Gureombi Rock will be returned back to us without fail / Naval base entry road is destroying Gangjeong River / Gureombi Rock and Kim Jong-Hwan’s Operation/ Why Do I Fast?/ Udo and Hundertwasser/ From the trees of Guam and Hawaii/ Okinawa Opinion Statements/ More Coal-Fired Power Plants? /Lets’ save Ha-je Village and the Hackberry Tree/ Keep Space for Peace Week/ SCM and THAAD/ Jeju Navy Base should be watched/ A Sewol Ferry Survivors’ fast in front of the presidential house/ Nuclear Weapons Banned Formally/ Congratulations to Christine Ahn, recipient of the 2020 US Peace Prize etc.
President Moon’s emphasis on maritime power and the navy chief’s visit home/ Black Lives Matter in Gangjeong/ THAAD product improvement amid COVID-19/ Can Island Governor Won who dreams to be South Korean President care for the lives of Korea and the Earth?/ Susan-ri, Visiting an Endangered Village/ Divest from Endless Wars: Cancel RIMPAC and End the Korean War etc.
Nov. 23 press conference (Photo by Choi Hye-young)
It was for the 1st time that a US nuclear submarine came to Jeju . Still, there was no prior media report about the entry of US nuclear submarine into the Jeju navy base which means even the media reporters could get the news at the last minutes. It was peace activists in Gangjeong who discovered it first. And strangely, there was not a TV broadcasting company in the press conference on Nov. 23, which is unusual. We suspect that the navy is really trying to hide the fact of the entry of US nuclear submarine into the Jeju navy base from the eyes of Island people and the world! WHY!
The SSN Mississippi (SSN-782) which entered the Jeju navy base at 10am, Nov. 22 and is known to leave next week is a quite an offensive arm which can penetrate close to the coast of so called enemy country and destroy its big cities in 2 -3 minutes with its 12 Tomahawk cruise missiles and torpedo. It has attacked Iraq, Afghanistan, Kosovo etc. And known to be one of the most threatening arms to North Korea. It is told to have left Yokohama US base, Japan on Nov. 10 and joined a war exercise near the Jeju sea before coming to Jeju!
In Dec. 1991, the North and South Korea governments made a joint declaration of ‘non-nuclear zone of the Korean Peninsula,’ which prohibits military use of nuclear. The declaration was made effective in Jan. 1992. By the declaration, allowing the port-entry of nuclear submarines is in violation of the joint declaration. (South Korea has no nuclear submarine so far)
North Korea has carried out nuclear tests 6 times since 2006. The government of George Bush Jr had targeted North Korea as one of seven countries in its Nuclear Posture Review. And the US and South Korean militaries have conducted war exercises which includes the scenario of preemptive strike against it and decapitation of its leadership.The joint declaration has already been broken. Still it is important for South Korea not to arm itself with nuclear since non-nulclearization of the Korean Peninsula is a necessary premise for peaceful unification of Korea.
It that sense, the agreement by Presidents Moon Jae-in and Trump to introduce military strategic assets which include acquirement of nuclear submarine by South Korea was already regrettable.
US nuclear submarines have entered the naval ports of Jinhae and Busan in the south of Korean peninsula for more than 10 years with accidents not well known to the public.
However, the significance of Jeju navy base is in its geopolitical location. It is closer to China and was built to ‘ protect southern sea lane.’ which means the ‘South Korean’ base was primarily built to contain China, on behalf of US Strategic flexibility policy.
That is why the visits by US nuclear submarine or any further strategic assets to the Jeju navy base is threat to the stabilization and peace of the region.
We have resisted long time to stop the construction of the Jeju navy base because it would greatly destabilize so endanger the peace of the region. And what about the UNESCO-designated soft corals, dolphins and other unspeakable lives?
How about the possibility of radiations? Who get profits from this endless war exercises and military buildup?
US Nuclear submarine out of Jeju!
All warships, go away!
Close the Jeju navy base!
Stop the militarization of Jeju!
Jeju is not for a garbage and radiation dumping ground by foreign militaries!
(The navy says there will be no radiation dumping by the SSN Mississippi. But even if it could be true, how about possible radiation release of radiation during its stay in the Jeju navy base!)
Photo by Joyakgol
The status of foreign warships’ visits to the Jeju navy base, 2017
(left on June 20)–> The ship had to unexpectedly leave the port around 6 pm on the same day, cancelling its participation in a joint war exercise with Canada and South Korea, because of discovery of damage in its equipment. Its departure was 10 hours after its docking into the base.
US MCM_14, Chief, enters the jeju navy base on Sept. 26, 2017 Photo by Park Inchun
According to Park Inchun, it was 9:28:24 am in the morning of Sept. 26 that a USS mine countermeasure ship called ‘USS Chief, MCM-14’ entered the port of Jeju navy base. We haven’t heard the purpose of its visit. But its homeport is Sasebo, Japan. It belongs to the 7th fleet of the US Pacific Command.
Trump does not care to make the Korean peninsula as a battlefield (in the name of alliance!) regardless of Korean citizens’ lives. Jeju is not an exception. In any outbreak of war, Jeju would be one of the launching sites. It can be attacked first. We do picketing for the reason to save innocent young lives who may be first sacrificed in the war, also.
Chief, US Mine Countermeasure ship, Get out of Jeju. Photo by Mangi
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_The Strengthening of invasive launching bases: Iwakuni-Sasebo-Okinawa-Jeju_
According to Koh Young-Dae, SPARK, the US marine bases, Iwakuni, Japan, which has recently been massively consolidated, would be operated as an invasive launching base in linkage with the US navy base, Sasebo, in case of outbreak of Korean or other wars. It was the role of Iwakuni during the Korean war, 1950-1953. Sasebo provided ammunition during the Korean war in the past. It can provide ammunition to possible war or emergency in the Korean peninsula in the future as well. In Sasebo, US assaults ships and mine countermeasure ships are stationed. (It is also known to be one of the strategic points along with Okinawa and Jeju)
Kog Young-Dae has said the Jeju navy base is a foothold for the integrated Ballistic Missile Defense system in the Northeast Asia region. The ROK-US-Japan maritime war exercises occur in the Jeju Sea. The sea between Jeju and Sasebo (located on the same latitude with Jeju) is one spot.
[Aug. 15-31] USNS Henson (T-AGS-63), a pathfinder class oceanographic survey ship, surveyed the Jeju sea water.
[Aug. 30] USS Wasp (LHD-1), a multipurpose amphibious assault ship, leaves toward Sasebo
(*In between, THAAD deployment is completed with the deployment of additional four THAADF launchers in Soseong-ri, Seongju, main land of Korea)
[Sept. 18] The two US strategic bomber B-1B and four F-35 B made joint exercise with four F-15 stealth fighter planes of South Korea in the air over the Korean peninsula. The US military planes which flied from Okinawa and Iwakuni dropped bomb of exercise-use into the firing range in Gangwon province. The total cost of planes mobilized on the day amount around $ 1.6 billion USD
(Hankyoreh, Sept. 18)
[Sept. 21] The United States Forces of Korea visit the Jeju navy base (As of Sept. 21, New York time, there was a ROK-US-Japan summit meeting)
[Sept. 23] US B-1B Lancer and F-15 fighter planes flied to the northern tip of the Demilitarized zone and went to north crossing the Northern Limited Line (NLL) in the east side (So called The East Sea/Japan Sea) (Hankyoreh, Sept. 23)
[Sept. 26] The USS Chief, MCM-14 entered into the Jeju navy base, It belongs to the Pacific fleet of the US navy, Its homeport is Sasebo.
[October] A nuclear-propelled US aircraft carrier assault group including Ronald Reagan is planned to make joint exercise with South Korean navy over the sea water area of the Korean peninsula (Hankyoreh, Sept. 23)
Photo: Mangi(1, 2), Park Inchun (3: USS MCM 14 Chief entering into the Jeju navy base on Sept. 26)
The Sewol ferry sinking on Apr. 16, 2014. Two years and two months have passed, but the facts of the case have still not been properly revealed. (by Kim Bong-kyu, staff photographer)
Investigation shows the ferry was overloaded with iron bars meant for Jeju naval base, and may have left to keep the construction schedule
It has been officially confirmed that the Sewol ferry was carrying 410 tons of iron bars meant for construction at the time of the sinking. The government acknowledged that 278 tons of these iron bars were bound for the construction of the naval base on Jeju Island.
But instead of closing the case, the government’s confirmation is only stirring up more suspicions. If the investigative period of the Special Sewol Investigative Commission comes to an end on June 30 as the government intends, we will be even further away from learning the truth about the tragedy two years ago that claimed the lives of 304 people, nine of whose bodies have never been recovered.
The real reason the ferry was overloaded: how many iron bars were bound for the Jeju naval base?
The causes of the sinking of the Sewol as ruled by the Supreme Court were that the ferry was overloaded with cargo, that the cargo had not been fastened down securely enough, and that the ferry had undergone structural changes. In connection with overloading, which is one of these causes, the revelation that the Sewol was carrying a large amount of iron bars intended for use in constructing the Jeju naval base is raising new questions.
“The results of our exhaustive investigation is that the Sewol was carrying a total of 2,215 tons of cargo at the time of the tragedy even though the maximum amount of cargo it was authorized to carry was 987 tons, which means it was overloaded by 1,228 tons,” the commission said on June 27. The commission learned that iron bars accounted for 410 tons of this cargo and that a portion of these iron bars were supposed to be transported to the naval base on Jeju Island.
On Tuesday, Hwang Ju-hong, a lawmaker with the People’s Party, also quoted a document from the Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries stating that there were 426 tons of iron bars on the Sewol Ferry and that 278 of them were bound for the naval base. This information was gleaned from the list of compensation money paid in connection with the Sewol.
The reason that this figure of iron bars is 16 tons higher than the commission’s findings is because it includes not only iron bars that were loaded as a separate item but also iron bars belonging to Jeju Seondeok Shipping that were carried by vehicles inside the ferry.
“The 54 tons of H-beams should be added to the 278 tons [that the government acknowledged] in order to find out how much of the cargo on the Sewol was bound for the naval base,” the commission said.
The figures revealed on Tuesday only concern what was loaded on the Sewol ferry on the day of the accident. Further investigation is needed to determine with what regularity the ferry was overloaded with iron bars and other building materials bound for the naval base prior to the accident and how much of an effect overloading the ferry with iron bars had on the accident.
The government’s responsibility: why did the prosecutors fail to uncover this?
When the joint investigation by the police and public prosecutors announced the findings of its investigation into the Sewol sinking in Oct. 2014, it said that the ferry had been carrying a total of 2,142 tons of cargo. The investigation data that was submitted to the commission indicated that the iron bars had weighed 286 tons. This figure omits 124 tons from the 410 tons of iron bars that the commission announced.
“We conducted an exhaustive investigation ourselves and even confirmed the location of the vehicles using footage from security cameras. Our estimate was conservative, but we included everything that could be verified,” the prosecutors said on June 28.
But now that the government claims that there were no iron bars bound for the naval base on the Sewol have been disproven, the prosecutors’ investigation is wide open to accusations of shoddiness.
“We didn’t deny it. The army’s position was that it could not confirm it,” explained an official with the Defense Ministry.
The Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries also says that it had been aware of this fact. “We learned that the 278 tons of iron bars were supposed to be delivered to the Jeju naval base after we saw a news report in April and checked the Sewol compensation records,” a ministry official said.
The Ministry is claiming that it only recently learned of this fact, but this is effectively an acknowledgement that it had documents in its possession with which it could have determined the amount of iron bars on the Sewol. When the commission asked the Ministry in April to submit a variety of documents needed for it to investigate the amount of cargo on board the Sewol – including the compensation list, the cargo manifest and the shipping instructions – the Ministry did not submit any of it.
This was why the commission had to investigate each of the individual cargo owners in order to determine the amount of the cargo, a commission spokesperson said.
An imprudent departure: why did the Sewol set out on its own?
Around 9 pm on Apr. 15, 2014, the Sewol ferry departed Incheon Harbor on its own, while poor weather compelled other ships to remain in port. Following the disclosure of the iron bars that were intended for the Jeju naval base, allegations are being raised that the ship put to sea rashly in order to meet the construction schedule for the base.
Significantly, suspicions that have been raised over the past two years about a “special relationship” between the Sewol and South Korea‘s National Intelligence Service (NIS) continue to smolder. Employees from Chonghaejin Marine spoke on the phone with the NIS on the day of the Sewol accident and the next day; the Sewol was the only ship among 17 coastal ferries in the 1,000-ton class or above that was supposed to report to the NIS at the time of the accident; and the name of an NIS agent surnamed Seo appears on a document prepared by Chonghaejin Marine when the Sewol ferry was bought from Japan in 2012.
These facts point to the need for an investigation into whether the NIS was connected to the construction of the naval base at Gangjeong Village on Jeju Island, which was fiercely opposed by demonstrators, and whether the NIS gave orders for the ferry to be rashly overloaded in order to keep the base’s construction on schedule.
Determining why and by whom the ferry was overloaded is important because overloading affects a ship’s stability.
“If there’s a lot of cargo, it’s very likely to reduce the ship’s stability. When we ran a simulation of the ferry’s course using the amount of cargo that turned up in the police and prosecutors’ investigation, it did not match the ferry‘s actual wake. The figures would only work with a lower stability, and I thought that we would have to check the amount of cargo when the Sewol was raised,” said Lim Nam-gyun, a professor at Mokpo National Maritime University.
“This shows that even the government is not free of responsibility for overloading the Sewol, which is considered to be a primary cause of the ferry’s capsizing,” said Rep. Hwang Ju-yong on the fact that the Sewol was carrying iron bars intended for the naval base. “We need to ensure that the Sewol Commission has enough time to conduct its investigation so that it can inspect the hull of the ship to determine the cause of the capsizing.”
The commission, which has received notification from the Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries that its investigative mandate will end on June 30, said that it was planning to submit a petition to the National Assembly on Wednesday to request the appointment of a special prosecutor.
By Kim Mi-young, Kim Jin-cheol and Choi Hyun-june, staff reporters
Please direct questions or comments to [english@hani.co.kr]
