Anjeong-ri, the town that greets US soldiers when they walk out of the gates of Camp Humphreys, doesn't feel like other Korean towns. On the pedestrian shopping street, American flags fly right next to Korean flags on the lampposts. Almost ss many signs are in English as Korean. Some residents have become prosperous by selling cell phones, housing, alcohol, and whatever else the US soldiers might want to buy. Like in all base towns, the sex industry has thrived-- but of course, not the sex workers.
Some of those who have earned the most from the soldiers' dollars, especially local bar and club owners, have formed the Paeng Seong Merchant's Association to protect their profits. In July, when soldiers were required to stay on base (out of the bars) during a protest march, a gang of stick-wielding Merchant's Association members attacked Daechuri and Doduri supporters (see www.saveptfarmers.org/blog/2006/07/). The Merchant's Association fears a drop in business if the base expansion doesn't go through, a fear that the Korean government has actively encouraged.
On October 14th and 15th, the Merchant's Association organized the “Korean-American One Heart” festival to celebrate the US presence in Anjeong-ri. The festival opened up with platitudes and empty promises from local politicians, business leaders, and high-ranking US Army officers.
A group of independent documentary filmmakers, working on films about Daechuri and Doduri, had come out to interview rank-and-file soldiers and officers about the base expansion. As the program turned to the weekend's cultural events, we tried to talk to some of the US officers who had spoken on the stage. Two officers refused to be interviewed, so we took to filming a third officer as he glad-handed soldiers, Merchant's Association leaders, and local residents.
After 10 minutes of uneventful filming, we saw the officer speak to a young soldier who we had interviewed earlier in the day. The soldier pointed at us as he talked to the officer, and we assume that he told the officer about our interview. Immediately after, the officer spoke to a Merchant's Association leader, who said something to another Merchant's Association member. This man walked over to us and insisted, with a firm hand on our shoulders, that we follow him. At first we thought we were being taken to interview the US officer. But we found ourselves being led past the officer down an empty side street, accompanied by 8 very unfriendly-looking men in sharp black suits. These men were the bar bouncers who also serve as all-purpose bodyguards and thugs for the Merchant's Association.
When we refused to go any further, the bouncers and Merchant's Association member surrounded us and demanded to see our business cards. Fortunately, we didn't quite fit their profile of “dangerous”. When they saw our cards they said, “Oh! We thought you were college students! Or friends of (outspoken Daechuri supporter) Father Moon!” We wonder what would have happened if they had decided that we really were “friends of Father Moon”. In any case, we were firmly escorted, big hands on our shoulders, back onto the main street and away from the US officer.
Later in the day, as we interviewed a rank-and-file soldier on an Anjeong-ri side street, the soldier stopped to answer a call on his cell phone. He told us that the call had been from a superior, though he wouldn't tell us who. He had been told to ask us for our press credentials, which we showed him.
It's not surprising that the US Army doesn't want to talk about the base expansion. Whatever the US Army may say about it being an affair between the Korean government and the Korean people, the expansion is clearly the consequence of decisions made by American policy makers, to strengthen US imperial control in East Asia.
It isn't very surprising either that the US officer had local thugs intimidate journalists and avoid questions about the expansion. From the beginning, the US has relied on the the Korean army and police to do its dirty work and clear out Daechuri and Doduri farmers. The Korean police and army have in turn depended on privatized violence to terrorize the Pyeongtaek farmers. On May 4th and 5th, thugs hired by the police attacked demonstrators in Daechuri. And the Korean government has only encouraged the Merchant's Association in its campaign against the Pyeongtaek farmers.
There's no reason to believe that the US army is unaware of these tactics. In fact, it fits perfectly with the US military strategy of complementing official state violence with unofficial or private violence for especially dirty jobs. In Iraq, some reports indicate that the US has fomented or at least tolerated the death squads that are inflaming sectarian violence in the country. More concretely, across Latin America, the US army has trained local militaries in the formation of death squads and right-wing paramilitary armies since the 1960s.
In Colombia, some US military training manuals have finally become public. These manuals explicitly instruct the Colombian army to use armed civilian allies in their dirty war against social movements. But in Pyeongtaek like in Colombia, farmers resist these dirty war tactics and continue to fight for their land. |
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