‘The historic vote on Jeju will be celebrated in a press conference at 6:30 PM on December 17 at Berkeley Old City Hall steps, 2134 MLK Jr. Way, Berkeley 94704
Hope you can attend the event! Phoebe Sorgen hopes you can stay and push for passage of Fukushima resolution as well.’
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE DECEMBER 11
Berkeley joins Steinem stone in seeking Justice 4 Jeju.
Berkeley made history by becoming the first City in a growing international movement of environmentalists and peace activists to stand up for villagers on Jeju Island in their long struggle to oppose a massive naval base being built on the beautiful island.
Gloria Steinem emailed the Berkeley City Council: “…There are some actions for which those of us alive today will be judged in centuries to come. The only question will be: What did we know and when did we know it? I think one judgment-worthy action may be what you and I do about the militarization of Jeju Island, South Korea, in service of the arms race.”
Jeju Island is UNESCO’s only triple honoree: a Global Geological Park, a Biosphere Reserve, and a World Heritage Site. This environmental jewel was designated an “Absolute Conservation Area” by the Korean Government, was proclaimed an “Island of Peace”, and voted one of the “New Seven Wonders of the World.”
Affected local villagers have engaged in seven years of principled non-violent struggle, facing endless beatings, arrests, fines, and imprisonment. Most recently, Sister Stella Soh, the first Catholic Nun in Korean history to be arrested for an act of conscience, was arraigned in a Korean court.
Stephanie Miyashira, an activist in a wheel chair, broke down in tears as she implored the council to support the cause of peace. She agreed with Oliver Stone, who stated : “I deplore the militarization of Jeju Island. I deplore the building of the base. This is leading up to a war, and we cannot have another war here. We have to stop this thing.”
Christine Ahn, a scholar at the Korea Policy Institute, wrote in a heartfelt and moving letter to Berkeley City Council that she had named her daughter Jeju because of her passion for the cause of the peace activists on the island.
Berkeley’s Resolution calls on the US Military “to cease supporting the base which will gravely harm the fragile ecology, damage the livelihood of the people of Jeju, and make this Island of Peace a pawn of the great powers and a magnet for military conflict.”
This great news was recently shared by our devoted peace activists friends in the United States. We so thank to peace-loving citizens in the United States who greatly contributed to passing this resolution. Below you can find a write up of the events surrounding the passing of the resolution. You can also see the whole account and resolution together here. You can find the officially signed City Council resolution at the bottom of this post.
Berkeley City Council passes Strong Resolution support South Koreans Resisting Navy Base on Jeju Island
On Jeju Island, an environmental jewel sixty miles south of the Korean Peninsula, a massive naval base is being built to house US warships, submarines and aircraft carriers, serving as a key forward base for the “US Pacific Pivot”, and turning the region into a hair trigger for global confrontation. Seven years of principled non-violent struggle by the affected villagers have resulted mostly in endless beatings, arrests, fines, imprisonment; a growing international solidarity movement; but little tangible in the way of political support from any national or local government.
On December 3rd, 2013, the City Council of Berkeley, voted to support the Peace and Justice Commission’s Resolution in support of the residents of Jeju Island and to End US support for construction of the Jeju Naval Base. This makes it the first city in the world to formally declare its support of the Jeju Islanders and its opposition to the base.
Despite being stripped out of the consent calendar and placed almost at the bottom of the council agenda–usually procedural maneuvers designed to kill or impede passage–the resolution ultimately passed (with 5 votes in favor and 4 abstentions) in the Berkeley City Council. Council member Kriss Worthington, who had sponsored and fast-tracked the resolution, tabled the two items preceding the resolution, allowing it to be put to discussion and a vote, minutes before the clock ran out.
Huge popular support, an unusually vibrant and vocal group of speakers who stayed late into the night–waiting for over 4 hours for the opportunity to address the council for a single brief minute–and a massive flurry of emails from concerned individuals all over the country may have influenced the final vote.
Motivated activists from Starr King School, Pacific Lutheran Seminary, from the Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarian Universalists, the Peace and Justice Commission, the Ecumenical Peace Institute, and others made passionate, informed pleas for support of the resolution. An activist in a wheel chair broke down in tears as she implored the council to support the cause of peace.
Also significant was a letter from Christine Ahn, a scholar at the Korea Policy Institute and peace activist, who wrote in a heartfelt and moving letter that she had named her daughter Jeju because of her passion for the cause of the peace activists on the island.
An earlier version of the resolution had previously been shot down in February by the Council. Even as it was drafted by the commission, Thyme Siegel of the Peace and Justice Commission had stated, with a straight face, “It is not our business to tell the South Korean government and military how to defend itself against North Korea and China.”—a howler of ignorance or disingenuousness, refuted by the history of constant, unwanted, and heavy-handed US intervention and influence in the country since its inception, including the original massacre of 30,000-80,000 civilians on Jeju Island; and the continuous history of threat, provocation, and escalation in the area.
Council Member Linda Maio attempted to water down the resolution by stripping out references to the Pacific Pivot (despite corroborating statements from the Secretary of State and Defense); references to toxic dumping in bases in the Phillipines, and rapes and violence in Okinawa, (as well as missile tests in the Marshall Islands and drone bases in Australia). In particular, Council Member Maio stated, “Condemning the U.S Military for rapes–I can’t put it in there”, apparently oblivious to the fact that 22,000 rapes and sexual assaults occur within the military annually, a number that itself pales in comparison with the abuse that is dealt out to the general population by an occupying military immunized from local prosecution by Status of Forces Agreements.
She also removed information regarding the hardware being deployed (the US Navy’s Aegis Combat System).
Council Member Max Anderson, a war veteran, however, put paid to her statement, stated that he had been in Okinawa as a marine, and had witnessed first hand the abuses, the rapes, the violence, and ugliness of the military occupation.
Council Member Gordon Wozniak mentioned the recent escalation of hostilities in the pacific with Air Defense Zones, stating that “it was not just about Korea, that it was Japan, China”, and that the supporters of the resolution were “missing the point” [in focusing on Korea]. He did not seem understand that he had just proven the argument of the supporters, that the Jeju base was part of the general escalation of hostilities and projection of force in the pacific, and that its presence would exacerbate regional conflict.
Ultimately, what may have swung the vote may have been a missive from Gloria Steinem, legendary feminist icon and supporter of Jeju, addressing the city council:
“As you cast your votes about Jeju’s future, I hope you will consider the attached”, referring to her article in the New York times where she had written, “There are some actions for which those of us alive today will be judged in centuries to come. The only question will be: What did we know and when did we know it? I think one judgment-worthy action may be what you and I do about the militarization of Jeju Island, South Korea, in service of the arms race.”
Recommendation: Adopt a Resolution urging the United States to cease its support for the construction of Jeju Naval Base in South Korea to preserve the island’s fragile biodiversity and honor the island’s past history of bloodshed. Copies of the resolution to be sent to Congresswoman Barbara Lee and Senator Dianne Feinstein and Senator Barbara Boxer, President Barack Obama, Secretary of State John Kerry, and U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, and Republic of Korea President Park Geun-hye.
Financial Implications: None
Contact: Kriss Worthington, Councilmember, District 7, 981-7170
Action: 12 speakers. M/S/C (Worthington/Arreguin) to adopt Resolution No. 66,405 –N.S. amended to delete the fifth and seventh Whereas clauses.
Fwd by Pamela K Brubaker, Professor Emerita of Religion, California Lutheran University
To see the PFPL statement, ‘In Solidarity with Gangjeong Villagers Say No to the Jeju Naval Base!’ go to HERE.
Photo by Jo Yak Gol, Oct. 27, 2013
Affirming Life Together in the Face of Belligerent Empire
We the participants of the 3rdPeoples Forum of Peace for Life gathered at the April 3rd Peace Park in Jeju Special Self-Governing Province in the Republic of Korea from 23rd to 27th of October 2013. We had a women-led solidarity mission to Jeju and to Gangjeong Village, and shared common experiences of threats to life in our respective societies and throughout the world. Inspired by our faith traditions’ shared affirmation of life, we issue this call to solidarity and action.
In Solidarity with Gangjeong Villagers and Say No! to Jeju Naval Base
We note with concern that the government of the Republic of Korea has enforced a naval base construction in Gangjeong village, Jeju Island since 2007, without proper consultation with villagers and consideration of villagers’ right to environment, land and peace. We are distressed to witness how a large-scale development profiting big corporations can destroy peace in a village under the name of protecting national security. For seven years the people of Gangjeong village have resisted the base construction and suffered unjustly from abuse by authorities in response to their non-violent campaign against the construction of a naval base which will militarise the sea of East Asia. We witnessed the strong resistance of the historic tradition of Jeju women lived out in the Gangjeong village struggle against the base construction. They have been accompanied by activist groups from around the world. The Catholic Church, in particular, has been a presence for the last two years, offering mass every day to draw attention to this travesty.
We, the participants of the 3rd People’s Forum, stand in solidarity with the people of Gangjeong village in their peaceful struggle against maritime militarisation. Jeju people have a full right to resist the repeat of the last century’s tragedy, the April 3rd massacre in 1948 of tens of thousands of Jeju islanders. The people of Gangjeong village present a strong call to open a new era of peace and cooperation in East Asia for themselves and for all of us.
The Not-so-Innocent Language of Empire: Toward a Counter-Narrative
The emerging US national security state is a symptom of an increasingly desperate empire seeking to maintain its hegemony, harming the living conditions of many of its own and other peoples while repressing dissent at home and in politically “hot” regions. The imperial system wages war on the people of the world. It is defined by the nexus of the national security state and predatory corporate capitalism.
Beginning with the end of the Second World War, the US led imperial model has been imposed in several parts of the world, in Central and Latin America, the Middle East, Southeast Asia, and Africa. Key instruments of the imperial system are militarization and coups, capture of international financial and trade institutions, neoliberal market economy, and socio-cultural controls of media, communication, and education.
The Empire employs deceptive language and consciousness to legitimize its ambitions. In the solidarity mission to Jeju, we noted the ruthlessness of the innocent-sounding “US pivot to Asia.” Instead of increasing friendly relations with Asia, it involves the new geo-political imperatives of Empire regarding China and the American presence in this economically dynamic region.
Nuclear weapons and nuclear power are two dimensions of one reality, which the nuclear military industrial complex promotes and benefits from. There is no peaceful use of nuclear power (“Atoms for Peace”), as the disaster at Fukushima shows. Forced evacuation of 150,000 people continues, highly radioactive contaminated water has not been brought under control, and efforts to restart nuclear power plants are underway, as well as export of such plants.
The Empire claims to “fight terror”, “protect national security,” and “advance democracy and human and women’s rights.” These discourses of “Western” values advance imperial dominance. Activism for justice and peace is branded as “terrorism”, and Muslims resisting colonization and wars in their lands are termed terrorists. The imperial promotion of human and women’s rights has the opposite effect of what is proclaimed.
We need to expose the moral and political-intellectual bankruptcy of these imperial claims, and advance a counter-understanding of the threats to the lives of both the human- and non-human living world, as well as the life of the planet. We must offer alternative approaches in order to live justly, sustainably, and peacefully in this world.
Toward an Interfaith Praxis of Resistance to Empire
We are at a time when a global, powerful, and meaningful phenomenon like religion can no longer ignore the multiple crises surrounding it and catastrophically affecting its adherents. In particular, the “war on terror” has harmed Muslim-Christian relations in Africa, Asia and the Middle East. One of the most effective legitimating factors for the violence of the powerful in the world today is religion in general, and especially some powerful institutional actors located within the various religious traditions.
This trend needs to change and there are increasing voices which are calling on their religious leaders and communities to rekindle the real liberating spirit and ethos of their religious traditions. This is a time when all of the great, lively religious and spiritual traditions that provide fundamental values of justice, sustainability, and peace are under pressure to be co-opted by the powerful to support ongoing injustice and inequality in the world.
We meet here to affirm that these traditions must have no tolerance for the widespread, unfolding genocide taking place against the world’s peoples, and the concomitant ecocide of our home, planet Earth. The peoples of the world are suffering layer upon layer of injustice and brutality, and our religious and spiritual communities can no longer maintain their silence or just pay lip service to justice and peace. These communities must continue their prophetic and authentic missions of forcefully challenging the empire and its powerful allies, institutions, and policies and practices – in cooperation with like-minded social movements and peoples movements. We call upon our religious and spiritual communities to commit their leadership, constituencies, and resources to mobilize against these trends of domination, subordination, and destruction of peace-loving peoples, societies, and our ecosphere.
Our Common Call
We continue to be inspired by the heroic resistance waged by social movements in Latin America, the Philippines, India and many other places against neoliberalism and US hegemony, and call for meaningful support for and solidarity with these progressive forces.
Inspired by the long history of ecumenical witness for improved North-South Korean relations, particularly between the two Christian communities, we offer our solidarity to a reinvigorated process of dialogue and exchange with a view to generating a political environment conducive for reunification, beginning withrenewed engagement between the two sides to turn the Armistice into a peace treaty.
We urge resistance to financial instruments and trade agreements, such as the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which undermine our commitment to place people and the environment before profit.
We strongly condemn the corporate violence leashed out in Odisha, India, on the struggling communities and the environment by the POSCO company hand-in-glove with the Indian government. We demand the immediate release of people who are arrested and accused on fabricated cases. We demand the withdrawal of POSCO so that the communities can live in peace with nature. We ask the people of Gangjeong village in Jeju and other citizens of Republic of Korea to be in solidarity with the people in Odisha, India.
We call on people of faith and conscience to continue their support of the Arab people’s resistance against tyranny and occupation, and to oppose the regional and global counter-revolutionary political actors denying their aspirations for human dignity and social justice. We especially reaffirm the need for steadfast support for Palestinian national liberation and maintain our commitment to our Palestine solidarity work.
We call on the faith communities to actively combat the rising tide of Islamophobia, which facilitates greater imperial violence against Muslims.
We strongly denounce the growing network of the U.S. military power both through building bases and expanding access through Visiting Forces and Status of Forces Agreements throughout the world, including here in the Republic of Korea, and the accompanying patriarchal and sexual violence, exploitation, and suffering inflicted on women. We are inspired by and give our unconditional solidarity to the heroic resistance waged by women against such barbarism.
We deplore the state and private financing of bloated military budgets and the arms trade, and call for significant reduction in military expenditures and an end to the arms trade, so that these funds may be invested in life affirming programs.
We call on religious communities and peoples committed to peace to condemn the introduction and use of drone warfare, and demand an end to their use.
We affirm movements against nuclear power plants in Japan, India, and many other countries, and support their efforts to hold accountable governments and corporations for harm they have caused.
We call on the peoples of the nuclear armed states and those states protected by them to join with the 124 nations resolving to never use nuclear weapons.
We strongly encourage equitable negotiations between the US and Iran with a view to additional subsequent agreement on the imperative of establishing a Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone in the Middle East. We affirm that establishing similar zones in South Asia and Northeast Asia is also urgent.
We remain committed to our critique of global injustices and global hegemony, although this in itself does not offer an alternative to the prevailing world order. Alternative structures, institutions, laws and policies must be premised upon an all-embracing alternative consciousness which privileges attitudes and values that the Empire has hitherto ignored or downplayed. Love, for instance, should be foregrounded as a defining attribute of the individual and collective consciousness of the human family. When love begins to shape our behaviour and action in a profound manner, it will have a huge impact upon all spheres of society including economics and politics. For love has the potential to demolish ego-centric attitudes that boost the insane drive for power and wealth that often leads to hegemony.
Adopted 27 October 2013
Jeju April 3 Peace Park, Republic of Korea
An Indian activist presents on the ‘corporate violence leashed out in Odisha, India, on the struggling communities and the environment by the POSCO company hand-in-glove with the Indian government. You can see a video presented by him, here. To be co-incident, POSCO is another main company for the Jeju naval base construction. See here. For the two presented videos on people’s struggle opposing the POSCO, see here and here.
The below is a re-blogging from here and here. The statement includes a content on Gangjeong.
To see the report from High North Space Conference, see here.
To see ROK’s involvement on the Arctic development, see here.
For more details on the Kiruna conference, see here.
PROTECTING THE HIGH NORTH, DEMILITARISING OUTER SPACE AND REMOVING THE THREAT OF NUCLEAR ANNIHILATION
The International Conference on the High North and International Security was held in the city of Kiruna, Sweden, on 28-30th June 2013. Representatives from a wide spectrum of civil societies and public movements from a number of Scandinavian, European, Asian and Latin American countries, Russia and the United States of America attended and agreed the following:
Conference members recognize:
that we are facing major threats to our survival through the continued pretence that security can be obtained through aggressive foreign policies and military action;
that the ultimate consequences of these policies is the continued development and threatened use of nuclear weapons and the exploitation and militarization of environments that should be protected for the benefit of all humankind – such as the Arctic and outer space;
that the High North is being used by an expanding NATO as a military practice ground in which to rehearse future war fighting strategies and to test and develop new killing technologies;
that the US has established a satellite ground station in the Svalbard islands in Norway which is used by the military and therefore violates the Svalbard or Spitzbergen Treaty that requires that the archipelago is not used for military purposes;
the rapidly increasing deployment of space based military systems and the global network of ground based stations (including radars, downlink and surveillance facilities) that support and supplement them;
that the uncontrolled and irresponsible use of outer space has resulted in that environment being littered with debris that could eventually render it impenetrable;
the destabilizing effects that the deployment of space based, ground based and sea based missile defense systems have on undermining international stability and that they are risking the possibility of reaching further agreements on nuclear disarmament;
that all states who have signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty should honour its Article VI and “pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament, and on a Treaty on general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control”;
the negative consequences stemming from the stationing of US tactical nuclear weapons in a number of European nations;
that US President Obama’s focus on his “pivot to Asia”, the sending of missiles and warships to the region and the encouragement of the construction of support bases in the region (such as the one threatening the lives of the Gangjeong villagers on Jeju Island, South Korea), is aimed at containing China and is increasing international tension.
We therefore call on all governments, political parties, members of civil societies and public movements all over the world to share these concerns and urgently request them to call upon:
the leaders of the Permanent members of the United Nations Security Council to arrange an urgent meeting on the revival of stalled arms control processes and to embrace all key areas, including nuclear weapons, missile defense and conventional weapons stationed on the ground, at sea, in the air and in outer space;
the members of the United Nations to firmly work towards the adoption of a Nuclear Weapons Convention, leading to nuclear disarmament, and we call upon the nuclear weapon states not to obstruct the discussion of the Nuclear Weapons Convention in the General Assembly of the UN;
all nations possessing or about to possess missile defense components should recognize their destabilizing nature and seek instead, through diplomatic processes, to reduce international tensions and work towards a situation where cooperation, mutual trust and understanding;
all space-faring nations should engage immediately in high level talks on the Prevention of an Arms Race in Outer Space and the adoption of outer space as a de-militarized zone;
all states to respect and renew their commitment to protect the unique and vitally important regions of the Earth, such as the Arctic and Antarctic, and reconfirm that they are not the property of any one nation, and never should be, but are to be protected as a common heritage for all humankind and never used for military purposes.
The money and material assets that will be gained from the above steps and other arms control and disarmament measures should not then be redirected to other military projects but used instead to help convert our militarized societies to peaceful ones that work for the betterment of the social and economic well being of all people – for human rather than state security – and for dealing with our common problem of climate change.
The below is a translation of the Korean statement on April 1. See here.
To see the programs of events during the remembering period of the Jeju 4.3 uprising, see here.
Campaign image made by 3 organizations upon the 65th anniversary of 4.3. The signs read: ‘Flower for peace instead gun and sword, now…’ ‘Succession of the Jeju 4.3 uprising spirit! Revocation of the Jeju naval base project!’ and ‘Yes, ‘True Peace.’ Now!’
People’s joint statement on April 1
For the succession of the Jeju 4.3 uprising spirit:
“We will build a peace barricade in the Gangjeong village.”
The coming April 3rd is a day when the painful memory of the Jeju is revived.
First of all, we express our hearts to cherish the memory of numerous lives that have fallen down without names in Jeju 65 years ago.
The Jeju 4·3 is a history of uprising against wrong power.
Now the history of 4·3 should be transformed into a new history for human rights and peace.
However, upon the 65th anniversary of 4·3, it is questionable whether true peace is sprouting in the Korean society. The recent political situation surrounding the Korean peninsula has not been transformed into the era of Peace. The situation is running up into confrontation phase for the word of ‘war’ as to being spoken in everybody’s lips.
Gangjeong is already 4▪3.
By wrong state power, even basic democracy has been violated. .
Under the pretense of so called ‘national security,’ numerous peace has been broken and beaten.
As if it is not enough that more than 600 Gangjeong villagers and peace activists are dealt as if they are ‘criminals,’ [the state power] is barring people’s just struggle with ‘bombs of fines.”
True peace should be blossomed by peaceful methods.
To save peace with guns and swords is ultimately to destroy peace.
We resolutely oppose that [the state power] builds a military stronghold not the peace stronghold zone and that [the Jeju] become a powder magazine of the northeast Asia.
We urge to Park Geun-Hye government.
We strongly oppose the solo play and self-righteousness of the Park Geun-Hye government who only repeats its position that it would complete the Jeju naval base in a suitable time while it lays aside its tasks on the settlements on conflicts.
What is needed in Jeju is ‘the peace as it is now,’ not ‘the 2nd Hawai’i’ that the government of Park Geun-Hye promotes.
Please stop the naval base construction in Gangjeong if you think of true peace.
You should stop the wrong naval base construction if you concern about residents’ conflicts and are to truly settle conflicts.
We urge to the Island governor, Woo Keun-Min.
You, Woo Keun-Min Island governor has said that you would wipe off the Gangjeong villagers’ tears upon your being elected as an Island governor. .
.
However, Woo Keun-Min Island governor could not stop the Gangjeong villagers’ tears by now.
Not to mention siding with the Gangjeong villagers, he became to side with various illegality, shortcut method, and law-evasiveness that have occurred during the Jeju naval base construction. He should be clearly aware that he is making the villagers bleed with bloody tears.
Woo Keun-Min, the Island governor, should actively step for the stop of the Jeju naval base construction if he properly thinks of the future of the Jeju, now.
We appeal to the citizens.
The struggle against the naval base in Gangjeong is not finished yet. The cry for peace will not stop.
The Jeju naval base construction is not the end and it is merely a start of the militarization of the Jeju Island that would be extended into air force base and supply bases.
We will start the practical camapign for peace to revive the Jeju as the Island of Peace and herb of Peace, not as the Island for the cold war, confrontation, and war-preparation.
The Gangjeong villagers, civic society groups, and peace and human rights activists will resist and take solidarity to stop the Jeju naval base construction.
We will also gather our power and wisdom with the Gangjeong villagers and Jeju Island people so that the Gangjeong village can be transformed into the village of Life and Peace not into the powder magazine that threatens the Peace of the northeast Asia.
The various social fields will make effort for the Gangjeong village to be the stronghold of the peace movement by building barricade of peace in the Gangjeong village
As it is the cry of the not-succumbing history 65 years, we will make solidarity to the end.
Please be with us.
April 1, 2013
Gangjeong Village Association
Jeju pan-Island Committee for the Stop of Military Base and for the Realization of Peace Island
The National Network of Korean Civil Society for Opposing to the Naval Base in Jeju Island
Source/ Press conference in front of the Prosecutors’ Office, Seoul, simultaneously held with that of Jeju on March 21, 2013Press conference in front of the Prosecutors’ Office, Jeju, simultaneously held with that of Seoul on March 21, 2013
It is a translation of people’s statement on March 21, 2013. You can see the original Korean script, here.
March 21 Press Statement
We denounce the prosecutors’ brutality to oppress the Gangjeong village!
: The dismissal rate of the arrest warrants regarding the incidents in the Gangjeong village is 44%
: The written arrangements and arrest warrants are manipulated with lies and distortions
In the research on the ‘Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) 2012‘ reported by the Transparency International (TI) on Dec. 5, 2012, the Republic of Korea (ROK: South Korea) got the 45th among 176 nations, two steps down from a year ago. The ROK headquarter of the TI stated that “The result this time is because of the prosecutors that got the bottom in the examination on the CPI.” The prosecutors matter because they pretend that they are the guardians for capital and power not for citizens. The very example appears in their measures on the ‘opposition movement against the Jeju naval base project.’
The navy’s illegal and law-evasive behaviors during the drive process for the Jeju naval base project have been exposed through the audit on the government affairs in 2012. While opposing against an illegal project is citizens’ natural rights and duties, the prosecutors, saying ‘it is a legal project with no problem,’ in their written arrangement, quibbled to strictly punish the citizens that have opposed the Jeju naval base project while giving an indulgence to the project interspersed with illegality and law-evasiveness.
During the process against the Jeju naval base project, 38 arrest warrants have been claimed since April, 2011 to the current. Among them, 16 have been dismissed ( 44% dismissal rate while the avarage dissimisal rate of the Prosecutors’ claims in 2012 was 20.5%). It shows how the Jeju Prosecutors have unreasonably wielded their judicuture power by now. The bigger problem is that tremendous parts of even the cited arrest warrants are filled with lies
For example, in their arrest warrants on July 3, 2012 against Mr. Kim who was arrested for his crane sit-in in protest of ‘uninstalled silt-protectors,’ on June 30, 2012, they stipulated that “since double silt-protectors were completely installed, there is no possibility of floating materials in the vicinity sea. However there has been not once that double silt protectors have been installed in the Gangjeong Sea observed of the regulations in the environmental impact assessment. Moreover, on July 2, just one day before the arrest warrant against Kim, the Jeju Island governor, sending an official letter to the joint chief of naval operation, had directed him to “resume construction after carrying out restoration construction on silt protectors and then receiving the Island government inspection on it.” The fact that the prosecutors manipulated arrest warrants against Kim, ignoring navy’s such illegality but representing only the positions of the construction companies, shows the current status of the prosecutors. Such cases are not limited to one or two.
It is not only in case of arrest warrants. The ‘written arrangements’ are also filled with various lies and distorted facts. The prosecutors defined a citizen who has not done even one-man protest in the Gangjeong field as ‘a professional protester,’ only to demand an imprisonment sentence against him. They have even forcibly indicted a peace activist in Gangjeong despite the proof of a photo that it was a construction company worker who kicked and damaged the construction fence. The prosecutors ‘cancelled indictment against the peace activist’ during the trial. There has been a case that the prosecutors have claimed 10 months imprisonment against a citizen but got the court decision of ‘no guilty on him/her. Not to mention it, a trial of a citizen who was charged for the violence against police ended because of the police violence shown in the screen submitted by the police themselves. The citizen filed later a written accusation against the police. To oppress religious events, the prosecutors over-issued mass indictments against the people who were sitting for the Catholic mass and prayer meetings in front of the gates. They have even demanded a sentence that is not stipulated in the ROK criminal law.
The fact that is especially a problem is that such cold application of law is boundlessly benevolent on the violence by the police and construction companies. The representing examples are: The disposal on non-indictment of a cement mixer truck driver who wielded violence against a woman; a connivance on a police director of criminal investigation who took violence against Yang Yoon-Mo [on April 6, 2011]; a connivance on the navy who took violence against Dr. Song Kang-Ho [in June, 2011]. Because of that, the victims of four times police violence that resulted in their bones being broken have not even filed written accusations against the police. It is because it is obvious that it would result in wasting of paper to file to the Jeju Police and Prosecutor’s office with written accusations, regarding the police violence .
The prosecutors dispose with ‘no guilty’ for the violence by construction company thugs and police even though there are proofs; indict citizens who protest to such violence by construction company thugs and police, only with the police testimony; but demand an imprisonment sentence against the citizens. Such behaviors of the prosecutors show the typical type of judicature violence.
Tens of Asian Human Rights organizations who have visited Gangjeong in 2012 and UN Human Rights rapporteurs have expressed serious concern about the ‘state violence and human rights violations’ that occur in the Gangjeong village. The Jeju prosecutors should not forget that the subject that has brought in the international society’s concern is nothing but themselves.
The prosecutors, abusing their judicature power, have afflicted the Gangjeong villagers and citizens who oppose the naval base project. Even though it is natural that they immediately release the citizens who took just resistance act or protested against police violence but whom the police arrested, the prosecutors used to release them fulfilling the legal limit of 48 hours or used to indict them based only on the police’s lie testimonies or slipshod interrogatory documents without concrete proofs and then used to over-issue unreasonable prosecutions and arrest warrants against them.
While it is the responsibility of the judicature power to measure justice by collecting the claims by the anti-base side with even minimum principle of equity, the Jeju Prosecutors have not only condemned the accused with their subjective hostility and over-issued sexual discriminatory remarks, but also have prosecuted hundreds of imprisonment sentences based on partial value judgement that the citizens ‘should be strictly punished because they oppose the national project.” Further, considering that the case of actual prison sentence is only one (actual prison sentence rate is less than 1%) and there are many cases of no guilty sentence, it is clear how unreasonably the prosecutors have over-issued their judicature powers.
Therefore we strictly warn to:
: Prosecutor Park who has filled written arrangements by manipulating facts to represent the state power and capitalist position and who has directed the judicature violence against innocent citizens to drive them as if they are devils;
(Prosecutor Park was recently promoted to a position of prosecutor in the 2nd criminal department of the Seoul Central District Prosecutors’ office. He is the responsible subject in most cases mentioned above)
Stop all the oppression of unreasonable wielding of judicature power against the citizens, by asserting that there should be no opposition to the Jeju naval base project interspersed with illegality and law-evasiveness! If such judicature oppression is to be continued, the prosecutors will face more tremendous citizens’ resistance than the current.
The press statement that we have read is of tremendous fines, imprisonments, arrests and cries of blood in every line. Now when the voice for the reform of judicature is higher than ever, we demand that the prosecutors take responsibility for their positions with vocation even it is minimum
March 21, 2013
The Gangjeong Village Association
Jeju Pan-Island Committee for the Stop of Military Base and for Realization of Peace Island
Peace activists in Gangjeong
Image source: Rev. Jeong Yeon-Gil/ “Where is the judicature justice?/ The prosecutors do “by law” to the powerless citizens, but “by bribe” to the riches, and the police do “Like dog” to puppet government!
Exposure on the reality of the ROK prosecutors’ oppression in Gangjeong
Prof. Yang Yoon-Mo will end his 52 days long hunger strike on March 24 on Sunday. Eight representatives of SPARK (Solidarity for Peace And Reunification of Korea) peace organization and Fr. Mun Jeong-hyon visited Prof. Yang to Jeju prison on March 19 and pleaded to stop the fast. In a meeting room specially provided to see him face to face, representatives persuaded him and he finally promised to start to eat light gruel from Monday, March 25. This visit was made out of people’s earnest wishes to have Pro. Yang stop the fast.
On the other hand, Rev. Kim Hong-sul(chair of SPARK Busan branch) and Rev. Kim Hee-yong from Gwangju, will do overnight 4 days fast prayer in front of Jeju prison from March 26 to 29 demanding the release of Prof. Yang and stop of Jeju naval base. Both of them also have visited Prof. Yang on March 7 and persuaded Prof. Yang to end the fast expressing their solidarity action at Jeju prison. (Regina Pyon)
Free Yang Yoon-Mo!
Letter to Yang Yoon-Mo:
Yang Yoon-Mo (No. 301)
Jeju Prison, 161 Ora-2 dong, Jeju City, Jeju Island, Korea
………………………………………………………
Here is Prof. Yang’s oral statement on March 23 ending his fast on March 24. The visitors to him on the day dictated his words to share them with the people in the world. You can see the original Korean script, here.
As I think that many people suffer from my fast, I don’t want to transfer them suffering any more.
I have taken fast to urge people concern with Gangjeong, to inform them on disappointing National Assembly, thoughtless Ministry of National Defense, and innocent villagers and activists oppressed by the judicature.
There will be no more fast in my life. Even though I stop fast, my struggle for peace will not stop.
I think I would live by 90 years old (laughter). So I state on my permanent struggle for the remaining 30 years. I will strive for demilitarizing the Island for life and peace.
While I am here in prison, I will return many of your favor and encouragement.
As a peace and unification worker, I will show myself, Yang Yoon-Mo, as a peace activists and movie critic.
I pay gratitude to the concerns for me by elementary school students, parents, Catholic brothers & sisters and protestant devotees and to the letters full of passion for peace, via mail and internet.
Since I am not forgetting those blessings, I think my decision to stop fast is good
I am grateful to all the messages of support and friendship by distinguished scholars, intellectuals, peace activists and artists from the United States, Australia, Okinawa and Japan, France, Nepal etc.
To return your concern, I intend for my complete change. I will exercise hard to strengthen my abdominal muscles (laughter).
I especially thank more than 24 days’ solidarity fast by a Korean woman in Hawai’i.
( * Ishle Yi Parkis a poet and caring mother. See the bottom of here)
I deeply thank her to take a spiritual response as an artist, despite my shallow idea and practice. Since I have received undeserved love, I will strive more for the world of peace, human rights and love.
Otherwise, I thank two men, Reverend Kim Hong-Soul and Reverend Kim Hee-Young for their solidarity fast from March 26 to 29. The two are my true friends and artists, and holly friends that I’ve met in the world of peace. I thank their friendship and will not disappoint them.
The peace of Jeju is the peace of Asia. It contributes for the peace of the world. The agenda of peace is the discourse of the world.
Image source: Ishle Yi Park
From Ishle Yi Park on March 24, 2013 (Fwd)
Thank you so much for this update, sister! I am so happy and relieved to know that Professor Yang Yoon-Mo has ended his fast and is on his way back to good health. I prayed for him often and am in deep admiration of his actions, his principles, and his heart.
I must tell you all that I fasted for seven days, but then my milk ran dry and my daughter cried for more (I am still nursing), so I ended my fast early for her. I don’t want to take credit for more than I am capable of…I want you and the other activists to know this, because to me it is incredible how strong Professor’s heart, mind, and spirit are to endure for so long. He is truly a man whose spirit I admire and love, and I love the people of Jejudo. Wish I could have done more.
I did write a statement of solidarity that asks the powers that be to free Professor Yang Yoon Mo and halt the construction of the naval base, and had it signed by over 30 activists, artists and citizens of Hawai’i ~ any suggestions on who would be the most effective people to send it to? Will try to get more people to sign it before I send it.
In terms of updates ~ any news on when he will be freed, or is he in prison indefinitely? Please let me know. Will continue to keep Jejudo and the Professor in my heart and prayers. And thank you and all the peace activists engaged in this movement for your positive, conscious actions and your huge hearts. The world is a better place because of you. God bless and Aloha.
Han Sarang,
Ishle Yi Park
RE: Thanks so much, Ishle Yi Park. Prof. Yang has got the court sentence of 18 months on Feb. 1. Please see here.
Photo provided by Rev. Kim Hee-Yong/ Photo of Mr. Kim Hong-Soul (front), Mr. Kim Hee-Yong(back left ) and Gangjeong village Mayor Kang Dong-Kyun (back right)
Source: SPARK/ The large size annual US-ROK war exercise started on March 1. The SPARK (Solidarity for Peace And Reunification of Korea) said. “The biggest problem of the Key Resolve/ Foal Eagle this time is that it could bring the Korean peninsula being at the risk of war. The war exercise this time is more aggressive than ever…After the North Korea conducted nuclear test, the ROK-US ministries of defense made an agreement that the ROK-US war excise could be an actual pressure against North Korea by expanding and strengthening it.. All the aggressive arms are mobilized; such as the George Washington, US nuclear aircraft carrier, F-22, B-52 that were not mobilized last year… President Obama declared on strengthening MD against North Korea and the Ministry of National Defense said it would establish ‘Kill Chain,’ a preemptive attack strategy. That shows the military exercise is to openly become an aggressive military strategy… The Korean peninsula was laid at the risk of war crisis even in days after a new President, Park Geun-Hye was inaugurated. If she wants peace, she should stop the Key Resolve war exercise and start dialogue.” See more photos here.
# About Key Resolve/ Foal Eagle War exercise
The Foal Eagle exercises are scheduled to continue until Apr. 30. The Key Resolve command post exercises (CPX) are also scheduled to take place over a two-week period from Mar. 11 to 21. (Source)
The Foal Eagle exercise is composed of 20 coalition and joint outdoor training such as large size landing training and ROK-US munitions support, air, maritime, special operation training. About 200,000 South Korean personnel from the army corps, fleet command headquarter, flight units and 10,000 US military personnel from the army, navy, air, marine units mostly reinforced from the overseas could join. (Source)
Statement Opposing U.S.-South Korea Joint Military Exercises Key Resolve Foal Eagle
Stop War Games, Start Peace Talks
The Korean War, known in the United States as “The Forgotten War,” has never ended. Every year, the United States stages a series of massive joint war games with its ally, South Korea (ROK). These coordinated exercises are both virtual and real. Among other things, they practice live fire drills and simulate the invasion of North Korea—including first-strike options.
While we – peace, human rights, faith-based, environmental, and Korean solidarity activists– are deeply concerned about North Korea’s third nuclear weapons test, we also oppose the U.S.-ROK joint war games as adding to the dangerous cycle of escalation of tensions on the Korean peninsula. North Korea views these war games as an act of provocation and threat of invasion like that which we have witnessed in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya and routinely condemns these maneuvers as aimed at “bring[ing] down the DPRK by force” and forcing it to“bolster up the war deterrent physically.” South Korean activists also decry the role of these war games in the hostile perpetuation of the division of the Korean peninsula and are often persecuted for their protests under South Korea’s draconian National Security Law.
The U.S.-ROK “Key Resolve” and “Foal Eagle” annual war games, usually staged in March, and “Ulchi Freedom Guardian” in August, typically last for months and involve tens of thousands of U.S. troops stationed in South Korea and deployed from the United States, as well as hundreds of thousands of their ROK counterparts. U.S. Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine, and Space Command forces will participate in these exercises and practice scenarios including the removal of North Korea’s leadership, occupation of Pyeongyang, and reunification of the peninsula under U.S. and South Korean control.
In South Korea, peace and reunification groups have long opposed these war games. They have called for peninsula-wide demilitarization entailing the eventual removal of U.S. troops. As one organization puts it, “Unless and until US forces are completely and permanently withdrawn from South Korea, it will be impossible to establish peace on the Korean peninsula.”
We call upon the U.S. and South Korean governments to stop the costly and provocative war games and take proactive steps to deescalate the current tensions on the Korean peninsula.
The Perils of the U.S. Pivot
In the past five years, hard-won efforts by the Korean people to ease North-South tensions have been reversed. Through its massive military buildup across the region, the United States has amplified regional tensions. Recent years have been witness to North Korea’s nuclear and missile tests, increasing nationalism and militarism in Japan (the world’s sixth greatest military spender), and a host of increasingly militarized territorial disputes. The global Cold War may have ended 20 years ago, but as the recent round of U.S.-led sanctions on the DPRK and threat of a third DPRK nuclear weapons “test” illustrate, the anachronism remains alive and well on the Korean peninsula.
Crisis on the Korean peninsula furnishes a rationale for U.S. militarization of the region, and the Pentagon has committed to deploy 60% of its air and naval forces to Asia and the Pacific to reinforce its air sea battle doctrine. Announced as the “pivot” of U.S. military resources to Asia and the Pacific, President Obama’s policy, which necessitates more training areas, runways, ports of call, and barracks for the massive shift of U.S. military forces, disregards the impact of militarization on the lives of ordinary people in the region.
The disastrous ecological and human costs of this “pivot” are acutely apparent in the current construction of a naval base on Jeju, an “island of peace” in South Korea known for having the planet’s densest concentration of UNESCO World Heritage Sites. Once celebrated for its pristine beauty and sea-based culture, Gangjeong, a 450-year-old fishing and farming village is being torn to shreds by the South Korean government in collaboration with the United States, which can freely use any ROK military installation. Base construction crews are dredging acres of world-class, bio-diverse coral habitats and covering them with concrete. The obliteration of these coastal ecosystems also destroys the millennia-old livelihoods of the villagers, 94% of whom voted against the base in a local referendum. Gangjeong villagers are watching their heritage, economy, vibrant local culture, spiritual center, and very core of their identity collapse into rubble.
This same multi-facted people’s struggle is being played out in many places across the Asia-Pacific. Within President Obama’s “pivot” policy, U.S. bases in South Korea, Japan, Okinawa, Hawaii, and Guam are ever more important. Moreover, his administration has been pressing hard to open up previously closed U.S. bases in geostrategically vital nations such as Vietnam and the Philippines.
This year marks the 60th anniversary of the July 27, 1953 Armistice Agreement that brought the combat phase of the Korean War to a temporary halt but did not end the war. The Armistice Agreement stipulated that a peace agreement be realized within three months and that negotiations take place for the withdrawal of all foreign forces from Korea. Over the past several decades, North Korea, often portrayed in mainstream media as an irrational rogue state, has repeatedly requested peace negotiations with the United States. Yet today, we station nearly 30,000 military personnel and operate over 40 military bases on the Korean peninsula. We have spent the past 60 years living not in a post-war era, but under a ceasefire whose consequences are borne most acutely by the Korean people. On this anniversary of the irresolution of the Korean War, the longest conflict the United States has been involved in, we as human rights, Korean solidarity, faith-based, peace, and environmental organizations call for attention to the human and ecological costs of permanent war as the modus vivendi of U.S.-Korean relations. Efforts that promote increased militarization and conflict and the destruction of the rich biodiversity in Korea are immoral and go against universally shared values of building peace, caring for Earth, and respecting the human dignity and worth of every person.
Resolution for Peace
We, the undersigned peace, human rights, faith-based, environmental, and Korean solidarity activists, call upon the U.S.-ROK governments to cancel their dangerous and costly war games against North Korea.
We strongly urge the United States to turn to diplomacy for common and human security rather than militarization, which will only undermine regional and U.S. security. We further request that the Obama administration focus its strategic shift to the Asia region on finding diplomatic and peaceful solutions to conflict, and building cooperation with all nations in the region, including China, DPRK, and Russia.
On this anniversary of the 60th anniversary of the signing of the Armistice Agreement, which several decades ago called for a peaceful resolution to the Korean War, we join with our peace-minded brothers and sisters in Korea and call on the Obama administration to deescalate the current tensions and do its part in realizing “Year One of Peace” on the Korean Peninsula.
Working Group for Peace and Demilitarization in Asia and the Pacific
Christine Ahn, Gretchen Alther, Rev. Levi Bautista, Jackie Cabasso, Herbert Docena, John Feffer, Bruce Gagnon, Joseph Gerson, Subrata Goshoroy, Mark Harrison, Christine Hong, Kyle Kajihiro, Peter Kuznick, Hyun Lee, Ramsay Liem, Andrew Lichterman, John Lindsay-Poland, Ngo Vinh Long, Stephen McNeil, Nguyet Nguyen, Satoko Norimatsu, Koohan Paik, Mike Prokosh, Juyeon JC Rhee, Arnie Sakai, Tim Shorrock, Alice Slater, David Vine, Sofia Wolman, Kevin Martin, Amy Woolam Echeverria
Additional Signers:
– Paki Wieland, Committee to Stop War(s), Western Mass CodePink, Northampton, Massachusetts
– Lindis Percy, Laila Packer, Christine Dean, Anni Rainbow of Campaign for the Accountability of American Bases, Yorkshire, England
– Jill Gough, National Secretary, CND Cymru (Wales), UK
– Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarian Universalists Social Justice Committee, California
– Pax Christi Florida
– Alice Leney, Coromandel, New Zealand
– Georgiann Cooper, PeaceWorks, Freeport, Maine
– Nodutdol for Korean Community Development, New York, New York
– Philip Gilligan, Chair, Greater Manchester Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament
– Susan V. Walker, Lake Arrowhead, California
– H. J. Camet, Jr., Seattle, Washington
– Helen Travis, Denver, Colorado
– David Swanson, WarIsACrime.org, Charlottesville, Virginia
– Jane Sanford, Belfast, Maine
– Christine Roane, Springfield, Massachusetts
– Natasha Mayers, Union of Maine Visual Artists, Whitefield, Maine
– Lee Loe, Houston, Texas
– Amy Harlib, New York, New York
– Roger Leisner, Radio Free Maine, Augusta, Maine
– Joyce Smith, Tucson, Arizona
– Christine Ahn, Korea Policy Institute and Global Fund for Women, Oakland, California
– Angie Zelter, Trident Ploughshares, UK
– Tim Rinne, State Coordinator, Nebraskans for Peace
– Ellen Murphy, Veterans for Peace Ch. 111, Bellingham, Washington
– Jerry Mander, Founder & Distinguished Fellow, International Forum on Globalization,
San Francisco, California
– JT Takagi, New York, New York
– David Smith, Belfast, Maine
– Jon Olsen, Jefferson, Maine
– Ernest Goitein and Claire Feder, Atherton, California
– Roger Dittmann, Ph.D., Scientists without Borders, Fullerton, California
– Jenny Maxwell, Secretary, Hereford Peace Council, UK
– Anita Coolidge, Americans for Department of Peace, Cardiff, California
– David Diamond, Dover, New Hampshire
– Jennifer Kwon Dobbs, St. Olaf College, Northfield, Minnesota
– Jack & Felice Cohen-Joppa, The Nuclear Resister, Tucson, Arizona
– Jacques Boucher, Chambly, Canada
– Pax Christi Long Island, New York
– Robert Dale, Veterans For Peace, Brunswick, Maine
– Stephanie Son, Livermore, California
– Kevin and Maggie Hall, Dunedin, Florida
– Betty McElhill, Tucson, Arizona
– Don Richardson, Brevard, North Carolina
– Filson H. Glanz, Professor Emeritus of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of NH, Durham, New Hampshire
– Sasha Davis, Hilo, Hawaii
– Leah R. Karpen, Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, Asheville, North Carolina
– Sung-Hee Choi, Gangjeong Village International team, Jeju Island, Korea
– Wil Van Natta, Riviera Beach, Florida
– Luis Gutierrez-Esparza, President Latin American Circle of International Studies, Barrio San Lucas Coyoacan, Mexico
– Harry van der Linden, Indianapolis, Indiana
– Lydia Garvey, Public Health Nurse, Clinton, Oklahoma
– Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space
– Joan Costello, Omaha, Nebraska
– Maine Campaign to Bring Our War $$ Home
– Tony Henderson, Lantau, Hong Kong
– Herbert J. Hoffman, Veterans For Peace, Ogunquit, Maine
– Gladys Schmitz, SSND, Mankato. Minnesota
– Loyal C. Park, President Nebraska Peace Foundation, Lincoln, Nebraska
– Jane Milliken, Riverside, Connecticut
– Peter Woodruff, Arrowsic, Maine
– Jeanne Green, CodePink Taos, El Prado, New Mexico
– Maine Green Party
– Peace Action Maine
– Jacqui Deveneau, Old Orchard Beach, Maine
– James Deutsch, M.D., Ph.D., Toronto, Canada
– Judith Deutsch, M.S.W., Toronto, Canada
– Gene Keyes, Berwick, Nova Scotia, Canada
– Norma J F Harrison, Central Committee Member, Peace & Freedom Party, Berkeley, California
– Sandy Herndon, Kauai, Hawaii
– Lillia Langreck, SSND, Milwaukee, Wisconsin
– Gerson and Debbie Lesser, Bronx, New York
– Patricia J. Patterson, United Methodist Asia Executive retired, Claremont, California
– George and Dorothy Ogle, Lafayette, Colorado
– Jewel Payne, Davis, California
– Alice Slater, New York, New York
– Harold J. Suderman, Registry of World Citizens-Canada, Guelph, Ontario, Canada
– John Stewart, Pax Christi Tampa Bay, St. Petersburg, Florida
– Ronald and Caterina Swanson-Bosch, RN, MPH, Mt Snow, Vermont
– Sarah Lasenby, Oxford, UK
– CODEPINK State of Maine
– Lisa Savage, Solon, Maine
– Hye-Jung Park, La Paz, Bolivia
– Fred Jakobcic, Marquette, Michigan
– Makiko Sato, Oita, Japan
– Sister Valerie Heinonen, o.s.u., Ursuline Sisters of Tildonk for Justice and Peace, New York, New York
– Terao Terumi, Yashio, Saitama, Japan
– Ken Ashe, Veterans for Peace, Marshall, North Carolina
– Kathy Ging, Eugene, Oregon
– Benjamin Monnet, No war base on Jeju Island, France
– Penny Oyama, Burnaby, B. C., Canada
– Tarak Kauff, Board member, Veterans For Peace, Woodstock, New York
– Sergio Monteiro, Los Angeles, California
– Paul Cunningham and Jen Joaquin, South Portland, Maine
– Mary Beth Sullivan, Social Worker, Bath, Maine
– Glen Anderson, Lacey, Washington
– Ron Engel, Professor Emeritus, Meadville/Lombard Theological School, Chicago, Illinois
– Occupy Damsels in Distress, Palm Springs, California
– Nikohl Vandel, Palm Springs, California
– Katherine Muzik, Kauai, Hawaii
– Carolyn S. Scarr, Program Coordinator Ecumenical Peace Institute/CALC, Berkeley, California
– Don Lathrop, Canaan, New York
– Karen Boyer, CodePink Portland, Oregon
– Joan McCoy, Home for Peace and Justice, Saginaw, Michigan
– Douglas Hong, Stony Brook, New York
– Alice Zachmann, SSND, Mankato, Minnesota
– Sandra Frank, Toledo, Ohio
– Jeanne Gallo, North Shore Coalition for Peace and Justice, Gloucester, Massachusetts
– Martha Shelley, CodePink, Portland, Oregon
– Kevin Zeese, October2011.org, Baltimore, Maryland
– Margaret Flowers, October2011.org, Baltimore, Maryland
– Alfred L. Marder, President, US Peace Council, New Haven, Connecticut
– Charlotte Koons, CODEPINK Long Island, Northport, New York
– Jodi Kim, Associate Professor, University of California-Riverside
– Granny Peace Brigade, New York, New York
– Art Laffin, Dorothy Day Catholic Worker, Washington DC
– Jean Sommer, Performers and Artists for Nuclear Disarmament, Cleveland, Ohio
– Lee Siu Hin, national coordinator of National Immigrant Solidarity Network, South Pasadena, California
– Robert Palmer, Rosemount, Minnesota
– Yoshiko Ikuta, Cleveland, Ohio
– Dr Kate Hudson, General Secretary, Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, UK
– Professor Dave Webb, Chair, Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, UK
– Helen Caldicott, the Helen Caldicott Foundation, Australia
– Coleen Rowley, Women Against Military Madness, Apple Valley, Minnesota
– Marylia Kelley, Tri-Valley CAREs, Livermore, California
– Rebecca Barker, Los Angeles, California
– Rosalie Riegle, author of Crossing the Line: Nonviolent Resisters Speak out for Peace, Evanston, Illinois
– Amy Chung, Diamond Bar, California
– Theodore Chung, Diamond Bar, California
– Dale Nesbitt, Berkeley, California
– Sally-Alice Thompson, Veterans For Peace, Albuquerque, New Mexico
– Cynthia Howard, Biddeford Pool, Maine
– Paul Liem, Berkeley, California
– Dr. Bill Warrick, Veterans For Peace, Gainesville, Florida
On the 8th anniversary of Jeju’s designation as “The Peace Island” (Jan. 27, 2005), people from around Korea will have an event commemorating that anniversary and to make a new declaration, designating Jeju as as “The Demilitarized Peace Island.”
The idea was initiated in Gangjeong at the beginning of 2013 and cultivated through the gathering of people’s opinions and ideas over the course of several weeks.
Event Details:
Time: Sunday, January 27, 2013, 3pm to 6pm, dinner following the event. Venue: 4.3 Peace Park Great Hall Participation Fee: 10,000 won Content: Part 1: Declaration/ Part 2: Introduction of each participant and each participant’s sharing about their idea for a Demilitarized Peace Island (about 1 minute per person)/ Part 3: dinner Contact: Dr. Song Kang-Ho – 010-8891-5072/ jejudmz@gmail.com
Even if you don’t pre-register, you can register in the venue on January 27.
Only the names of individual people (ie: not organizations or groups) who will actually be present in person for the event will be allowed. This is to avoid formalities and to be able to take direct action on responsible follow-up measures.
There will be space to distribute materials related to the Demilitarized Peace Island movement
To: Ashok Khosla
President
International Union for Conservation of Nature
Rue Mauverney 28
1196 Gland
Switzerland
RE: South Korean Non-Governmental Organizations Endorse the Motion #181. Protection of the People, Nature, Culture and Heritage of Gangjeong Village
Dear Dr. Ashok Khosla,
We, South Korean non-governmental organizations, are writing to you today to show our full support and endorsement to the Motion #181 “Protection of the People, Nature, Culture and Heritage of Gangjeong Village”. The naval base construction in Gangjeong has endangered rare marine and land species, destroyed local peoples’ lives and cultures while human rights violations are frequently occurring on environmental defenders.
We support recommendations to the Republic of Korea in the motion suggested by the Center for Humans and Nature, IUCN member organization. The construction of the naval base must be stopped immediately. A recommendation in the version that was modified by the Resolution Working Group reads, “Take appropriate measures to prevent adverse environmental and socio-cultural consequences associated with the construction of the Civilian-Military Complex Port Project”. It already implies and acknowledges the environmental and socio-cultural destruction by the enforced naval base project in Gangjeong, despite the opposition by the majority of villagers. We, as South Korean civil society organizations, do not agree with this recommendation because construction of naval base contradicts a core value of the UN World Charter for Nature and the Earth Charter.
On 30 May 2012, the UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Opinion and Expression, Human Rights Defenders, and Peaceful Assembly and Association sent a joint allegation letter to South Korean government on ongoing human rights violations in Gangjeong towards environmental defenders who peacefully protested. Unfortunately, even though the letter kindly requests a response within sixty days, the Government has not responded yet. We would like to kindly remind you that IUCN Res. 2.37 is on Support for Environmental Defenders indicating “UNDERSTANDING that the participation of non- governmental organizations and individual advocates is essential to the fundamentals of civil society to assure the accountability of governments and multinational corporations; and AWARE that a nation’s environment is only truly protected when concerned citizens are involved in the process;”
In this vein, we, as South Korean non-governmental organizations, firmly stand in solidarity with the Motion #181 “Protection of the People, Nature, Culture and Heritage of Gangjeong Village” as originally suggested by the Center for Humans and Nature. If you have any questions or need a clarification, please do not hesitate to contact us at peace@pspd.org or +82-2-723-4250.
Yours Sincerely,
Mr. Dong-kyun Kang Village Mayor Gangjeong Village Association
Mr. Gi-ryong Hong Co-convenor Jeju Pan-Island Committee for Stop of Military Base and for Realization of Peace Island
(26 Jeju based NGOs: 곶자왈사람들, 노래패청춘, 서귀포시민연대, 서귀포여성회,양용찬열사추모사업회, 전국공무원노조 제주지역본부, 전국교직원노동조합 제주 지부, 전국농민회총연맹 제주도연맹, 전국민주노동조합총연맹 제주본부, 전국여성 농민회총연합 제주도연합, 제주 4.3 도민연대, 제주 4.3 연구소, 제주민족예술인 총연합, 제주여민회, 제주여성인권연대, 제주주민자치연대, 제주참여환경연대, 제 주통일청년회, 제주평화인권센터, 제주환경운동연합, 참교육을 위한 전국학부모회 제주지부, 천주교 제주교구 평화의섬 실현을 위한 특별위원회, 탐라자치연대, 평 화를 위한 그리스도인 모임, 한국기독교장로회 제주노회 정의평화위원회, 한국장 애인연맹 제주 DPI)
Re: Improper Conduct at September 12 Contact Group for Motion 181: Protection of the People, Nature, Culture, and Heritage of Gangjeong Village
*********
Dear Mr. Khosla,
My name is Sukhyun Park. I am a Research Fellow with the Korean IUCN member organization, Citizens Institute for Environmental Studies.
This evening, September 12, a Contact Group was held for the deeply controversial issue regarding the construction of a navy base at Gangjeong Village. I’m afraid I must write to let you know that I am extremely offended by statements you made this evening concerning Korean environmentalists.
You spent much valuable time during our Contact Group discrediting the Open Letters to IUCN concerning the Gangjeong navy base. You said that because so few Koreans were included in the letter’s long list of signatories that the campaign to save Gangjeong is actually a colonial-style case of foreigners coming to a sovereign land to tell people what to do and how to do it. Wow! Talk about flawed logic! With all due respect, Mr. Khosla, you are thoroughly mistaken. Please do not project your own colonial experience on us. Instead, if you truly care about what the local people in this country want, as you say you do, then please listen to what WE have to say, instead of obsessing on the foreign colonials!
We told you, in our own open letter of July 10, 2012, signed by 125 Korean organizations totaling thousands of members, that we are opposed to the navy base that is slated to destroy Gangjeong Village. We told you that 3,000 university professors and five leading religious groups in South Korea oppose the Four Rivers Restoration project. We told you that we environmental organizations in South Korea are united in opposition to this project. We asked you if you were aware of the serious environmental and human rights violations that have been committed by the Korean government in the construction of the navy base at Gangjeong Village.
But we Koreans from civil society seem to be invisible to you, even when there are thousands of us signing. You did not once this evening acknowledge the open letter that we Koreans wrote. You only continued to discredit our brave international allies, notably the Center for Humans and Nature. You wasted a lot of our Contact-Group time with that. We are invisible to you. It appears we count for nothing.
We had already gotten a taste of being treated as second-class citizens by the IUCN. No, I’m not talking about when the Gangjeong villagers were denied their booth. I’m referring to Julia Marton-Lefevre’s August 28, 2012 letter stating that “no IUCN Members from Korea are signatories to this and previous open letters.” This remark was made in an effort to discredit the letter’s genuine pleas for the human dignity of the Gangjeong villagers. How cheap.
Actually, my organization is both an IUCN Member and a signatory to the open letter. But you, nor Julia, seem to be paying attention. When members of my group, Citizens Institute for Environmental Studies, read Ms. Marton-Lefevre’s letter, of course we felt like second class citizens. Then, tonight, your behavior at the Contact Group meeting confirmed our suspicions that we count for nothing in the eyes of the IUCN.
If you are interested, there is a reason that our open letter was separate from the internationals’ open letters. It is because when the internationals asked us to sign on, they also asked us to sign our personal names. Unfortunately, in our repressive nation, doing so would lead to employment blacklisting. South Korea is a democracy only in name. This is why we chose to write our own open letter, which has no individual signatories, only organization names, in order to protect people from government persecution.
So, Mr. Khosla, please don’t assume that every non-European fits into your specific experience as a colonized person. You have proven tonight that you know very little about the situation in Korea or the Korean people.
And if the Open Letter from 125 Korean civil society organizations could not convince you of the corrupt and oppressive human-rights violations that the Korean government levies on its people, then would you be convinced by the letter from the United Nations that was also cited at tonight’s meeting? At the meeting, the woman from Gangjeong Village spoke about a letter sent by three UN Rapporteurs: Frank La Rue, Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression; Maina Kiai, Special Rapporteur on the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and of association; and Margaret Sekaggya, Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders. Their 30 May 2012 letter of inquiry was sent to the Korean government regarding numerous “acts of harassment, intimidation and ill-treatment of peaceful protestors in Gangjeong village,” requesting a response within 60 days. That was three and half months ago. The government never responded. But being ignored is nothing new to us.
