Elderly Residents Continue to Block Access Road to THAAD Site In South Korea
Here is an update from the anti-THAAD frontlines in Seongju county:
In Soseong-ri, a small farming village of about 80 residents in southern South Korea, a band of elderly women is at the forefront of protests against the deployment of a U.S. anti-missile system next to their neighborhood.
A dozen or so women, in their 60s to 80s, stand watch each day around the clock to make sure no military vehicles enter the deployment site through the only road to it — a former golf course owned by a leading conglomerate, the Lotte Group.
The vigil has forced the U.S. military to use helicopters instead to shuttle fuel and supplies to the site hosting the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system. (………..)
The women, who brandish canes and umbrellas at the military helicopters and shout for them to go away every time one flies through the village, say they have no interest in the politics of the deployment.
But they protest, longing for the peace they had before.
“I can’t sleep. I’m taking sedatives at night but I still get only two hours of sleep,” said 87-year-old Na Wi-bun, who lives within a kilometer (0.62 mile) of the site and says she can hear the generator that powers THAAD humming around the clock. [Reuters]
You can read more at the link, but it is ironic they are complaining about noise when their protest is causing the noise. The helicopters would not be flying if trucks were allowed to drive up the road to the site. Also the generators as we have seen in with the radar site in Japan can be muffled and the noise ultimately eliminated when the radar is hooked up to commercial power. However, if construction crews cannot drive up the road to hook up to commercial power then the noise will remain.
These folks are old enough to remeber the joys of North Korean occupation.
Shame on them.
They sure like the nork payments… No other reason to protest…
@setnaffa, I believe this is purely a not in my backyard protest by these elderly villagers. They are fed all the THAAD lies by the activist groups and believe them. Many of these elderly villagers make a living growing apples and melons and suddenly the US Army puts in a radar that activist groups say is going to radiate their crops and cause cancer. The national government is doing nothing to dispel the lies and thus the stand off we have now.
This article is complete bull shir. 95% of the protesters are not from that area.
Written by moon’s nk propoganda writers
The whole article is a complete lie.
GI, sometimes it does my heart good to see people who are less cynical than me. But Bernie and his team of apparently murderous paid protestors have me a bit out of sympathy for political fans of collectivism an gulags. And that’s sadly what those women are apparently for. I don’t buy the BIMBY attitude anywhere. And especially not where it may so easily be traced to communist sources.
I would love to be proven wrong. But we are all still Mk 1/mod 1 humans. Same as the best and worst among us.
@Flyingsword, from everything I have read the locals are maintaining the blockade with some support from outside groups. If the police try and forcibly remove the blockade then I am sure the outside groups will surge over there to support the villagers which is why President Moon is slow rolling this. He doesn’t want a US beef riot or Camp Humphreys expansion like violence to deal with this early in his administration.
You have been misinformed. A few locals backed by a majority of outside radicals. Presdent Moon is a friend to the communist and radicals and is doing nothing because of this. Not because he doesn’t want a beef riot or some such nonsense. Most of his cabinet and staff participated in the beef riots and camp humpreys protests…as well as the two girls traffic accident protests.
An exmple:
Im Jong-seok, who has been appointed as presidential chief of staff, was born in Jangheung, South Jeolla, in 1966. Im was former student activist who headed the National Council of Student Representatives. As a two-term lawmaker, Im served as secretary general of Democratic Party and Seoul’s deputy mayor for state affairs.
@Flyingsword all you have to do is look at the crowd sizes maintaining the blockade. It is very small. The ROK police could easily open the road like they did when the equipment was installed at the golf course. Now they are clearly being told not to. The ROK government likely doesn’t want pictures of elderly grandmas being forcibly removed on live TV.
When the prime minister visited the site the leftist groups surged to the area to back the villagers and detained the prime minister. It is also likely why the US military secretly moved the equipment to the golf course. If the leftist groups knew when the equipment would arrive they would surge there to support the villagers.