Koreans protest U.S. base plans
The government sent in thousands of police officers and unarmed troops, water cannons and helicopters to drive villagers and activists from a hamlet on Thursday, saying that their refusal to make room for an expanding U.S. military base threatened an alliance with Washington.
The government sent in thousands of police officers and unarmed troops, water cannons and helicopters to drive villagers and activists from a hamlet on Thursday, saying that their refusal to make room for an expanding U.S. military base threatened an alliance with Washington.
The South Korean authorities said that at least 117 police officers and 93 protesters had been hurt in fighting that highlighted efforts by Seoul to juggle two forces: the U.S. military with 30,000 troops in the country and a populace that is increasingly disenchanted with that military presence.
The fighting at the rice-farming village of Daechuri near the U.S. base named Camp Humphreys, in Pyeongtaek, 70 kilometers, or 40 miles, south of Seoul, was the most violent anti- American demonstration here in years.
Using clubs and water cannons, 11,500 police officers stormed the village at dawn. More than 1,000 students, unionists and villagers fought back with rocks and bamboo sticks, according to witnesses, TV footage and local news reports.
The protesters scattered, but about 300 made a last stand in the upper floor of an abandoned two-story school building, erecting barricades, hurling stones and shouting slogans against the U.S. military.
After a standoff that lasted hours, the police smashed their way in and hauled out protesters for questioning.
Several bleeding demonstrators were carried out on stretchers. The protest organizers said the casualty toll was larger than the figure cited by the police, but did not give a specific figure.
The last people to leave the building were several Roman Catholic priests and two lawmakers who had been camped on the roof. They said they opposed the U.S. base’s expansion because it deprived the villagers of farmland and increased the possibility of war on the Korean Peninsula.
The removal of the villagers, who had occupied the middle of about 1,100 hectares, or 2,700 acres, of government-purchased land, will allow the Pentagon to go ahead with its plan to close most of the U.S. bases in Seoul and near the border with North Korea. Those bases are to be replaced by the expanded base at Pyeongtaek by 2008.
“The relocation project is the inevitable choice for us, aimed at strengthening the South Korea-U.S. alliance and deterring a war on the Korean Peninsula,” Defense Minister Yoon Kwang Ung of South Korea said. “We can no longer delay it; unless it progresses normally, it will hurt our diplomatic credibility.”
The police and about 3,000 soldiers erected a 29-kilometer razor wire fence around the government land, which will be used to triple the size of Camp Humphreys.
Parliament has approved an agreement signed in 2004 to withdraw U.S. bases from the front line with the North for the first time since the end of the Korean War. Under the multibillion-dollar project, the Pentagon will close its sprawling Dragon Hill headquarters in the center of Seoul.
In the past century, Dragon Hill has been occupied by Chinese troops, Japanese Imperial Army units and American soldiers who came during the Korean War and stayed. For decades, the base symbolized the American sacrifices during the war and the security that helped make the rapid South Korean economic growth possible.
But younger generations consider Dragon Hill a daily reminder of foreign military influence and a slight to national pride.
By Choe Sang-Hun International Herald Tribune
Links
Presbyterian Church in the Republic of Korea expresses concern over US military expansion Peace Statement Personal Account of Peace Protests