Siege and Seizure in Korea
by Cindy Sheehan
27 November 2006
Znet
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?ItemID=11492
Traveling around the world these past months has given me an education about American history that majoring in the subject at UCLA never did. I have witnessed first hand what US imperialism and militarism can do to countries and societies. I sat with indigenous Hawaiian tribal leaders who shared their tragic stories of how US colonialism and militarism ruined their fishing waters and turned their lands into super-fund sites. I stood in solidarity with Irish peace activists who want the US military off of their soil and US transport and rendition planes to stop using Shannon Airport to land to refuel. These are just a few stories, everywhere I go, the local populations have stories of greed, crime, corruption, pollution, etc., that all go hand in glove wherever the US military is present. Not to mention the war zones where hundreds of civilians are murdered, maimed, or displaced on a daily basis.
This rampant, arrogant, and careless US militarism has nowhere been more evident than here in South Korea, especially in the village of Daechuri, near Pyong-taek City. The loathing for George Bush, America, Americans, irresponsible capitalism, corporatism, imperialism and militarism is a planetary phenomenon, but above what the US is doing to the wretched countries of Iraq and Afghanistan, I have never been more ashamed of the US government than when I visited the village of Daechuri with 17 other American peace and social justice activists and a campesino from Colombia.
Miles before our bus reached the village on the evening of November 20th, we were stopped by approximately 200 South Korean riot-police who were decked out in their full riot regalia with bullet proof shields. We were traveling with Father Moon, an elderly Catholic priest who has been an advocate for the villagers for a few years now. Father Moon got out of the bus and negotiated with the police captain for what seemed hours in the near freezing cold, but was only about 20 minutes. Finally, in what the villagers said was an unprecedented move, they allowed us entry into the village (after we passed another heavily guarded checkpoint). Villagers must present ID to get into their own village and visitors are rarely allowed to go in. Why? Because the village of Daechuri is under-siege in a criminal collaboration between the governments of South Korea and the United States of America and the governments don’t want the world to see what their crimes are doing to yet more innocent civilians.
The village of Daechuri has the unmitigated gall to be located next to a US military base, Camp Humphreys, which is slated for an eleven-billion dollar expansion that would include a golf course for the use of soldiers stationed there. The only problem is (not for the governments) that the village of Daechuri and their thousands of acres of farmland, mostly rice paddies, are in the way of the juggernaut of US military expansion. The people of Daechuri have been cut-off from their farmlands by razor wire, guard towers, and armed foot patrols. Over two-thirds of the residents have the small village, but that leaves about one-third of them there to stand against the mightiest Army and the greediest government in world history.
In the 1980s, Ronald Reagan famously said: “tear it down” regarding the Berlin Wall. There are many more walls on Earth that separate people from their farmlands, families, jobs and country that need to be torn down, but so-called civilized nations are building more walls and fortifications to contain and control free human movement and expression and curb populations that are just trying to live their lives in the traditional ways that they always have.
After our tour bus pulled up into the village, we were ushered into a large warehouse where the villagers were holding their 811th nightly candlelight vigil in protest of the US incursion. We joined their vigil and heard their stories. We heard stories of May 4th, when 20,000 Korean police descended on the village with heavy-hands and strong arm tactics that allowed the barbed wire fences to be constructed, thereby effectively cutting the farmers off from tens of thousands of dollars worth of un-harvested rice. We heard stories from village elders who lived through Japanese imperialism and occupation to the US Korean police action that killed 2.5 million Koreans, and are now having their lands and ways of life robbed of them by a “Pax Americana.” My heart broke for the people of Daechuri and was filled with disgust for whom the people of Korea call “Georgie Bushie” and whom I call â |
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