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WORD COUNT
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JANUARY 10, 2007
VILLAGERS CHALLENGE
U.S. MILITARY IN SOUTH KOREA – by Christine Ahn
In Pyongtaek, a small
rice-farming town 31 miles south of Seoul, Korea, an extraordinary
struggle is taking place. Villagers are refusing to hand over their land
to the U.S. military, which plans to expand its base Camp Humphrey by
three times and occupy 2,470 acres of prime farmland. The villagers
didn't imagine four years ago that their struggle would force
policymakers to reassess the role of the U.S. military on the peninsula.
But it has.
I recently traveled
to Pyongtaek with 18 Americans, including U.S.-mom-turned-peace-activist
Cindy Sheehan. Two hundred police in riot helmets and shields stopped
our bus at the first of two heavily fortified checkpoints. Fortunately
camera crews and journalists were on hand to capture Sheehan’s grand
entry, otherwise we would have been denied access even though the
National Human Rights Commission ruled the checkpoints illegal and in
violation of the villagers’ human rights.
We joined over 100
villagers for their 811th consecutive vigil and heard from elders about
the destruction and ongoing violence and harassment. Starting in May,
over 20,000 armed riot police have repeatedly marched into the village
with heavy machinery to bulldoze their homes and rice paddies. Each
time, residents met the armed Korean military police with their bodies,
some tying themselves to their roofs to save their homes. One elderly
man in his 70s tucked his bony body in the nook of a backhoe. As the
soldiers yanked him out, he pled, “This is where my children ran and
played, where my ancestors are buried. My sweat is in these fields.”
Since the clashes
began, the authorities have injured over 1,000 people and demolished 68
homes. They also destroyed the area's only primary school, which
Pyongtaek's residents themselves built. To further drive them away, the
military built trenches, poured concrete in irrigation canals, and laid
miles of razor wire fencing to keep the farmers from getting to their
fields. “I couldn’t allow the seeds we planted to die,” explained an
elder farmer, “So we set up a human irrigation system passing water from
bucket to bucket until our crops were watered.”
To further demoralize
the villagers, the government sentenced their chief Kim Ji-Tae to prison
for two years for obstructing civil affairs and leading demonstrations.
Supporters who have poured in to serve as “human shields” say of Kim,
“We didn’t know that a farmer from the countryside could be such a
courageous fighter against the U.S. military and government repression.”
Kim’s poetic response
to authorities at a public hearing has become legend. When Defense
Ministry officials asked the price for his land, he replied, "The price
will be unimaginably high. The price must include every grain of rice
grown and harvested here. It must include all of our efforts to grow
them, as well as our whole life here, including our sighs, tears and
laughter. The price must include the stars, which have witnessed our
grief and joy, and the wind, which has dried our tears."
On November 30,
Amnesty International designated Kim Ji Tae a prisoner of conscience. On
December 28 he was freed.
The base expansion is part of the Pentagon’s 2003 Global Posture Review,
which shifts the U.S. forces in Korea from their historic role of
defending South Korea to a new capacity as a launching pad to strike
regional enemies. The number of U.S. troops will be cut from 37,000 to
25,000 by 2009, and the existing 90 U.S. bases will be consolidated to
two major hubs, Pusan and Pyongtaek. While most welcome the reduction,
many oppose having to foot the $11 billion dollar bill for the move,
military hardware and technology, especially since the deployment of
U.S. forces in South Korea ought to be winding down now, 53 years after
the Korean war. Many South Koreans see the base expansion as fueling
tensions with North Korea and standing in the way of reunification.
Without specifically
referring to Pyongtaek's resistance, the South Korean defense ministry
has announced that relocation plans would be delayed for five years
because of construction problems. Although many South Koreans see the
role of the U.S. military as good for securing regional stability, many
view its continued presence as an affront to Korea's independence
--
Christine Ahn is a
policy analyst with the Korea Policy Institute --
www.kpolicy.org -- and a contributor to “Foreign Policy In Focus” (www.fpif.org)
. A photo of Christine Ahn is available
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