------------------------- Via Workers World News Service Reprinted from the Aug. 19, 2004 issue of Workers World newspaper -------------------------
OPPOSE OCCUPATION OF IRAQ: S. KOREANS FIGHT TO STOP TROOP DEPLOYMENT
By Deirdre Griswold
Leaning on the South Korean government to send 3,000 more troops to Iraq isn't going to save the situation in that insurgent country for the Bush administration, but it certainly is alienating huge numbers of Korean people.
Pilots, mechanics, service workers and flight attendants have refused to contribute their skills to the airlifting of Korean troops to the Middle East.
On June 22, at least 20 lawmakers from three political parties, including the government party, started a rolling sit-in at the National Assembly hall calling for the president to rescind his decision.
And on July 23 the Emergency National Movement Against Troop Dispatch to Iraq, which counts on the support of 351 civic organizations, started a hunger strike--in which fully 100,000 Koreans pledged to participate.
The next day, thousands of people gathered for a march on the Blue House- -the presidential building--where they planned to set up a human chain. But riot police blocked the march and several protesters were injured and/or arrested.
The protests continued. Han Sang-ryol, representative of a civic group for the reunification of Korea, said at a July 26 rally near the U.S. Embassy in Seoul, "The root of the problem of the dispatch of troops to Iraq lies in the South Korea-U.S. alliance, by which the U.S. subjugates our nation, and therefore such an alliance should be renounced."
On Aug. 3, police clashed with demonstrators at yet another protest near the Blue House. Fierce fighting led to more injuries on both sides. At the same time, hundreds of students tried to march on a military airport on the southern outskirts of Seoul.
They managed to erect a banner reading "Scrap S. Korea-U.S. alliance" on top of a barricade of buses riot police had set up to block them from entering the gate to the airport.
President Roh Moo-hyun was re-elected in April after surviving a rightist-inspired effort to unseat him through impeachment. Many of those voting for him undoubtedly thought that Roh, a liberal with a background as a labor lawyer, might use his increased political strength- -his party now commanded a majority in the parliament--to resist U.S. demands. But even after the June killing of South Korean interpreter Kim Sun-il, taken hostage in Iraq by guerrillas, the government refused to reconsider its plans to deploy troops.
A similar event had led Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo to withdraw her country's small force of troops from Iraq, raising hopes that South Korea would do the same.
Rep. Kwon Young-gil of the Democratic Labor Party, a progressive party newly elected to the parliament, said the government cannot justify its troop dispatch, adding, "The U.S. has become the object of rejection and hatred in the whole territory of Iraq."
The Aug. 3 demonstrations came after news leaked out that the first deployments were about to begin. The government had tried to keep their departure a secret, actually sending a memo to the media telling them not to report the details.
Yoomi Jeong, deputy secretary general of the Korea Truth Commission, says this shows that Roh is "ashamed of his actions." She told Workers World: "Roh says he's sending troops to help the Iraqi people reconstruct their country. So why would he have a media blackout about when they're leaving? South Korea has no moral ground to stand on. Roh is not proud of sending these young men to be an immoral occupation force.
"The main slogan of the South Korean movement right now is to bring the soldiers home from Iraq," said Jeong. She says that more demonstrations are planned, including a major one on Aug. 15, the day celebrating Korea's national liberation from Japanese colonial rule.
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