actually reported represent just a fraction of the number of assaults.

(Imagine your rage if just one Korean soldier had been raped by one American.)

Why no national campaign to punish rape in the army?

(None of those charged with rape by army have been charged in civilian courts.)

And where was the outrage when it was discovered that restaurant owners along the Han had been dumping tons of untreated directly into the river? When an American dumped 20 gallons of formaldehyde into a waste treatment facility that eventually empties into the Han you firebombed our troops and called for a criminal prosecution. Yet the restaurant owners get just minor fines and haven't even apologized.

And where was the national shame last month when one of Korea's largest shipping companies was charged with dumping millions of gallons of sludge into the waters off Alaska? After all, you demand all Americans feel shame over Walker and Nino's actions. Why hasn¡¯t DJ apologized personally to me for this outrage. Don¡¯t Koreans see me as their equal? Why haven¡¯t the owners of those companies apologized to all Americans? When a company in Korea is found to have polluted in Korea its CEO apologizes to all Koreans. Is it that Koreans do not respect American life?

And what about that special I saw on TV the other night about young former sex slaves with AIDs. They were forced to service Korean men in brothels and the men were not required to wear condoms.

Aren't these women your sisters too? Do they have to be hit by American tanks before you care about them?

And what about the millions of North Koreans who live under oppressive rule? What about the North Korean refugees suffering abuse in China? Where is you rage at China and the North Korean government for denying their rights?

Yes, I think I have a pretty clear understanding of Korean rage. But just don't ask me to have any respect for it. It is pure, blind bigotry of the ugliest sort.

Yours truly,

Ben Eller
Seoul