Daechuri residents and supporters held a year-end rally and cultural festival in Pyeongtaek city on December 17. Several hundred supporters joined residents under the snow in front of Pyeongtaek train station for music, dance performances, and a few speeches.
Residents had planned to hold the festival in Daechuri, but moved it Pyeongtaek city when it became clear that the police would block visitors from entering, as they have during previous events. Although the police had taken down one of the checkpoints to enter Daechuri after a critical report by the National Human Rights Commision, on the morning of the rally the checkpoint was back in place and bigger than ever.
This week's news that the national base relocation plan will be postponed until 2013 could have major implications for the villagers. Daechuri and Doduri would have undoubtedly been already destroyed without the residents' and supporters' struggles to defend their homes. But the delays in the base relocation are mostly the result of the government's dramatic cost overruns. In fact, the government is now "blaming" the delays on the villagers in order to deflect attention from its own incompetence and placate supporters of the base expansion.
Though it appears that a violent eviction isn't planned for the moment, Daechuri and Doduri residents face an uncertain future. How will the farmers survive, with a full-scale military occupation of the their fields? The government seems to be hoping to "starve them out", and counting on the mass media to forget about them in the meantime.
Residents and supporters continue to demand a complete renegotiation of the base relocation agreement, and now more than ever, that the government end the military occupation of their fields.
(photos above: Pyeongtaek city year-end festival: Daechuri in the snow) |
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