No War Base on the Island of Peace
In this month’s issue:
Grand March for Life and Peace 2013, August 4th Human Chain, Oliver Stones Visits Jeju, Navy wants to expand base site size, Prison letter from Kim Young-Jae, Trial, prison, and hospital updates, solidarity reports from Taiwan and Philippines and more!
(Fwd by Bruce K. Gagnon on Aug. 22. Re-blog from the article of Counterpunch, Aug. 23 to 25, 2013 and Hollywood Progressive, Aug. 26, 2013)
K. J. Noh, Oliver Stone and Bruce Gagnon were on KPFA radio in Berkeley, California on Aug. 22 talking about Jeju Island and the horrors of the Navy base. See here.
Oliver Stone Visits Jeju Island
By K. J. Noh
In 1986, a young American director, burst out on the screens with a raw, charged, kinetic film. Depicting a country on the verge of popular revolution, it documents the rightwing terror and massacres that are instigated, aided and abetted by the US government. Beginning as the chronicle of a gonzo journalist on his last moral legs, the film starts out disjointed, chaotic, hyper-kinetic; the unmoored, fragmented consciousness of a hedonic drifter. As the events unfurl towards greater and greater violence, the clarity and steadiness of the camera increase, its moral vision clearer and fiercer, carrying the viewer through a journey of political awakening even as the story hurtles inexorably towards heartbreak, tragedy, and loss.
The name of the director was Oliver Stone. The film was “Salvador”. Opened to dismissal, derision and poor distribution, it nonetheless garnered two Oscar nominations , and is now lauded as one of the most important films of the period, acknowledged to have influenced the political debate, if not the policy, around Central America at the time.
27 years later, Oliver Stone is discussing this film with the renowned Korean Film Critic Yang Yoon Mo. Professor Yang mentions Salvador, and the powerful effect it had on his generation during the violent, brutal military dictatorships of his era. “We loved it. It was a big inspiration to people all over the world. We obtained bootleg copies of it and watched it. It inspired a whole generation of young Korean film makers—for the courage and clarity of its vision. It was a model for us of what ethical and political cinema could be.” Stone smiles gently, and then reciprocates with his appreciation of current Korean Cinema—cinema that he himself may have had a hand in shaping—as he mentions “The President’s Last Bang”—a wry, understated morality tale about the assassination of the Dictator Park Chung Hee, during a dinner party-cum-orgy procured by his own intelligence services.
The rapport between two is warm and genuine and they talk as if they are old friends, old film buffs. It’s almost possible to forget for a moment that this is taking place inside a Korean Prison on Jeju Island, where Professor Yang has been sentenced to 18 months as a political prisoner, that he has been 70 days on a hunger strike, and that there are 6 of us crammed into a closet-sized visiting room: Oliver Stone, Father Moon, several activists, and an violent-looking police officer, whose every gesture and look intimates a furious desire to pound us into submission. On the other side, behind dual paned Plexiglas, the gentle Professor Yang is with another police officer, who is furiously transcribing every word that is exchanged.
It’s almost possible to forget that minutes before, we had been stripped of all cameras and recording equipment, had our ID’s confiscated and recorded, and had been escorted by half a dozen policemen to “have tea” with the chief of police, so he could “chat” with us. The police chief is warm and congenial, as only someone with absolute mastery of the rhetoric and machinery of power can be: Pontius Pilate, surrounded by his centurions, speaking softly to send the just the right mixture of benevolence and imminent threat. Out the window, to the left, we are surrounded by a panorama of verdant trees and hills. To the right, inches away, a squadron of blue suited, glaring police. It’s clear that there is more than one director in the room.
Professor Yang is being held in this jail for 18 months, along with dozens of other protestors, for the non-violent protest of a deep water Naval Base that is being constructed in Gang Jeong village on the Island of Jeju. He has been imprisoned 4 times.
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Jeju Island is a stunning subtropical island, 60 miles south of the Korean Peninsula, an ecological jewel that is home to UNESCO World Heritage sites, and biosphere reserves. World heritage sites are global treasures such as the Grand Canyon, Yellowstone Park, the Pyramids of Giza. Jeju has three of them. The shoreline of Gangjeong village, where the base is being built, is an absolute conservation area, made of soft coral, harboring many rare endangered species, and home to two thousand subsistence farmers and divers. The area called Gureombi is a site that is considered sacred to the villagers, a living, breathing landscape of tide pools, lava rock formations and stunning volcanic coastline irrigated with crystal clear springs:, the precious mineral kidneys of the island. Unfortunately, the Jeju base is also one of the centerpieces of Obama’s militaristic Pivot to Asia. Within easy striking distance—45 minutes by jet bomber, or 120 seconds as the missile flies–of Shanghai, Beijing, Tokyo, Taiwan, Vladivostok, it menaces all the major cities of East Asia. If we imagine the pacific table as a large family banquet, the military base is a loaded hair-trigger shotgun, and Jeju island is the rotating lazy susan platter in middle.
94% of the villagers are adamantly opposed to the construction. 140 National organizations, and 110 international organizations have called for its cessation. The Korean Parliament has demanded an investigation. The leaders of all the major religions in Korea have called for dialogue. The 5 opposition parties have challenged the legality of the construction. Yet construction has gone ahead, violating, subverting or ignoring every democratic process, every local, regional, national, international statute, charter and law. And so for 7 years, every single day, in one of the most disciplined non-violent struggles ever seen in the country, the villagers have been protesting the construction of this base with marches, prayers, petitions, art, masses, non-violent resistance . To date, 700 protestors have been arrested—including the largest mass arrest of Catholic Nuns in Korean History. Yang, along with other prominent intellectuals, civic and religious leaders, members of parliament, Buddhist nun, the Mayor of the village have all been “dragged like animals and beaten unconscious”, arrested, fined, sued, harassed by police, marines, and hired thugs; and received death threats. They have also been branded as Communists, opening them up to potential prosecution for Sedition under the draconian national security laws. It’s widely suspected Yang was singled out by the Korean National Intelligence Agency (the rebranded Korean CIA) in retaliation for drawing international attention to the issue. He is the longest serving prisoner to date.
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Salvador is also an apt point of reference for Jeju: at the end of the war, Jeju itself experienced its own history akin to El Salvador, but on a scale—if such comparisons of human suffering are ever possible– that dwarfed the bloodbath in El Salvador: In El Salvador an estimated 75,000 were killed over 12 years, roughly 1-2% of the population, making it one of the bloodiest of the bloody, dirty wars in Central America. On the small island of Jeju, that number, or more, were killed in less than a year (10-30% of the population), making it the first, and bloodiest genocide of the post-war era, and the savage template for subsequent US interventions across the world.
The historical background is as follows: Korea had been a colony of Japan since 1910, suffering hideously under a brutal occupation. After the surrender of Japan in WWII, the US Military Government occupying South Korea was astonished to discover that there were thousands of functioning people’s collectives (worker’s committees)-forged from anti-colonial resistance– in the south, constituting a Defacto popular government, with strong nationalist and socialist leanings. In order to suppress this grassroots socialist government, the Korean People’s Republic,—American surveys show 80% of the population supported a socialist system—worker’s councils were outlawed, leaders imprisoned, a puppet dictator was rapidly installed, and the brutal apparatus of Japanese colonial rule was reconstituted in its entirety.
Jeju Island with its strong tradition of anti-colonial struggle was one of the strongholds of these indigenous collectives, leading it to be branded as a “red island” by the US Military Government. When popular protest against the division of the country, capitalist recolonization and the wholesale re-institution of the collaborator class and its police force became vocal, a scorched earth policy of genocidal proportions was unleashed. Using paramilitary death squads, strategic hamlets, free fire zones, mass rape, mass execution, torture, napalm, defoliation, entire villages were wiped out, 70-90% of all dwellings burned to the ground, and up to 80,000 massacred; these tactics were to foreshadow US policy across the rest of Korea, in South East Asia, Central and Latin America, Indonesia, Africa, and of course, El Salvador.
Members of Yang’s family were among the first killed in these massacres. For half a century in South Korea, it was a crime against National Security, punishable by imprisonment and torture, to breathe a word of this history. The island, a lush, beautiful subtropical paradise, with rich, volcanic soil, is strewn with unmarked mass graves, and haunted with unspeakable trauma. Those who survived these killing fields, fled in terror, some 40,000 or so. Those who remained were marked as subversives by family association, banned from civil employment, and driven into exile, poverty, suicide, madness. Even the massacres themselves were erased from history, leaving the survivors unable to mourn, grieve, or seek redress. After the slaughtered bodies were dumped into mass graves or caves, the facts vanished into an event horizon; even the memory of their obliteration was obliterated. Jeju Island, for all its beauty, is filled with ghosts—the unmourned dead, and the hushed, inconsolable pain of the survivors. In this context, a large portion of the population see the remilitarization of their Island—belatedly designated as an Island of Peace—as yet another desecration, the nightmarish continuation of an atrocity that has yet to end.
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Oliver asks the Police Chief, about the conditions that prisoners like Yang are kept in: He asks whether they are able to exercise, read, receive and write letters. The Police chief, ever the congenial diplomat, answers, that he is extremely attentive to the health and well-being of his inmates, and that they are allowed all manner of comfort and recreation. He adds a comment about his concern about the hunger strike, and states with a worldly flourish, that “Esteemed Director Stone will find that the conditions of prisons in Korea are not that different from conditions in American prisons.” “Esteemed Director Stone”, does not seem assured, and without missing a beat, points out that “the conditions of US prisons are, according to the United Nations Rapporteur on Human Rights, some of the worst in the world. The systematic and routine use of prolonged isolation has been found tantamount to torture.” The police chief accedes than that perhaps there are differences, and with the hair-splitting skills of a trained bureaucrat, mentions that Korean inmates sleep on traditionally heated floors, whereas American prisoners must sleep on beds. There’s no easy conversion scale to weigh the tradition of intimidation, bastinado and torture of a Korean prison against the isolation, violence, racism of the American penal system. A beautiful police woman, impeccably coiffed, and immaculately made up,–a police geisha, if you will– passes around spring water in exquisite cut crystal glasses, with the terrifying precision of an assassin, moving, as if on cut-steel grooves. There is no need for ice. We gulp our water, thank the police chief, and Officer smash-your-face-in-if-you-so-much-as-blink-wrong then escorts us, with 5 other officers, down to the visiting rooms to meet with Professor Yang.
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90 minutes earlier, Oliver had flown directly in from Barcelona, after 7 days non-stop night shooting of a commercial, and had landed in Jeju, exhausted and bleary eyed. “I don’t usually do commercials”, he says, “but this was soccer—it encourages people to exercise, get healthy, so I’m okay with this”. Oliver looks to be needing a bit of exercise himself: 10 time zones and 20 hours of non-stop flying and transit have left him exhausted and drained. He has wiped clear his schedule, and made a huge sacrifice to travel to Jeju, but as his exit from customs is delayed, the greeting team of local activists at the airport has become anxious that he will simply be denied entry into the country. The Korean government has already denied entry to several international peace activists at the airport—most notably Elliot Adams, Tarak Kauff and Mike Hastie from Veterans for Peace, and it is not inconceivable that they would do the same for any perceived rabble-rouser. Alternatively, they are not above a little “rough play”, and for the Korean Authorities, for whom a beatdown is just a friendly way of getting acquainted, a sound drubbing could be spun as just an over eager welcome or a misunderstood expression of solicitude. The burly men in suits and earpieces tailing the greeting team make this not an unlikely possibility. Finally, when Oliver is released from transit purgatory, all of us breathe a sigh of relief, although for some reason his luggage has gone AWOL. Over the next 48 hours, the luggage will be repeatedly located but yet somehow unrecoverable, claim documents will not be filed, others improvised, leading activists to wonder if this is part of the harassment: :disrupt morale by disrupting logistics, separate the “enemy” from their materiel—in this case, Oliver’s clothes, toiletries, medicines, and his colorfully subversive collection of bandannas.
After a frantic, truncated 30 minute lunch at a local restaurant—there are no power lunches in rural Korea, only hurried ones—the team belatedly shuttles to the prison, where Professor Yang is waiting. We submit to the mandarin ceremonies of power which permit us the short visit to professor Yang. Then, as Oliver and the professor are talking shop, Oliver mentions his new series, “The Untold History of the US”. As a director, he is known for his prolific output, sometimes making two or more films in a single year. “The Untold History”, however, is a 5 year labor of love, a meticulously researched ten hour documentary (and 700 page companion volume), unmasking and chronicling of the rise of US Imperialism. Howard Zinn’s “A People’s History of the United States” is most often mentioned in the same breath, but the other great chronicle of imperialism and its excess–Thucydides’ Peloponnesian War, is also an apt comparison: “The cause of all these evils was the lust for power, arising from greed and ambition, and from these passions, proceeded the violence”. Professor Yang seems intrigued, and although he has been incarcerated too long to have heard of it, he promises that he will try to find a way to see it. Oliver expresses his concerns for his well being, and inquires as to the depth of his support among other artists. Then all too quickly, visiting time is over, and we are reduced to silent gestures of good will and hope across the plexiglass. Professor Yang touches his palm to the glass, Oliver touches it, and then he slowly bows to each of the visiting team, hands together in traditional blessing. Professor Yang seems to have been deeply moved by the visit, but for us, it’s hard to avoid the sense of abandoning a comrade in prison. We stop as we are exiting the prison to do a quick interview with a wire agency, and Oliver fiercely denounces the detention of Professor Yang. “The courage of Professor Yang inspires me” he states, with fire in his voice. “I believe without a doubt that he is a prisoner of conscience and I call for him to bereleased immediately. I deplore the militarization of Jeju Island. I deplore the building of the base”. There is passion and heart in his voice. He will reprise this theme many times over the next few days, but like the other stories about Jeju, these statements will pass largely unreported in the mainstream press.
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Nothing in Korea happens in half measures, and the heat is no exception. The Jeju heat is swelteringly close to 100 F, the humidity is in the 80’s and although there is a march for peace against the military base that is happening—an epic two day march that will circle all the way around the island, then meet up in the north and come together for a mass rally at a civic plaza, followed on the next day, by a human chain around the base–we wonder if after the harassment, delays, power plays, exhaustion, the blast furnace of summer heat is too much. We ask Oliver if he is up to joining the march, as planned.
Oliver is still resolute. “Let’s do it” he says.
The following day, Koh Gil-Jun, a key protest organizer and artist–one of the key visionaries of the museum on the Jeju Massacre–will fall to the ground during the march, vomiting, paralyzed; done in from heat, stress, exhaustion, harassment, pain. He will be taken to emergency and diagnosed with a hemorrhaged vessel in his brain. But no one seems to be measuring risk against commitment.
“Haegun giji, gyolsa bandae!”
We arrive at the march—an ocean of yellow shirts and banners, youth, children, men and women, internationals—and a huge roar goes up, the tide of people surges and vibrates with energy. If, as it has been said, the true spiritual quest is not upward, or even inward, but forward, to march forward, surely this is one of its greater manifestations.
“Haegun giji, gyolsa bandae!”
A thousand banners flutter in the wind, and the crowd is abuzz with excitement and passion. Chants thunder through the streets, like an unstoppable heartbeat. Like the huge people’s marches that toppled the previous dictatorship, the winds of history, the breath of solidarity, the tide of inevitability, seem to propel the marchers upwards, onwards, forwards.
“Haegun giji, gyolsa bandae!”
Every dimension of human aspiration is present and alive.
Drenched in sweat, Oliver puts on a yellow T-shirt on top of his sweat-soaked shirt, and is invited to join the march at the front. He modestly declines to walk “point”, and falls into the ranks. Fabled director, Hollywood icon, decorated war veteran, becomes just another marcher in a sea of protestors, a forest of banners, marching, this time, against the Imperium.
“Haegun giji, gyolsa bandae!”
“Oppose to the Death, this Naval Base”
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“How do we stop this thing? How do we stop it? We have to stop this thing.” He asks, as we return later to his lodgings. We tell him that it already has stopped, –temporarily—construction that has been ongoing nonstop, 24 hour a day, Christmas, New Years, holidays, has suddenly tapered off, and the site is eerily silent, except for the occasional pile driver. “It’s gone silent in your honor”, we joke. “You should move here permanently”.
Oliver looks out at the coast line from the balcony of his modest B & B. From there, what was one of the most stunning vistas on the coast, you can see a shoreline littered with rubble, construction cranes, bull dozers and concrete jacks.
Earlier in the day, passing the lego-block apartment complexes that were sprouting near the main city, he had jokingly inquired if they were Soviet-inspired. “This is as cheesy as anything Donald Trump would build. Donald Trump would love it here. How does a country with such good film makers have such bad architects?” He had quipped.
But looking out over the construction, no one feels like joking.
It’s not just narcissistic bad taste.
It looks evil.
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Afterwards, we head out to the docks, to take a boat tour of the coastline. Mindful of his reputation and activism, Korean news media has largely honored his visit by coordinated and conspicuous neglect, but Oliver has had the foresight to pull in a Japanese news crew. A camera crew from NHK meets us at the docks, and we get onto the boats, and start our own tour of the coast line. Out in the water, with the cool breezes, the heat abates, and it’s hard not to get a sense of the enormity of it all, the power, the endless beauty, the endless generosity and abundance of this area. The pacific Islanders have a term, Moana Nui, which sees all the pacific peoples living in a harmonious web of mutual co-existence and nourishment, connected by the benevolent ocean. Connect all, so we may all live. There’s enough for all of us: ocean, space, energy, love.
It’s hard to reconcile this with the realpolitik that is gridding off this area as a deadly chess game: control the center of the game board–Jeju Island–the king pawn/queen pawn squares, dominate the vectors and channels of lethal force, subjugate all enemies: Occupy so we may dominate and kill.
The gentle swaying and cool breezes allow us to wash off some of the day’s earlier struggles, and we find the tour both relaxing and exhilarating. The ocean is a deep, sparkling cobalt, and with its gentle billows and power, we feel again the enchanting power and beauty of the water and the island.
On the boat as our tour guide, is a Jeju local, a shaman, meditation teacher, and also, incidentally, the founder of the first and only battered woman’s shelter on the island. “Domestic violence is inseparable from State violence” she tells me. “Militarism and military violence filter down into the smallest recesses of family life. We can’t struggle against domestic violence without challenging this base.”
She tells us about the origin myths of the island, the goddess resting her head at the peak of Mt. Halla, the volcanic peak of the Island, with her feet pointing up to become the island. The creation myths of Jeju island are all goddess myths, what powers lie within and around this island are nourished and channelled from the energies of the feminine.
The feminine is most clearly represented by the Haenyo, the legendary women divers of Jeju Island. The shaman’s mother was such a Haenyo. Fable has it that some travelled to the Japanese Isles, millennia ago, taught the Ama diver women of Japan and then spread the skill spread across the pacific; whether this is true, is unconfirmable, but what’s clear is that this is one of the few places on the world where breath-holding subsistence divers still exist. If the Haenyo have survived to this day, it is clearly because these women are a force of nature: they start diving in childhood, and continue diving into their 80’s and 90’s. They have the courage, endurance, and diving skills to make sissy boys of the Navy Seals’ Underwater Demolition Teams, and during the 1930’s, they spearheaded the resistance to the Japanese Military Occupation on the island. They spend hours in the water, three minutes with each dive, through all seasons, surrendering their lives to the ocean. Their hemp or twilled cotton shirts have been replaced by modern wetsuits, but that is the only concession that they have made to technology. They steadfastly refuse to use scuba gear, or even snorkels, relying on traditional practices of breath control, prayer, and meditation, both as part of tradition, but also with the understanding that stripping the sea bed with technology is pointless stupidity. Their lifestyle is profoundly spiritual and ecological, and it is dying out in the area. The base construction will be the death blow.
Centered around the economy of the Haenyo, Jeju island has, for centuries, been a traditional matriarchal society. “No thieves, no beggars, no gates”, was a phrase commonly used to describe the society of Jeju island, cooperative, communal, matrifocal, an indigenous form of socialism that led itself naturally to the grassroots workers’ councils that flourished after the liberation from the Japanese. These worker’s councils were the basis of the “red island” designation by the US Military Government, and were the trigger for the genocide. Bases will finish off what death squads, napalm, free-fire zones, and killing fields could not. If and when the base is completed, the traditions of generations of powerful women will be replaced with bar girls, prostitutes and housemaids. A young girl who would have learned from her grandmother to read the tides, dive to a hundred feet with only the air in her lungs, and talk to the spirits of the ocean to face down death, will be servicing GI’s on her knees in back alleys. Cultural Genocide, if the term has any meaning, seems appropriate here.
Basalt Columns appear on the Island that we are passing. This is Beom Seom, “Tiger Island”, a Unesco Reserve, and at close range, you can see the entire island is formed from hexagonal basalt columns, like a dark, chiseled, striated jewel in the ocean. The top of the high cliffs is covered with pine trees, and there are wave-carved tunnels and archways around the island, an exalted, mystical architecture. Whether you believe the myth of the goddess’s feet poking out of the dark sea or some other supernatural explanation, you know that you are at the conjunction of extraordinary forces of nature. Underneath the billowing ocean, there is soft coral, and in front of us, the volcanic peak of Mt Halla, and all around us, the breeze and endless ocean.
Turning the corner of the island, we witness full on the devastation of the base construction.
We stop the boat.
From the ocean, we can see the entire scale of the violation. It is monstrous.
“F***” Stone blurts out. .
Do not touch a single pebble, a twig, a flower. All of it is sacred, the protestors have been shouting for years.
7 story, 10,000 ton, steel-bladed caissons, have been sunk into the soft coral below, exposing themselves above the waterline like the bared fangs of a mad predator. Construction has blasted, pulverized, and befouled the sacred Gureombi, the living kidneys of the island, paved it over with concrete, leaving it looking like a massive latrine. Pile drivers, bull dozers, cranes, high explosives have gashed the womb of the Goddess of Mt. Halla, leaving concrete and steel maggots writhing out of its innards, and bleeding dark silt and slurry into the pristine ocean.
Around the crime scene, a sanitary cordon of buoys and construction curtains.
It is the scene of a heinous rape-murder.
Oliver gets up on the edge of the boat. Part lecture, part possession, part jeremiad, he points to the shoreline and launches into a full blown soliloquy.
“This base will host US destroyers, aircraft carriers, Aegis missile batteries, nuclear submarines. It’s part of Obama’s pacific pivot, a chain of offensive bases from Myamar, Phillipines, Thailand, Korea, Okinawa, a necklace of bases to choke off the pacific. It’s being put in place to threaten China. Even as we speak, war materiel is being shifted from Iraq, Afghanistan to the pacific”.
“We have to stop this. All this is leading up to a war, and I’ve seen war in Asia.” His voice trembles. “I do not want another war here. I’ve seen war in Asia, and we cannot have another war here. We have to stop this thing”.
He turns to the Shaman, invites her to put a hex on the base, to invoke Gods higher than those of empire, profit and militarism. .
Oliver then gestures himself, hurling passion, heart, grief, onto the shoreline.
We all scatter our prayers, curses, tears, to the waves and the setting sun.
Everyone is silent, as we head back to the shore.
“It is a given that those who would struggle for peace, must first know the meaning of devastation”.
– By K. J. Noh who is a long-time activist and member of Veterans For Peace
Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space
PO Box 652
Brunswick, ME 04011
(207) 443-9502
globalnet@mindspring.com
www.space4peace.org
http://space4peace.blogspot.com/ (blog)
Tomorrow, August 15, 2013, the 3rd meeting of the movement to demilitarize Jeju “Jeju, the Demilitarized Peace Island” will meet. This meeting open to everyone will take place from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. in Moseulpo, on the southwest cost of Jeju.
Moseulpo is an important place in the history of military and anti-militarist struggles on Jeju. During the Japanese colonization, the residents were forced to large caves out of the coastal cliffs of Mt. Songak to store torpedos to be used for attacks on allied forces in WW2, a part of Japans broader massive military build up of Jeju in anticipation of a stand off that fortunately never happened. Nearby is the abandoned Alddreu Airfield, also set up by the Japanese military for bombing China.
Later during 4.3 and Korean War, Moseulpo, like most of Jeju was also the site to several massacres including the Massacre at Seotal Oreum. In 1950, The Moseulpo Police had arbitrarily detained 344 people in the police station, a fishing storage, and a potato storage. 211 of the detained were eventually slaughtered without any legal process and secretly buried. 20 people were killed on July 16 and 193 on August 20. 41 other people went missing.
Later from 1987-1989, the Korean government attempted to build an air-force base on Mt. Songak, but strong local resistance won after a two year struggle and the plans were scrapped. However, the Korean Ministry of National Defense still owns land in the area and recently there was has been rumors that they again plan to build an airfare base there, perhaps on part of the old Alddreu Airfield (part of which has been declared a national heritage site). Meanwhile, the ROK MND has a small radar base in Moseulpo, formerly the U.S. owned Camp McNabb (for 53 years until it was taken over by Korean in 2005.
In light of this history of oppression and resistance, Moseulpo is a key location for the movement to demilitarize Jeju.
Peace loving people from across Jeju and Korea will come together to tour the historical sites, hear about the successful struggle against the air-force base and discuss and plan the demilitarization of Jeju. Join us!
Contact gangjeongintl@gmail.com for for details.
In this month’s issue:
Arrest of Dr. Song and Brother Park, August 4th Human Chain, Timor and Lanyu Solidarity, Peace Pilgrimage, Prisoner and Trial Updates, Dr. Song’s article from Prison, Art Activism, and more!
In this month’s issue:
Visit from the UN, Grand March, UNESCO fraud, Summary of Moana Nui, Prisoner and Trial Updates, Gangjeong ocean pollution on the rise, Solidarity articles and letter, Final Court Statement of released prisoner Lee Jong-Hwa and more!
Update: Mr. Lee Jong-Hwa was released from the court after 55 days in jail as of June 21. The court sentence on him at 10:30 am was 6 months imprisonment but two year’s probation.
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Magaret Sekaggya, UN Special rapporteur on the situation on Human Rights visited Gangjeong on June 4, 2013. In the press conference on June 7, she mentioned in relation to Gangjeong that the residents’ opinions have been ignored and their greatest complaint is on the absence of consultation by the government with them; that it was turned out that the ROK state power abuses its power through the use of violence and over-excessive arrest, accusation (especially with the charge of ‘obstruction of business’), detention, imprisonment and charge of fines/ damage compensation; that the people’s basic right in rally and protest is limited and expression of freedom is oppressed; and that unjust process of deportation against international activists have been done. Her official report on the situation of human rights including those of Gangjeong is to be reported next March.
Will her points be reflected in the coming days in the fields including court where currently three conscientious prisoners from Gangjeong are among many of the charged for struggle?
Here are summaries on the latest trials on the three. All are currently held in the Jeju Prison. Each of them hit 141 days, 71 days, 55 days, respectively as of June 21, 2013: Mr. Yang Yoon-Mo ( Prisoner No. 301), Mr. Kim Young-Jae (No. 435) and Mr. Lee Jong-Hwa (No. 125)
1. Yang Yoon-Mo’s trial on June 5
Trial on Yang Yoon-Mo was held in the Jeju court around 10:30 am on June 5, the next day of her visit.
It is a different one from the trial that he was directly arrested from the appeal court on Feb. 1, this year. The prosecutor has accused him under the charges that he damaged the gate of the project committee building complex on Sept. 14, made injury on Aug. 15, and made obstruction of business by joint power on Aug. 12, 17 and Oct. 15, last year.
Upon those charges, lawyer Kang Gi-Tak said that it is not by joint power; it is not damage but scratch therefore the demanded repair fee of 800,000 KRW (about $ 800 USD) is unreasonably huge; Yang has never used slanders and grabbed by the throat of personnel. He has neither put injury; It can never be an obstruction of business since it is a self-defense in protest to interruption on Catholic mass, further there was no entry/exit of construction vehicles; there was no direct blow on the victim; it is a self-defense on illegal and unjust naval base construction (destruction). He also expressed disagreement on many accusation items. He also said he could not acknowledge the record by the CCTV since it is in violation of the law on the protection of personal information (He said the CCTV-recorded proof materials submitted by the accusers are illegally collected.) In the next trial at 2 pm, July 17, there will be examination on witness and submission on proof document etc.
2. Kim Young-Jae’s trial on June 10: The matter of the CCTV
There was a trial on Mr. Kim Young-Jae (Jeju Prison, No. 435) who hit his 60th imprisonment day on June 10. The trial is on the cases of climbing a Samsung C & T-built caisson dock in Hwasoon port in protest of naval base building on Sept. 6, 2012, the opening day of 2012 WCC Jeju, and of obstruction business that he was charged in more than 16 cases. In the seat of the accused, Fr. Kim Sung-Hwan who was one of five along with Mr. Kim Young-Jae on Sept. 6, 2012, joined Kim Young-Jae. Another person, Mr. Lee Young was not present for personal reason.
The other two, Rev. Jeong Yeon-Gil and Mr. Park Suk-Jin have had separate trials as they were both imprisoned on the day. Both were released after 98 days last year. Mr. Park Suk-Jin was imprisoned again on May 15 for the charge of violation on bail condition but was released by court decision on May 30. He got three year’s probation.
Considered of the schedule that all three can join, the next trial is 2 pm, Thursday, July 25. On the day, Mr. Kim Young-Jae would hit 105th day in prison unless he is not released on bail.
The points mentioned by a lawyer in relation to the charge on ‘obstruction of business’ were similar to the cases of Yang Yoon-Mo. Lawyer Kang Gi-Tak who is also a lawyer to Yang pointed out that:
The remarkable point in the trial on the day was the lawyer Kim In-Sook’s investigation on the CCTVs (closed-circuit televisions) and the testimonies by the personnel from Daelim and Samsung regarding the process of recording and collecting photo and video material. (For the issue of the CCTV in Gangjeong, please see the bottom)
There were three witness-two from Daelim and one from Samsung). All of those are the subjects who accused Mr. Kim Young-Jae and probably others, too, for the charge of obstruction of business. Mr. Choi from Daelim has been in charge of interior jobs of the company since Feb., 2010. Mr. Lee is a managing director of construction since June, 2011 and Mr. Park is a director of quality control in the Samsung C & T since Feb., 2011.
The lawyer Kim In-Sook’ investigation to each was focused on the CCTV. While she is informed that there are about 10 CCTVs in the project building complex and parts of those were installed by Samsung and Daelim, she asked them:
_Who MANAGE(s) the CCTV? From when to when? By the word, ‘management,’ she said that it meant everything including recording, zoom manipulation, safekeeping, submission of CCTV-recorded materials to police & prosecutor etc.
_ What is the purpose of the CCTV?
_What is the reason of submitting copies not the original materials? How can you prove that those copies are same with the originals? (She mentioned that there has never been raised an issue of original or copy before)
_How is the process of submitting materials to police and prosecutors?
It was clear to many people that the accusers/ witness were avoiding specific mentions in their testimonies/ replies to her.
But some of their answers were that:
_They do not know well about the matter of installation on the CCTVs.
_It is a security company called “Geoam,” that is in charge of management and has workered in Gangjeong for about two years (* An activist later told us that it has been about a year that the company Geoam worked in Gangjoeng) The Geoam manipulates zoom.
_The purpose of CCTV is to leave the evidence of damages INDOOR from outside
_The original is saved in the machine. They or their junior worker (in that case they confirm the final) or Geoam they ask to find CCTV materials on the specific accused on the specific dates; and they copy the found or received materials in the CD or USB driver themselves. One of them says it is same with the original since he does not know editing technology. Mr. Park from Samsung said that he himself has taken lots of records with camcorder/cameras and original records are kept safe.
Given the testimonies and article in the bottom, it would be interesting to watch the next trial and court’s final decision someday in the future.
Otherwise, Mr. Kim Young-Jae volunteered a remark at the end of the trial. He said to the judge:
“Please know that it is an only protest way for the peace keepers to sit in as a barricade themselves in front of the construction main gate. Since most construction vehicles are used for illegal construction(destruction), my act is a self-defense to protest to such illegal activities. That should be pointed out are: undemocratic behavior, unjust cancellation on absolute preservation area and injustice of environmental destruction.”
3. Trial on Lee Jong-Hwa on June 11
On June 11, there was a trial on Mr. Lee Jong-Hwa who hit 45th day in the Jeju prison (No. 125) on the day. He has another trial pending in the higher court.
The prosecutor demanded a sentence of 1 year imprisonment. The court decision will be at 10 am, Friday.
Mr. Lee Jong-Hwa said on June 5, the next day of the visit by the UN Human Rights rapporteur that he had considered fast upon her visit but gave up considering the heath of Yang Yoon-Mo who is recovering from 52 days’ fast that he ended on March 23.
Otheriwse, on June 5, a woman who had been arrested in Seoul on May 31 and then taken to Jeju Prison on June 1 was released from the court on June 5. She is told not to have responded to police call for her protest during the blast of Gureombi Rock last year. She got sentence of 2.5 million KRW fines. She did not want to disclose her name.
The below is a summary on the trial of Mr. Lee Jong-Hwa on June 5
Judge:
The accused entered into the Jeju for farming in 2011. He is a writer and his activities are nothing to do with the Jeonjoo branch of the Solidarity for Peace And Reunification of Korea. The accused stated that he would act as possible as through legal procedures in relation to the opposition activities against the naval base project.
Lawyer Heo:
The accused was indicted for the charge that he has not responded several times to the police call. But it was because he was in other trial when he could not be present to the police call on April 26, 2013. The reason that he worked in the oil station was because of his plan to live in Jeju. Even though the prosecutor says that he committed obstruction of business by power, what he did was merely to take 100 bows in front of the construction main gates. Further it was merely 3 to 30 minutes that he was sitting there. In other words, the time of obstruction of business was short with small damage.
Statement by Lee Jong-Hwa (This is the summary. You can find his full statement on the day here. You can also see his writing to prepare for trial, here):
‘During the imprisonment, I thought there needed a re-examination on the justice matter on government policy, thinking of the damage that the villagers have suffered from.
I was in charge to educate youth prisoner under trials. They are the ones who became to commit crimes as their parents are irregular or laid-off workers. I feel pain that our children is utilized as the tools by the divided situation of Korea. If we use such lots of resource and money for human beings’ co-prosperity and peace co-existence, that our Constitution states, the children in the juvenile reformatory would get the jobs and painful things would be reduced.
As Gorbachov has visited, Jeju is an Island of Peace to be demilitarized. I came to Jeju for farming but now I do my best for peaceful Gangjeong. I think this place should be a site for communication and I hope prosecutors consider it together. Our anguish together here in this court would be the basis for belief and hope.
Whatever court decision comes to me, I will not give up to express my righteous faith, which is legal right given to me, and to realize human being’s co-existence and peace and “Hongikingan (* meaning ‘benefit all human beings’), the ideology on which our country founded.
The Judge said, The accused has no other crime record except for light fine sentences and no other past record in relation to violation in rally or protest. The court decision will be at 10 am, June 21, Friday.
At the end of trials on both days of June 10 and 11, people held one man protest in front of court for one hour respectively.
Reference: The Matter of the CCTV
The Newscham, Jan. 30, 2013 reports regarding 24 hour CCTV for monitoring and control of people, installed in the whole Gangjeong village. The below is an excerpted translation of the article.
[..] When it was disclosed on Sept. 13, 2012 that the police installed camera and notebook computer, for recording the area of the main gate of the naval base project committee building complex, it brought a huge shock.
In the areas of the Jeju naval base project committee building complex main gate, construction site main gate, and the fence to the Gangjeong port, CCTVs are installed and operated for 24 hours. The CCTV-recorded stuffs are used as evidence to accuse villagers and activists under the charge of obstruction of business. The Daelim and Samsung C & T accuse villagers with the evidence of CCTV stuffs. However, the CCTVs are being illegally operated and infringe villagers’ privacy.
In the direction board of the CCTV installed in the main gate of the project committee building complex, it reads “it is recording main facilities of INNER site for the facility safety and crime prevention for 24 hours.” However, different from the direction board, the CCTVs are recording toward OUTSIDE not the INNER field main facilities. Not only that. It is manipulated in recording and monitoring by option such as by zooming or continuous focusing on one-man protest. It is in violation on the items of prohibitions on discretionary manipulation and filming others than those for purpose, stipulated in the law on the protection of personal information.
The subjects of installation, operation, and monitoring are not clear, either. On Oct. 9, last year, Lee Sang-Kyu, National Assembly man, disclosed the fact that a security service company employed by the Samsung C & T was cancelled of permisiion on Dec. 22, 2011, for its connection to violence; but it resumed operation gettimg the permission on security business again merely changing its company name to Reall S & G; and then was cancelled of permission again. However, in the CCTV direction board in front of main gate of the naval base project building complex, representative of Reall S & G whose license was cancelled is still marked as the subject responsible for management
Then, which subject(s) is continuously monitoring for 24 hours the screens of the CCTVs that record the main gate of the project building complex, entry-exit door of construction (destruction) gate, vicinity of the fence to the Gangjeong port. Paik Shin-Ok, a lawyer, has stated that there has been a testimony [in the court] that the navy and Samsung C & T workers are monitoring those in real time. If the subject of installation and operation is not the navy but the navy is monitoring those in real time, it is clearly a crime act since it is violation of prohibition on provision to the 3rd party, stipulated in the law on the protection on personal information.
On June 4, 2013 Margaret Sekaggya, UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights, visited Gangjeong to meet with villagers and activists and see the situation. The visit came as part of a two week visit to South Korea, visiting Korea’s unfortunately numerous sites of struggle for human rights and justice, such as Milyang and Gangjeong.
In the afternoon, from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. a meeting was held in the village ceremonial hall with the villagers and activists to hear of their struggle. Sekaggya said that she will take her findings from her visit to Korea and would compile a report to be released in March of 2014. At that time the report will be released to the Human Rights Council in Geneva as well as to the Korean government and publicly.
Upon her arrival many reporters and broadcast news personnel were waiting but following a brief introduction were made to leave and the doors were shut, so that the villagers could speak in private without press intimidation.
The proceedings were emceed by Village Anti-Base Committee Chairman, Goh Gwon-Il who began giving a detailed overview of the history and facts of Gangjeong and the base project until now, such as the first fake vote and the second real vote where 94 percent of the 725 villagers in attendance voted against the base.
Descriptions of military, construction, and police harassment of villagers and activists followed. A video from 2011 of naval soldiers harassing and fighting with villagers was shown. Then a video of the 4-on-1 water assault on and beating of Dr. Song Kang-Ho by Coast Guard SSU Special Unite Divers in 2011. Next a video was shown of Villagers and activists attempted to climb a barge to talk to the workers and navy, and being beaten and pushed from the boat by workers and the navy.
Next videos were shown of the recent crackdown on the sit-in tents near the gate, including the near hanging on Mayor Kang by careless police and public workers, as well as the police pushing Villager Mi-Lyang off a 6 meter high ledge. Then Mi-Lyang, who is still in the hospital for recovery, came to give her testimony of the situation. It was clearly very difficult for her to speak of the recent traumatic event.
Then, Catholic Fr. Kim Sung-Hwan came to speak about and show videos of the oppression on the Catholics, including the near death of Father Mun in April of 2012 as well as the pushing over of Father Mun during communion destroying the sacraments, general police oppression and disruption of the daily catholic mass, including the outrageous use of pepper spray on those attending the mass.
Next, tangerine farmer and chairwoman of the Village Women’s Committee to Stop the Base, Jeong Young-Hee, came to talk about and show pictures and videos of further struggles and injuries from police violence as well as base construction pollution damage to crops. After that, Activist Bok-Hee came and talked about oppression on activists including the police and security thug violence at the construction gates, displaying the many injuries. She also emphasized the double standard, that when there are many cameras or visitors, the police are very gentle and polite but when no one is looking they are violent and rude. Next, Activist Youn-Ae came and gave a personal testimony about her life as an anti-base activist and oppression she has faced in Gangjeong.
Finally, Activist Sung-Hee came and talked about oppression on internationals, emphasizing detail the stories of Benjamin Monnet and Angie Zelter who were targeted and forcefully deported. She also talked about the recent re-entry denial of long-term Taiwanese Gangjeong resident, Emily Wang, as well as the more than 20 other entry denials and deportations related the anti-base struggle.
After the nearly two hours of detailed explanation by Gangjeong villagers and activists there was a general question and answer time. The UN visitors thanked the people for their testimonies and information and asked what kind of things they would like to see in the report, such as concrete statements or actions or resolutions. Although there wasn’t much time to comment 5 people responded with suggestions.
Finally, Margaret Sekaggya thanked everyone again and apologized for the short time. She also said she felt very well received and also thanked the organizers for organizing everything so well. In the end, she wished the people the best in their continued struggle. Then she went out for a short tour of the village before departure.
Reblogged with permission from: MORNING WITH THE MAYOR | by BRUCE K. GAGNON *
I arrived in Berkeley, California last night about 7:30 pm and was able to join a group of conference participants at a Chinese restaurant where they were having dinner together. When Gangjeong village Mayor Kang saw me he rose and gave me a big hug. At that time there was no translator available so we didn’t get to have much conversation.
This morning at breakfast Mayor Kang arrived with a Korean professor from the university. The mayor had just come from doing an interview for Democracy Now which is supposed to air on Monday. Koohan Paik (Hawaii) was on the radio with the mayor. Koohan has been a great Jeju supporter and made it possible for the mayor to speak at this event on behalf of the village.
During breakfast the mayor told me that when I first came to visit Gangjeong he remembers me talking about space technology. He told me that he now understands much better what I was saying. He said he believes that the US is bringing the South Korean government into the military space program as a junior partner to help control China. I was happy to hear that he has put all the pieces together.
A translator took the mayor and I for a long stroll through the vast University of California campus. We went to the top of a huge bell tower that enabled us to see the entire San Francisco bay area. While we were looking out over the bay I told the mayor how much their non-violent resistance has inspired people all over the world due to their strong spiritual grounding. He told me that they made a conscious decision to act in that way to help them deal with the obvious depression and sadness that comes from the Navy base construction project. He said that if they were going to resist then they had to find a way to stay connected to what was good in nature and in each other. He offered to teach me the dances…
*Reblogged posts do not necessarily reflect the opinions or views of Save Jeju Now
Paco Booyah was sentenced of unjust 700,000 won fines (approx. 700 USD) on May 30. The prosecutor has appealed to the higher court and the appeal trial was held on May 9. In the original court on Feb. 8, this year, he has been sentenced of postponement of same amount of fines.
The judge, Choi Nam-Sik said that, “the prosecutor reasoned his appeal that the sentence on the accused (Paco Booyah) is too weak, compared to that on Koreans.’ The decision of higher court is that ‘there is no reason to seek for adequate management merely because he is a foreigner. There should be balance to be considered as the original court sentence on him is weaker, compared to the same charge on Koreans. The matter on deportation will be decided, considered of all sorts of situations by the Ministry of Justice, not by this court decision. The reason that the accused’ wife is Korean would be a condition for its consideration. However, the court cannot make difference of sentence for that reason. We dismiss the court decision of original court and sentence the accused of 700,000 won fines. If he does not pay for fines, he should take prison labor of 50,000 won a day. The application for the Supreme Court decision should be within a week. He should submit the document to it to the Jeju local court. The document on this court decision can be mailed to the accused’ address within a week after the accused applies for it.”
As well as in the original court that made 700,000 won sentence on Paco Booyah, there was no explanation of why it was ‘obstruction of business,’ when he sat only 8 minutes in front of the naval base project building complex during the Catholic mass. He was sitting there to avoid hot sun lights while taking photos. There was absolutely no consideration on the illegality of naval base construction (destruction) even in violation of Environmental Impact Assessment, not to mention the navy’s thorough ignorance of democratic procedures.
Also, while the original court considered that it happened during his NGO peace activities, there was no consideration on it in the higher court.
Paco Booya applied for the Supreme Court decision right after the end of higher court decision.
Stop the oppression on international peace activists!
In this month’s issue:
Crackdown in Gangjeong, Catholics stand up to police, SOS international training, Jeong Young-Hee returns from US tour, Emily Wang’s reflection on deportation, Villager Mi-Lyang badly injured by police, Conscientious objection in Korea, and more!