Pristine Jeju Island, home to one of the world’s largest soft coral reefs, is under threat from plans to build a naval base. Local protesters have been beaten by police, but now the world’s leading environmental organisation, the IUCN, is holding its annual summit there and could turn the tide by speaking out against the destruction.
If the IUCN was to change its position and condemn the plans, it would fundamentally weaken the government’s position. Let’s seize the opportunity of their summit, to call on IUCN Director-General Julia Marton-Lefevre to support the campaign to Save Jeju. We only have days left — the meeting starts on September 6th. Sign the petition on the right and the Mayor of Gangjeong village will deliver it to the IUCN Director General.
On July 5, South Korea’s Supreme Court overturned lower court rulings against the Ministry of National Defense for proceeding with construction of a naval base on Jeju Island without an environmental impact assessment (EIA). It also ruled that the governor of Jeju had the authority to change the designation of absolute preservation areas. This ruling wasn’t just a major blow to residents of Gangjeong village where the navy base is being built but also to the many voiceless marine organisms. As you read this, massive caissons the size of four-story buildings are about to drop on soft coral reefs, forever destroying local marine ecosystems home to several endangered species.
Although the villagers’ hopes of winning in a retrial in Seoul’s High Court are slim, they have a golden opportunity to influence the court of public opinion by garnering the support of thousands of environmentalists worldwide. This upcoming September the world’s largest and most important environmental conservation event, the World Conservation Congress (WCC), will take place at Jungmun Resort, just four miles from Gangjeong.
In this month’s issue: The navy pushes to steal more land, water issues, London Samsung Boycott, Construction Mocks Environmental Standards, Prison Letter from Dr. Song Kang-Ho and more!
In this month’s issue: 6000 bows for peace in front of the Governor’s building, special international solidarity feature, harassement of village elderly, Father Mun wins the 5.18 Human Rights Prize, a letter from Guam and more!
“I would invite Ms. Park to take a swim in Hawai’i’s most famous military-tourist attraction: Pearl Harbor (the true name given by Native Hawaiians is Ke Awalau o Pu’uloa). However, the water is too toxic. And before she could get very far, she would be arrested by the Navy for trespassing in military waters. There is no tourist activity within Pearl Harbor except for those museum sites controlled by the government.” (Kyle Kajihiro)
Photo: Sisa Jeju, May 1, 2012/ Park Geun-Hye met protests in the Jeju
On May 1, Labor Day, Park Geun-Hye, daughter of deceased ex-President Park Chung-Hee who ruled South Korea for decades with military dictatorship made absurd remarks that, “In case of Hawai’i, tourism income is 24% while military-related income is 20% in its whole finance,” and “If we construct the Jeju naval base as civilian-military dual use port and make it well so that 150,000 ton cruise can enter and exit, it would not likely to be less than Hawai’i” (Headline Jeju, May 1).
On March 30, before General election on April 11, Park, supporting the candidates of the Saenuri Party (the ruling conservative Party)-though none were eventually elected in the Jeju Island whose citizens has been furious on the naval base project, has said, “We should make Jeju like Hawai’I famous for global tourism site and naval base.” It was a happening that reminded absurd remark by Kim Tae-Yong, ex-Minister of National Defense on March 20, 2010.
Amidst raining all day, Gangjeong villagers and activists protested against her spreading absurd remarks of so called civilian-military dual port, from morning to afternoon.
Kyle Kajihiro has sent a below writing refuting her remarks on April 25. Kyle Kajihiro is the program director for the American Friends Service Committee in Hawaii. He works on demilitarization, environmental justice, and Kanaka Maoli human rights issues. He has been involved in immigrant worker organizing, community mural projects, antiracist/antifascist activism, the Central America Solidarity movement, Hawaiian sovereignty solidarity efforts, and community radio and television. He has visited the Jeju and has many times expressed his solidarity on Jeju. Please refer to DMZ Hawai’i / Aloha ‘Aina (http://www.dmzhawaii.org/)
The Military Impacts in Hawai’i should be a Warning to Koreans about the threat to Jeju island.
By Kyle Kajihiro
April 25, 2012
Source: DMZ Hawai’i/ Militarized areas of O’ahu, Hawai’i
Ms. Park Keun-Hye is gravely mistaken to claim that military bases have been good for Hawai’i and therefore would be good for Jeju. The U.S. invaded and occupied the sovereign country of Hawai’i in order to build a military outpost. This included the taking of more than 200,000 acres of land for military bases, training and other activities. The result has been the destruction of the environment with more than 900 military contamination sites identified by the Department of Defense. The military’s toxic cocktail includes PCB, perchloroethylene, jet fuel and diesel, mercury, lead, radioactive Cobalt 60, unexploded ordance, perchlorate, and depleted uranium.
When the U.S. took over, especially during WWII, the military seized thousands of acres of Hawaiian land. Whole communities were evicted, their homes, churches and buildings razed or bombed for target practice, their sacred sites destroyed by bombs or imprisoned behind barbed wire.
Recently, hundreds of landless Native Hawaiian families were evicted from a secluded area of O’ahu where they had been living in cars and makeshift tents. They are the internally displaced native people, evidence of the so-called ‘benefits’ of militarization. Meanwhile the military occupies more than 13,000 acres of Hawaiian land, comprising a third of the land in that part of the island.
The enormous military presence did not bring security. On the contrary, it made Hawai’i the prime target during WWII and the Cold War. Militarization imported the most virulent forms of racism and martial law to the islands and provided the U.S. a launching pad from which to expand its empire. The military interests of the U.S. continue to override the needs and security of local communities as it distorts our development in ways that serve empire.
I would invite Ms. Park to take a swim in Hawai’i’s most famous military-tourist attraction: Pearl Harbor (the true name given by Native Hawaiians is Ke Awalau o Pu’uloa). However, the water is too toxic. And before she could get very far, she would be arrested by the Navy for trespassing in military waters. There is no tourist activity within Pearl Harbor except for those museum sites controlled by the government.
Ke Awalau o Pu’uloa is a perfect example of the dangers of militarization. The U.S. invaded and occupied the Kingdom of Hawai’i in order to take Ke Awalau o Pu’uloa as a strategic port. What was once one of the most productive fisheries for Native Hawaiian people with extensive wetland agriculture and aquaculture complexes that fed many thousands on O’ahu island has become a giant toxic Superfund site. Today there are approximately 749 contaminated sites that the Navy has identified within the Pearl Harbor Naval Complex. The seafood from Ke Awalau o Pu’uloa is no longer safe to eat. The famous pearl oysters are no more.
It is partially true that the military has become a major economic source in Hawai’i, but at a very high price. The military economy is artificial. It is largely a result of the corrupt processes of the military-industrial-political complex that injects money for pet projects in the islands like a drug. Politicians, businesses, and even unions become addicted to the quick high of these federal infusions and then become desperate to chase the next fix, even at the expense of the environment, Hawaiian rights and sovereignty and peace in the Asia-Pacific region. Meanwhile the real source of Hawai’i’s economy – the beauty and health of our natural environment and our cultural richness – deteriorates at an alarming rate.
The questions that we must always ask about the alleged economic benefits of the military in Hawai’i are: “Who gets paid? Who pays the price? What are the real social, cultural and environmental costs of such a dependent economy?” The native people of the land are the ones whose lands are always stolen and destroyed by the military. They and other poor groups live in the toxic shadow of the bases. Other productive capacities wither away as Hawai’i has grown completely dependent on imports (90% of food is imported) and federal spending. Meanwhile those who benefit most from the military economy are the contractors (many who flock to Hawai’i when new military funds are approved) who feed on the destruction wrought by all this so-called ‘prosperity’.
Jeju island is a unique cultural and natural treasure that must be protected from military expansion. The beautiful islands of the Pacific are being targeted because the governments think we are small and insignificant. But islands do not have to be isolated. As the peoples of the Pacific have known for centuries, Ka Moananuiakea (the great ocean) unites us, brings us life, culture, food and solidarity. We must join our efforts and broaden our solidarity beyond our local shores, we can weave a net that is big and strong enough to restrain those monstrous fish that threaten to devour us all.
[ Video on April 20, 2012] The navy guarantees its own fraud of the Jeju naval base project
Go Gwon-Il, Chairman of the Villagers’ Committee to Stop the Naval Base explains how the navy has distorted the base layout to enforce the project, by showing maps in the navy’s investigation and test report (Jan 2010) on the matters of ship transportation and mooring safety. The below is the summary translation of the video.
1. With a drawn circle of 2km radius from the center of the naval base project area (so called Beautiful tourism port for mixed civilian-military use or Civilian-Military Complex Port for Tour Beauty), the navy cannot avoid to include the UNESCO Bio-sphere Reserve and buffer zones in its base project area.
However, the navy, being aware of such reality, has made a shortcut of setting up environmental impact area around the project, in rectangular not circle.
More ridiculous thing is that the navy, finding that the rectangular form still includes those zones, distorted the square again to a bashed one, only to be looked as if the base would not affect those zones.
2. In the harbor and bay layout (time code, around 1:44), cruise and aircraft carrier are shown to moor in a same dock, which brings only laugh. Further in case of cruise–docking, the ships moored inner side of dock go through difficulty in entry and exit of port, are in need of skillful naval shipbuilding, and are even recommended to use another dock.
It means the cruise should not enter the dock when military vessels already moor. By the propensity of defense facility, there could be no civilian-military dual use port in the world. That is why the navy cannot but conduct such series of frauds in enforcing the project.
3. In the table on the subjective navigation difficulty degree (time code, around 2:50), which ranges from the easiest to the most difficult, the entry & exit of big military vessels are evaluated ‘difficult,’ or ‘very difficult.’ What a waste of tax! It could be interpreted that the navy wants to warn cruise that are bigger than military vessels not to enter such dual use harbor.
Mr. Go Gwon-Il says ( time code, around 3:30)
“The navy sends the villagers in favor of naval base in travel abroad; cheats them as if it would give them with tremendous compensation fee; and makes villagers estrange within themselves. The naval base project is being irrationally driven despite violation of law on cultural assets and of environmental impact assessment, and layout flaws. The project would only profit Samsung and Daelim.”
On April 1st, at around 2 p.m., I was on Gureombi to protest against the heavy construction equipment that is destroying Gureombi. From outside the razor-wire fence on the western side of Gureombi, I was shouting, “Don’t Destroy Gureombi!” and “Stop Construction!” and “Stop!”
In that place, I was not alone but together with Priest Moon Jung Hyeon, Priest Kim Sung Hwan, and [former Jeju Assembly woman] Hyun Ae Ja, venting our pent up anger. Despite our protests, about 10 meters inside the fence, two huge hydraulic excavators were break rocks and loading the broken rocks into a dump truck. I felt deep despair because even though we yelled and shouted, the construction workers didn’t listen. Because of my despair, without knowing what I was doing, I found myself grabbing the fence, pulling it down to the ground, and stepping across it, wanting to shout at them near the excavators. In front of me, around 30 riot police blocked the way with their shields and their captain sneered mockingly. As soon as I crossed the fence, I was surrounded and isolated. When I tried to resist, the police beat me, pushed me to the ground and held me down with their feet. They twisted my left hand and pinned it behind my back. One police officer painfully jabbed his finger into my ear. The ground was covered with sharp, broken rocks but their feet pushed my feet forcefully downward. While they carried me, my head hit the rocks on the ground two or three times.
Around 2:30, I was delivered to a naval jeep and transferred to the Naval base office gate. There, a police car was standing by. Around 100 police officers made a big wall and blocked the villagers and activists who came to protest, making a space for the police to move me into the police car. I thought that my arrest was unjust, so I resisted being put in the car. During that time, the police tried to force me into the car. While doing so, my body was turned upside down at the open car door and my upper body fell to the ground and under the car. Because of this, I tried to hold anything that I could grab causing my upper body to be pulled underneath the car. Several police officers pulled my legs but my head became stuck between the car and the asphalt ground. I yelled that my head was stuck, but the police officers were not concerned, and pulled my legs more strongly. From the left side of my chin to the middle of my chin my neck was stuck on some metal structure underneath the car.
My lower body continued being pulled by several people and because of the pressure on my neck, I couldn’t speak anymore, only groan furiously. As the police pulled my body more strongly, the edge of my teeth began to crack. I could feel and chew tiny sand-like grains of tooth inside my mouth. I heard the bones in my neck popping and became afraid that my head was separating from my body. To protect myself from dying or at least protect my head from separating from my neck bones, I frantically tried to escape to my left. During this whole time, the police just continuously pulled my legs and several times some of the police officers even pulled my genitals. I couldn’t see their faces but I could hear their mocking laughter. Behind me, I heard Priest Kim Sung Hwan protesting their cruel treatment towards me. After 5-10 minutes of fear and pain, I pulled myself towards the left with all of my strength, to release my chin from the metal structure where it was stuck. I could barely release my neck and then police pulled me out.
After the police put me into the police car, I spit out my broken teeth, which the police complained about. Behind the driver’s seat, one police officer with the last name of “Goh”, punched me with his fist. I felt pain from his fist on the left side of my stomach.
After that, in the Seogwipo Police Station, I appealed about the pain in my chin, neck, right shoulder, and back. I was lying down at that time and asked them to borrow a cell phone to make a phone call. However, they derided me saying that since I was lying down, I must just be sleepy, so I should just sleep. After giving this answer they disappeared. I had requested that they call 119 [Korean emergency medical number] but they didn’t call for 30 minutes.
I am filing a lawsuit with the Korean National Human Rights Commission against the police officers who arrested me. I request legal punishment and penalties for the police officers who treated me in an unreasonable way, so that the police will no longer trample on people’s human rights, threaten people’s lives, and disrespect people’s bodies.
