On Monday, April 17th, the Korean Ministry of National Defense announced that it is beginning the process of changing the legal designation of Daechuri and Doduri from "property of the Defense Ministry" to a "Military Security Zone".
This is apparently in response to Gyeonggido Police Commissioner, Oh Cheongsu's recent announcement that his office would refuse to assist in any further attempts by the Defense Ministry to evict the resisting farmers of Daechuri and Doduri. Commissioner Oh denied police support to the Defense Ministry because he believed that doing so might violate Korean law. Under the US-ROK Status of Forces Agreement, Korea's national police can undertake security duty at military facilities, such as American bases, but there are no legal grounds for doing so in areas where military facilities have yet to be created.
What does this mean? This change of legal status to "Military Security Zone" means that the National Police are legally bound to assist the Defense Ministry in it's drive to forcibly evict the farmers. The Ministry will then be able to occupy the land and erect barbed wire fences, as well as possessing the manpower to repel the farmers' defence of their homes. Previously, due to the legal ambiguity in which Daechuri and Doduri existed, Defense Ministry attacks against the villages have been confined to single days, after which the police were removed and the farmers were able to repair the damage inflicted by the Ministry of Defense.
Background: The Land Partnership Plan (LPP), the final agreement laying the framework for the massive base shuffle on the Korean peninsula of which the Camp Humphreys expansion is a part, was signed on March 29th, 2002 and was later ratified by the National Assembly. In what was essentially a class action lawsuit, over 1,000 Pyeongtaek residents challenged the passage of the LPP by the National Assembly as unconstitutional and the case went all the way to the Korean Supreme Court, which, on February 22, 2006, declined to even consider that the LPP might be unconstitutional. The Roh administration, which has generally been accused by the Korean Right of being "anti-American", however, has said nothing on the eviction of the Daechuri and Doduri farmers.
General Leon LaPorte, in his speech to the US Senate Appropriations Committee on April 29th, 2003, regarding the US-ROK Land Partnership Plan, (http://appropriations.senate.gov/record.cfm?id=203403) says that the LPP was "ratified by the National Assembly in November 2002", and that it "has the full support of the Korean government." However, the LPP does not have the support of the Korean people, and it was developed in "high-level consultations" between the US Military and the Korean Ministry of National Defense. Throughout Korean society, the base shuffle has been controversial for reasons ranging from forced land expropriation and violent evictions to environmental concerns, to the loss of jobs in places like Dongducheon, where 20% of the local population is employed by the American base. The United States calls Korea a democracy, but the Korean people as a whole were never consulted in the scripting of the Land Partnership Plan, and the legitimate grievences of the people most affected by the plan have been sidelined and ignored. However, the Korean government is in a double bind, no matter what the people of the peninsula want, because the LPP itself "provides for repercussions should one side fail to meet its commitments" (page 2, Executive Summary Land Partnership Plan) (http://www.korea.army.mil/LPP/).
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Before the Ministry of National Defense goes ahead with its plan to turn peaceful rice fields into a "militarized zone", complete with barbed wire and live ammunition, the whole of Korean society - and most importantly the people adversely affected by the changes - must have their voices heard and their concerns addressed and remedied.
The people of the United States, in whose name this whole travesty is supposedly being carried out, must absolutely be informed of what is being done and ought to be involved in any discussion and subsequent decision.
Have we all not had enough of "high level negotiations" and back room deals trampling the democratic ideal: "of the people, for the people, by the people"? Have Americans not had more than enough of oppression, torture, forced land expropriation and wars of greed and conquest in their name? It is more than high time we stood up and acted.
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