US General Douglas MacArthur was once revered in South Korea as a war hero who repelled an invasion by North Korean troops half a century ago.
The late US general's glory, however, is fading among young South Koreans who have no personal experience of the Korean War which left some 34,000 US soldiers dead.
MacArthur, who served as commander-in-chief of a 16-nation UN force during the early days of the 1950 to 1953 war, led the daring Incheon landing that turned the tide of the three-year conflict.
The operation on Sept. 15, 1950 helped the UN forces recapture most of South Korea from the communist North and advance close to China before being pushed southward by Chinese troops.
Four years after the war, South Koreans erected a bronze statue of MacArthur at Freedom Park in the western port of Incheon to show their gratitude. The 5m-high statue portrays MacArthur holding a pair of binoculars and overlooking the bustling port where he landed.
An English-language inscription on the monument reads: "We shall never forget what he and his valiant officers and men of the United Nations Command did here for us and for freedom."
"We will never forget what he did for us. He is a hero who stopped the communization of the Korean peninsula," said Lee Jin-ho, a 74-year-old veteran who fought alongside US soldiers during the war.
But forget is exactly what some South Koreans want to do.
After laying a wreath at the memorial, Lee joined hundreds of other pro-US demonstrators, including war veterans in their 60s and 70s, who gathered in the park last Sunday to block about 50 anti-US activists intent on pulling down the statue.
Split by riot police, the two groups shouted insults at each other. Pro-MacArthur activists waved US and South Korean flags, calling their opponents "pro-North Korean commies".
The anti-US protestors responded with calls for the withdrawal of US troops and the dismantlement of the general's image. They condemned MacArthur as "the chief of the occu-pying forces."
"The statue is part of our humiliating history," said Kim Su-nam, a 65-year-old activist wearing a yellow jacket inscribed with anti-US slogans.
"By dismantling the statue, we want to stoke an anti-US movement aimed at expelling US troops from the peninsula," Kim said.
Using a loudspeaker, he rebuked the pro-US demonstrators as "followers of the US colonial master."
But his voice was buried by the supporters of MacArthur who noisily chanted pro-US slogans and blared military songs from a more powerful loudspeaker to drown out the slogans of their opponents.
Kim has staged a sit-in in the park for two months for his anti-MacArthur campaign which flared in 2002 when two teenage girls were crushed to death by a US military vehicle.
North Korea has supported Kim's campaign, calling MacArthur "an unrivaled war enthusiast."
The two-hour confrontation in the park highlighted debate over the role of US troops in South Korea.
Washington stations 32,500 troops who stand shoulder-to-shoulder with some 700,000 South Korean troops as a deterrent to North Korea's 1.1 million-strong army.
But many young South Koreans with no experience of the war have begun to question the need for US troops in their country. Anti-US groups insist the US agreed with other superpowers at the end of World War II to colonize the southern part of the peninsula.
"The statue is a symbol of colonial rule. We should not hand over this colony to our sons and daughters," said Kang Hee-nam, 85, who leads an anti-American committee.
Kang's group backed Pyongyang's argument that the US induced North Korea to trigger the war. It also accused Washington of heightening tension over North Korea's nuclear weapons drive.
But other regard the anti-US protesters as ungrateful.
"Instead of quibbling, they should pay attention to North Korea's human rights situation and the dictatorship of its Kim Jong-il regime," Lee Phil-han, a 56-year-old businessman in Incheon, said.
"We owe a lot to the United States which played a key role in our economic development. My notion is being supported by a silent majority of South Koreans."
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