Tag: protesters

I have a hard time believing this is going to happen:

South Korea’s prosecution said Saturday it will sternly deal with those who staged violent protests against a plan to expand a U.S. military base south of Seoul.

About 540 demonstrators were arrested Thursday after they clashed with riot police and soldiers who evicted them from their headquarters, an elementary school in Pyeongtaek, about 70 kilometers south of Seoul. Hundreds on both sides were injured.

The prosecution requested a court issue warrants to officially arrest 37 of those suspected of taking part in violent protests, said Lee Kwi-nam, head of the prosecution’s public security bureau.

If the South Korean authorities want to discourage the protesters then they need to give them all heavy fines and imprison the ring leaders.  The priest, if you can really call him that, leading these protests is still running around causing trouble.  He is the one that needs to be in jail.  However, enforcing laws is not a strong point of Korean society, especially when it comes to violently attacking 20 year old draftee policemen with metal pipes and bamboo poles like these idiot protesters have been doing.

UPDATE #3: So much for the Gwangju comparisons, the battle is over and the frontlines have been secured. Here is a tally of the final casualties:

About 1,100 protesters and farmers were evicted yesterday morning from the site of a planned U.S. Army base. In a 10-hour operation, riot police with batons, shields and water cannon overran a school where the protesters made a stand. With the area cleared, military engineers moved in to build a concertina wire-topped fence around the area. About 210 people, 117 policemen and 93 protesters, were reportedly injured in the assault. Six policemen and seven protesters were said to have been seriously hurt.
Police made more than 500 arrests.
About 13,000 riot police and 2,800 soldiers were involved.

Of course the human rights commission is on their way:

Defense Minister Yoon Kwang-ung said in a statement, “The actions by some activists to use the people of the area as pawns in a political battle against a national project is detrimental both to the citizens living in the area and the national interest.” Meanwhile, the National Human Rights Commission dispatched 13 investigators to the scene to ascertain no human rights violations occurred in the day¿s conflict.

I’m sue we will be subjected to human rights complaints for the next few days from these guys complaining about the protesters getting the crap beaten out of them while completing ignoring the fact these protesters were beating the police with their pipes and bamboo poles not to mention the fact that more police were injured in the battle than protesters.

So far it looks like the anti-US hate groups have been dealt a crushing blow as they right now appear to not be garnering any public sympathy for their cause. It appears that their violent tactics and childish ranting has worn thin with an indifferent Korean public. However, I’m sure they will be back using some other tactics, possibly complaining of “environmental damage” on the annexed land by the Defense Ministry. I can assure you that this is not over yet.

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UPDATE #2: Here is an Oh My News report with lot’s of pictures from the front lines.

Here is a picture from the school in Daechu-ri, that is a lot of riot police:

Here is a picture of the wire that is being put up around the area being annexed for the Camp Humphreys expansion. For those not in the military this is military concertina wire that is actually very effective for securing perimeters but you have to leave patrols to ensure that no one will put boards over it or digs underneath it.

The Oh My News coverage basically centered around the police beating up the protesters with pictures like these:

Before you start feeling sorry for these union pro-North Korean / anti-US thugs, remember images like the one below. Peaceful protesters don’t weild pipes and bamboo poles at the police. The police after beating the crap out of these guys should have arrested them as well.

So far it looks like the Ministry of Defense is winning this climatic battle and will just need to continue to hold the perimeter from these thugs. I will provide updates as they come out.

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UPDATE #1: The rumble is on at Camp Humphreys:

Thousands of police Thursday scuffled with hundreds of farmers, civic activists and anti-U.S. students in an area designated for expanded U.S. military facilities. There have been no immediate reports of

casualties, according to police.
The Defense Ministry sent some 3,000 troops, including 600 military engineers, and about 700 civilian security personnel and heavy equipment to build a barbed wire fence around the area. Engineers started setting up the wire fence at around 7:30 a.m.

No reports of casualties? This sounds like front line war report. Than again the Daechu-ri Elementary School might as well be a war zone:

Police armed with batons and shields were engaged in fierce fighting with stone-throwing labor activists and some residents wielding long sticks near Daechuri Elementary School, a makeshift headquarters for the remaining occupants and civic activists.

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It looks like the final showdown between the anti-US hate groups and the Korean government is about to take place to decide the fate of the Camp Humphreys expansion and the future of the US-ROK alliance:

The Defense Ministry and the police have agreed to put up barbed wire fences around the site for a planned new U.S. Forces Korea headquarters to keep protestors from occupying an elementary school and working the fields there. The government plans to mobilize a huge force of some 14,000 troops to evict the resistance on Thursday, raising fears of violent clashes with residents, activists and members of the Korea Confederation of Trade Unions camped out at the Daechu-ri Elementary School in Pyeongtaek, Gyeonggi Province.

What the heck does the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions have to do with a base expansion other than their hatred for anything involving the US?:

On Tuesday, when it became clear that clashes would be inevitable, the secretary-general of the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions announced, ¿Workers in South and North Korea came together and resolved to stage an anti-American campaign on Labor Day¿ at Daechu-ri Elementary School, the impromptu headquarters of activists there. ¿It is the U.S. that drives this peaceful land to war and squeezes the public of its blood and sweat,¿ he said. ¿Daechu-ri in Pyeongtaek has its place in our fight against the U.S.¿

It is going to be interesting to see if the Korean government has enough nerve to actually enforce law and order in Daechu-ri and arrest the outsiders like the KFTU thugs that are continually causing problems in Korea.

How does doing this help Korea’s claim to the Dokdo Islands?:

An anti-Japan protester, Yang Bong-ho, stabs himself in the stomach with a kinfe to commite suicide demanding Japan abandon a plan to conduct a maritime survey near disputed islets, at a park in Seoul, Wednesday, April 19, 2006. Yang’s condition was unknown after being taken to hospital.

Actions like this only help Japan’s agenda of showing that Korea is an irrational society thus in turn aiding their claims to the Dokdo isles in regards to global public opinion, with the few people that actually give a crap about anything that has to do with Dokdo.

Using a tried and true technique to avoid responsibility for their own criminal activity, the Korean rioters from the Hong Kong WTO riots are now accusing the Hong Kong authorities of police brutality:

Kong have claimed police there fired rubber bullets in the attempt to quell the demonstration. Hong Kong police arrested hundreds of Koreans for staging illegal protests during the WTO Ministerial Meeting there last week. Most have

(…)

Democratic Labor Party lawmaker Kang Ki-kap said Wednesday one of the arrested, Kang Seung-kyu, told him he was hit in the thigh by a round black rubber projectile measuring 4 cm across.

Two other Korean protesters were shot by rubber bullets but kept this quiet for fear of being thought of as hooligans, the opposition lawmaker said.

The Korean Consul-General in Hong Kong Cho Hwan-bok said police there told him they only used tear gas to quell the protests and had no orders to fire rubber bullets, but they promised to check whether rubber bullets were nonetheless used. Hong Kong police is to fire rubber bullets only when protests turn into riots.

I would say assaulting policemen with metal pipes, attacking the US Consulate, and setting cars on fire is enough to be considered a riot. I know in South Korea that is considered a peaceful protest, but in the rest of the world that is considered a riot. They ought to feel lucky that the Chinese authorities didn’t go Tianamen on them and use real bullets.

The Hong Kong authorities have finally decided they have had enough of the Korean protesters disrupting the WTO summit in Hong Kong. Is it any wonder that the Hong Kong police arrested them when they committed actions like this:

Altogether 1,400 South Korean activists took part in the protests against the opening of agricultural markets near Hong Kong’s Wan Chai that turned violent when protesters attempted to overturn police vehicles at around 5:30 p.m. Half an hour later, protesters armed with iron pipes wrested from police barricades faced off with police near the Hong Kong Convention Center, where the WTO meet was held. Seventeen policemen and 67 protesters were injured in the clashes.

Where did they get the iron pipes? Was that part of their carry on luggage? Anyway, destroying property and injuring policemen may be okay in Korea, but Hong Kong has taken a stand against it:

Some 600 Korean farmers and trade union activists were arrested on Sunday after all-night violent protests in Hong Kong during the WTO Ministerial Meeting there. Hong Kong police used tear gas for the first time since anti-British riots in 1967, and used armored vehicles to stop the rioters. It was the first mass arrest of Koreans abroad.

I say good for Hong Kong and hope these protesters meet Chinese justice. However, the Korean Foreign Ministry is trying to get these protesters off the hook:

Seoul’s Foreign Ministry said it began contacting the Hong Kong authorities to seek a “smooth” settlement of the case.

“It is very regrettable for the rallies to turn violent and that many were arrested. There are concerns (South Korea’s) image will be tainted worldwide, including in Hong Kong,” a ministry official said, requesting anonymity.

The ministry plans to ask Hong Kong not to refer the detained Korean protesters to a court, he said.

It appears that the Hong Kong police have different ideas:

Hong Kong police officials said they would prosecute the Korean protesters according to Hong Kong’s ordinance. The law hands out prison terms of up to five years to those engaged in unauthorized demonstrations and up to 14 years to those who damage facilities during protests.

I say give them jail time and those responsible for injuring policemen and destroying property should get even more jail time. Just deporting them back to Korea will not stop this activity from happening again. It will only encourage it. Just look at the property damage and serious injuries protesters within South Korea continue to cause.

South Korean farmers have rioted today in Hong Kong in response to the WTO meeting there. The farmers are rioting because of the WTO attempt to open the South Korean rice market:

Many South Korean farmers are desperate to have their view against globalization and imports heard at the WTO.

They are opposed lower trade barriers for agricultural imports, which they claim would flood the South Korean market with cheap rice and force many of the country’s farmers out of business. It is a view shared by many anti-globalization groups in other countries.

South Korean demonstrators in Hong Kong attempted to break through a barrier marking the designated protest zone, CNN Senior Asia Correspondent Mike Chinoy reported.

When they failed, the group of about 1,000 to 1,500 split into smaller groups of about a dozen and spread out over several square blocks in a cat-and-mouse game with police, then reassembled closer to the exhibition center where talks are being held and began to push forward.

Police holding riot shields and wearing gas masks tried pepper spray and fire hoses to keep the demonstrators back, then fired tear-gas canisters — a nearly unheard-of tactic in normally civilized Hong Kong.

These tactics should be very familiar for people who follow events in Korea. However, according Hong Kong based blog Simon World that has been providing great coverage of the WTO protests these tactics are being criticized by other peaceful protesters in Hong Kong:

Protesters are complaining of being upstaged by South Korean demonstrators, a leading international activist says. Protesters who had not taken part in demonstrations with the Koreans had complained of “grandstanding” to the detriment of other causes, she said.

I am all for freedom of speech and the right to protest, but I strongly believe that protesters do not have the right to harm policemen or destroy property. This tactic is commonly used here in Korea and now is being exported to Hong Kong.

I have to question why Hong Kong authorities do not arrest the South Korean protesters? Here is a hint when a South Korean shows up at the airport with his red bandanna and flags I would assume he is not on a business trip. At least I haven’t seen any bamboo poles yet.

Just for the record I actually support the rice farmers but not their tactics. IMHO I think that every WTO country should be able to protect two industries vital to national security which for South Korea the rice industry would be one.

That’s right she is back, Nomad’s favorite, Christina Cho. Only this time she decided to take her show to Tokyo instead of Seoul:

Bikini-clad animal rights activists stand in front of a Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) restaurant in Tokyo on Thursday to protest against the treatment of chickens.

Activists protested against KFC suppliers’ “abusive treatment of chickens in factory farms and slaughterhouses”.

For those of you that just can’t get enough of Christina Cho she even has her own website, where you can buy her latest CD. That is right folks are PETA fanatic is also a wannabe diva. Nothing like a little publicity to sell some CD’s. I wonder if Nomad is getting his reserved right now?

 This is how 9/11 is remembered in South Korea:

Useful Idiots out in force in Inchon protesting the MacArthur Statue.

Riot police playing king of the hill by holding the high ground against the hate group protesters wielding bamboo poles trying to tear down the MacArthur Statue.

This is the scene from yesterday’s anti-American hate fest in Inchon. Notice that the hate groups are using the same tactics they used in Pyongtaek, a frontal assault with bamboo poles and metal pipes. This is what the Chosun Ilbo had to say about the protest:

Dozens were injured when groups calling for the removal of a statue of U.S. general Douglas MacArthur clashed with police in Incheon’s Freedom Park on Sunday. The clashes came four days ahead of the 55th anniversary of the Incheon Landing of UN forces led by MacArthur that marked a turning point in the Korean War.

Some 4,000 members of progressive groups who had gathered in Sungeui Stadium in Incheon’s Nam-gu started marching on the park at 1 p.m. to demand the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Korea and the removal of the monument to the U.S. general from Freedom Park.

Here is my first point of contention with the Chosun article; they try to make it out that this protest was held on Sunday because the 15th is the 55th anniversary of the Inchon Landing. This is incorrect. The hate groups specifically held it on the anniversary of 9/11 to rub it in the USA’s face the terrorist attack that killed 3,000 Americans. My second point of contention is that the newspaper dignifies these people by calling them a “progressive group”. They are a hate group. If you exchanged the words they say about Americans to Koreans the media would have no qualms calling them a racist hate group. If tomorrow I had a protest demanding that every statue in tribute to Koreans in America should be torn down, my group would be labeled a hate group. These people are no different. Call them what they are, they hate Americans.

Here is another example of how out of hand this is getting. Some of you may remember this picture from July’s hate fest at Camp Humphreys:

At the Inchon protest, children were once again subject to violence:

Here is a quote I had to chuckle at when I read it:

The park resembled a battlefield littered with branches, dirt, eggs, torn-up paper and the blood of the wounded. Police had deployed no fewer than 38 companies of riot police — about 3,800 men — and 78 transport vehicles, but they were unable to stop the violence and earned complaints from protesters for hurling stones.

The protesters are complaining that the riot police threw stones at them when they are attacking the police with bamboo poles, metal pipes, and rocks? I guess they are just supposed to stand there and take a beating from these idiots.

Is this Inchon or New Orleans?

Overall though, this protest was unsuccessful in creating the huge anti-American movement they hoped to create. In fact now more pro-American Koreans are mobilizing against the hate groups:

From the Chosun:

Earlier, some 1,000 members of conservative groups rallied at Inseong Girls High School near the Park to defend the statue of a man they see as a hero of the Korean War. At 4 p.m., they too entered Freedom Park with the intent of burning North Korean flags, throwing stones and eggs, and stopping the progressive groups from entering the park, but were stopped by police.

From the Joong Ang Ilbo:

On Thursday, more than 10,000 conservative activists including former marines will gather for a rally to protect the statue. “After the rally, we will take a turn to guard the statue on our own,” a representative of the Marine Corps Veterans Association said.

In the coming days we will see what the pro-American groups do in response to the hate groups. However, the true show down will be in Pyongtaek when the land is forcibly removed from the last few farmers still holding out and preventing the USFK from relocating soldiers there from Yongsan and the DMZ areas. This was just another warm up for the upcoming hate fest Super Bowl coming up this winter. And finally I will pose the question of why these people of continually beat, assault, and injure Korean policemen are not in jail?
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Here is the first South Korean press report on today’s anti-American hate fest at Freedom Park in Inchon were hate groups vowed to tear down a symbol of Inchon the General MacArthur statue:

(ATTN: UPDATES with reports of injuries in clashes)
INCHEON, Sept. 11 (Yonhap) — Hundreds of anti-U.S. protesters clashed with riot police Sunday as they marched tried to march onto a public park in South Korea’s western port city of Incheon where a statue of U.S. Gen. Douglas MacArthur stands.

The protesters were part of 4,000 leftist activists who staged street demonstrations earlier in the day, demanding the removal of the statue which they argued hinders inter-Korean reconciliation and unification.

They think MacArthur’s statue hinders reunification? There idiot policy of providing nearly unmonitored food aid to North Korea that goes directly to the North Korean military has done more to hinder reunification than MacArthur’s statue. I guess they think if a Kim Il Sung statue sat there instead reunification will come quicker.

There are reports of injuries. Hopefully the injuries are not of the riot police that have to continuously put up with the violence from these hate groups. I’m sure there will be more updates on this in the morning.

South Korean students have begun their annual summer time protests outside Yongsan garrison.

Thousands of South Korean students rallying Sunday against the U.S. military’s five-decade presence clashed with police after trying to enter the American base, and at least 12 people were injured and more than 20 were arrested.

Demonstrators marched through Seoul before attempting to enter the main Yongsan U.S. military base in the city center. They called for the withdrawal of the 32,500 U.S. troops stationed in South Korea, a legacy of the 1950-53 Korean War.

What the article failed to report was that the protestors were from the Hanchongryun student group that is backed and financed by North Korea. The group used to be illegal under South Korea’s National Security Law but since President Roh Moo Hyun took office he has allowed the outlawed group free reign to conduct their criminal activities. In fact their leader Ms. Song Hyo Won last week traveled to North Korea fully approved by the South Korean government no doubt to get her marching orders from the Norks before this weekend’s protests.

Hanchonghyun Leader Song Hyo Won.

Here is an excerpt from an interview with the Hanchongryun spokesman that will give you a good indication of their ideology and thinking.

Dae Sik Yoo, the student body president of Kyung Hee University, is on the lam. Since police can arrest him anywhere but here—they’re not allowed on university grounds—Yoo never leaves campus for more than 12 hours. For a wanted man, he looks wholesome, with wire-rimmed glasses, baseball cap, and khaki pants. He could pass for a preppie American student. But when asked about the political opinions that got him into trouble, he sounds more like a North Korean Communist affiliate than a college student in a U.S.-allied country.

“Kim Jong Il is an outstanding leader,” says Yoo. “No other country can stand up to the U.S. Only North Korea can.”

Yoo landed on the wanted list for his role as spokesperson for the Hanchongryun, a left-wing student organization notorious for its pro-North Korean views. Hanchongryun spearheaded demonstrations and sit-ins for 11 years, pushing for reunification of the North and South—but on Korean terms and without any U.S. interference.

(…)

“Kim is just another leader and not a despot or a dictator,” he says. “If he really is a dictator, the North Koreans wouldn’t have tolerated that and overthrown him. They’re not that brainwashed. They must see something in the system that’s right.”

By saying the North Koreans are “not that brainwashed” he is admitting that at least some brainwashing is going on. What he doesn’t understand is that the North Korean people cannot see anything wrong in the system because if they did they would be sent to the gulag or shot. If the system is so great then why are defectors trying to jump the fences of every embassy in China. This is how Hanchongryun explains these facts:

North Korea’s violent crackdowns at home counted for little here. “The U.S. has been giving false propaganda about the North,” said one Catholic university student. “There is no proof that the North commits human rights violations. I think the U.S. is misbroadcasting information about North Korea killing its own people.”

That’s right folks the gulags and famine are all US propaganda though evidence of these gulags come from the governments of other countries plus from the mouths of North Korean defectors themselves. The American CIA must of brainwashed all of these people to speak badly of the Dear Leader. It only gets better:

He is careful to emphasize that he’s not a radical and prefers to stay out of student protests. Still, he feels little reason to be threatened by Kim Jong Il’s regime: “Maybe it is dangerous for North Korea to have nuclear arms. I think, though, when reunification happens, their nukes will be our nukes and give us a higher international standing.”

Their nukes will be your nukes when they land on Seoul. Plus if he is so eager to see Korea possess nuclear weapons, South Korea is more than capable right now of manufacturing nuclear weapons. The government chooses not to due to treaty obligations. Now what about human rights in North Korea? Hanchongryun could care little about that:

Activists who try to denounce Kim Jong Il for human rights violations complain that South Korean government officials have sabotaged their efforts. Human rights activist Norbert Vollertsen, a German, once spent 18 months in Pyongyang working for Doctors Without Borders and witnessed the devastating effects the famine and gulags have had on North Korean citizens. Now residing in South Korea, he complains that he is followed and harassed and says surveillance is so strict, he feels like he is in Pyongyang again.

“The youth are quite interested in human rights issues in Iraq, racism in America. They’re eager to do something and make changes. But when it comes to North Korea, they are so ignorant and uninformed of human rights violations,” Vollertsen says. “When I do college tours, it’s quite shocking because first of all they don’t want to believe my stories. When I showed them pictures of children starving, they thought the pictures were from Dachau or Auschwitz. They didn’t want to believe it was in North Korea. They kept challenging me and saying, ‘Are you sure they’re starving and dying? Are you sure you’re a doctor?’ “

I’m sure Hanchongryun members comfort each other by saying Vollertsen is a CIA agent or something to that effect because famine cannot possibly have happened in the Worker’s Paradise.

Experts and activists, like Vollertsen, claim North Korean agents steer groups such as Hanchongryun, newsrooms, even Roh’s administration. But Yoo denies that Hanchongryun has official ties to North Korea, and is quick to defend the country. “Everywhere in the world, there are prisons. North Korea is nothing special,” Yoo says, with a sigh. “But if there are human rights problems, then Hanchongryun will help them.”

I really don’t mind people protesting against the US military because it is their right to do so but they shouldn’t be allowed to beat the heck out the riot police like they do. The young mandatory service draftees that make up the riot police get the crap beaten out of them every time there is a major protest. I can’t believe how these people get away with assaulting police officers.

What bothers me the most about these protestors is that the media will not tell you who they are. You read the news and the reports tell you students protested against the US military. Why doesn’t the media say Hanchongnyun protestors instead of student protestors? Well, that would mean admitting to who you are and from what you have read above, who they are is nothing to be proud of.