iggy mogo

fuckyeahmarxismleninism:

Busan, South Korea: Students protest the entry of the U.S. nuclear aircraft carrier Nimitz and its personnel, May 11, 2013. The arrival of the Nimitz is the latest U.S. military provocation against socialist North Korea.

From Save Jeju Island:

Students protested the entry of Nimitz US nuclear aircraft carrier in Busan. 26 students were arrested. Most were released but one is still under investigation as of May 13. 

The Voice of the People reported on May 13: “The students made a protest chanting ‘Withdraw US nuclear aircraft carrier’ and ‘Stop war attempt’ in Busan around 1:40 pm, May 11. The students blocked two tour buses carrying Nimitz crew. The students were violently arrested around 3:30 pm.

More photos here

go busan!

(via elisimo)

deepfriedavocado:

(image: Full Moon in Jeju Prison on Chuseok by Emily Wang)

Today is the 65th anniversary of the 4.3 (sa sam) uprising and massacre in Jeju Island, Korea. With the backing of the US, the South Korean government executed or disappeared 14,000-60,000 (nearly 1/10 of Jeju’s population). Under a scorched earth policy and martial law, 70% of Jeju’s villages were burned to the ground. 82 villages vanished, never to be rebuilt.

—

In the year preceding sa sam, Jeju was experiencing heavy police/military repression under US occupation. Jeju was overwhelmingly anti-division, and as reunification of Korea became less and less likely, 30,000+ rallied to mark the 21st anniversary of the March 1st anti colonial movement. Police under control of the USAMGIK (US Military Government in Korea) opened fire on the crowd, killing six. Nine days later, on March 10, 95% of Jeju workers and officials began a general strike to protest the March 1st shootings and police repression. Their demands were 1) immediate release of the arrested and compensation for their injuries, 2) the firing of Japanese collaborators from positions of power (they had been stripped of power post-liberation, and were promptly reinstated by occupying US forces), 3) punishment of the police who had killed civilians, and 4) the reconvening of US-USSR joint commision (the body handling Korean affairs/division/unification whose talks had broken down).

“95% of Jeju residents have a leftist hue to them. The rebels are highly trained Communist and North Korean soldiers.” —USAMGIK memo dated March 14, 1947

An intensified “red hunt” commenced, and extrajudicial violence continued to escalate for the next year. In March 1948, police tortured three young men (including a middle school student) to death.

On April 3, 1948, the Jeju Uprising began. Armed civilian groups attacked police stations and right-wing group headquarters. They made it clear that this was in opposition to police violence, the “election” of US-backed president Syngman Rhee, and the division of Korea. Though US and ROK militaries claimed that these groups were highly trained North Korean soldiers, resistance fighters were poorly armed civilians who were mostly armed with bamboo spears.

Over the next several months, Syngman Rhee and USAMGIK adopted a scorched earth strategy and declared martial law (Nov 17). Tactics for repressing Korean independence activists under Japanese colonialism such as specific forms of torture and illegal detention without trial, were revitalized during this time. Prisons were packed with “Communists” and many young men and women were abducted for forced labor and rape. Villages were systematically raided and destroyed, and survivors who fled to Mt. Halla (Halla-san) for safety were hunted and killed. In villages like Tosan-ri, all women and girls were abducted and never returned.

The violence continued well into the Korean War—during the war, thousands of suspected leftists from the entire peninsula were captured, detained, and executed in Jeju.

For nearly 50 years after, discussing the incidents of Sa sam was punishable by imprisonment and torture under the National Security Act (which made it illegal to be “anti-government,” “pro-communist,” and “pro-North Korean.” NSL has its roots in Japanese colonial period. It was abolished with liberation and reinstated in 1948. It still exists today). The NSL made it impossible for people to speak out against state violence for fear of retribution: arrest, detainment, torture, and death were among the many potential consequences that islanders feared (not just for themselves, but for their families and other loved ones). The first person to write publicly about sa sam (in 1978), Hyun Ki Young, was imprisoned and tortured for three days and warned not to write about it again.

Sa sam wasn’t recognized by the Korean government until 2006.

Today, less than 10 years after the ROK government apologized for 4.3, a US/ROK naval base is being built in Gangjeong Village, Jeju. In the midst of an escalating crisis/an unending war in Korea, and in spite of fierce opposition from Gangjeong villagers, Jeju is yet again becoming a militarized site of violence. The ROK and US plan on stationing 20 warships, nuclear aircraft carriers, submarines, and two Aegis destroyers integrated with the US Missile Defense System in Gangjeong by 2014.

sources:

Jeju 4.3 Peace Memorial (http://jeju43.jeju.go.kr/index.php)
Save Jeju Now (savejejunow.org)
Korea Policy Institute (koreapolicy.org)

(via lostintrafficlights)

koreaunderground:

The Military Impacts in Hawai’i should be a Warning to Koreans about the threat to Jeju island

By Kyle Kajihiro

Ms. Park Keun-Hye is gravely mistaken to claim that military bases have been good for Hawai’i and therefore would be good for Jeju. The U.S. invaded and occupied the sovereign country of Hawai’i in order to build a military outpost. This included the taking of more than 200,000 acres of land for military bases, training and other activities. The result has been the destruction of the environment with more than 900 military contamination sites identified by the Department of Defense. The military’s toxic cocktail includes PCB, perchloroethylene, jet fuel and diesel, mercury, lead, radioactive Cobalt 60, unexploded ordance, perchlorate, and depleted uranium.

When the U.S. took over, especially during WWII, the military seized thousands of acres of Hawaiian land. Whole communities were evicted, their homes, churches and buildings razed or bombed for target practice, their sacred sites destroyed by bombs or imprisoned behind barbed wire.

Recently, hundreds of landless Native Hawaiian families were evicted from a secluded area of O’ahu where they had been living in cars and makeshift tents. They are the internally displaced native people, evidence of the so-called ‘benefits’ of militarization. Meanwhile the military occupies more than 13,000 acres of Hawaiian land, comprising a third of the land in that part of the island.

The enormous military presence did not bring security. On the contrary, it made Hawai’i the prime target during WWII and the Cold War. Militarization imported the most virulent forms of racism and martial law to the islands and provided the U.S. a launching pad from which to expand its empire. The military interests of the U.S. continue to override the needs and security of local communities as it distorts our development in ways that serve empire.

I would invite Ms. Park to take a swim in Hawai’i’s most famous military-tourist attraction: Pearl Harbor (the true name given by Native Hawaiians is Ke Awalau o Pu’uloa). However, the water is too toxic. And before she could get very far, she would be arrested by the Navy for trespassing in military waters. There is no tourist activity within Pearl Harbor except for those museum sites controlled by the government.

Ke Awalau o Pu’uloa is a perfect example of the dangers of militarization. The U.S. invaded and occupied the Kingdom of Hawai’i in order to take Ke Awalau o Pu’uloa as a strategic port. What was once one of the most productive fisheries for Native Hawaiian people with extensive wetland agriculture and aquaculture complexes that fed many thousands on O’ahu island has become a giant toxic Superfund site. Today there are approximately 749 contaminated sites that the Navy has identified within the Pearl Harbor Naval Complex. The seafood from Ke Awalau o Pu’uloa is no longer safe to eat. The famous pearl oysters are no more.

It is partially true that the military has become a major economic source in Hawai’i, but at a very high price. The military economy is artificial. It is largely a result of the corrupt processes of the military-industrial-political complex that injects money for pet projects in the islands like a drug. Politicians, businesses, and even unions become addicted to the quick high of these federal infusions and then become desperate to chase the next fix, even at the expense of the environment, Hawaiian rights and sovereignty and peace in the Asia-Pacific region. Meanwhile the real source of Hawai’i’s economy – the beauty and health of our natural environment and our cultural richness – deteriorates at an alarming rate.

The questions that we must always ask about the alleged economic benefits of the military in Hawai’i are: “Who gets paid? Who pays the price? What are the real social, cultural and environmental costs of such a dependent economy?” The native people of the land are the ones whose lands are always stolen and destroyed by the military. They and other poor groups live in the toxic shadow of the bases. Other productive capacities wither away as Hawai’i has grown completely dependent on imports (90% of food is imported) and federal spending. Meanwhile those who benefit most from the military economy are the contractors (many who flock to Hawai’i when new military funds are approved) who feed on the destruction wrought by all this so-called ‘prosperity’.

Jeju island is a unique cultural and natural treasure that must be protected from military expansion. The beautiful islands of the Pacific are being targeted because the governments think we are small and insignificant. But islands do not have to be isolated. As the peoples of the Pacific have known for centuries, Ka Moananuiakea (the great ocean) unites us, brings us life, culture, food and solidarity. We must join our efforts and broaden our solidarity beyond our local shores, we can weave a net that is big and strong enough to restrain those monstrous fish that threaten to devour us all.

………………………………………………………

 Reference

http://www.headlinejeju.co.kr/news/articleView.html?idxno=149257
박근혜 “해군기지로 제주발전 재도약 뒷받침할 것”
해군기지 업무보고…”70년대 감귤이면, 지금은 해군기지가 성장동력”
제주도 “15만톤급 크루즈 안전성 꼭 필요”…박 “좋은 결론 나왔으면”
2012.05.01 14:43:44

http://www.sisajeju.com/news/articleView.html?idxno=146386
[사진]짧은 거리 경호원이 우산 펴자, 박근혜 위원장 손 저으며…
2012.05.01 13:24:46

http://www.headlinejeju.co.kr/news/articleView.html?idxno=149232
박근혜 위원장, “제주해군기지 업무보고 받겠다”
오후 1시 제주도청서 민군복합형 관광미항 업무보고 받기로
제주항 터미널 현장투어…노인복지시설 현장 방문 후 이도
2012.05.01 09:44:34

http://www.pressian.com/article/article.asp?article_num=60120330170329
박근혜 “제주, 해군기지로 ‘동양의 하와이’ 만들어야”
“민간인 사찰, 지위고하 막론하고 철저히 수사해야”
2012-03-30

http://www.jejuall.co.kr/

(via meetmeinjejudo)

On the Front Lines of a New Pacific War:

On the small, spectacular island of Jeju, off the southern tip of Korea, indigenous villagers have been putting their bodies in the way of construction of a joint South Korean–US naval base that would be an environmental, cultural and political disaster. If completed, the base would hold more than 7,000 navy personnel, plus twenty warships including US aircraft carriers, nuclear submarines and destroyers carrying the latest Aegis missiles—all aimed at China, only 300 miles away.

Since 2007, when the $970 million project was first announced, the outraged Tamna people of Gangjeong village have exhausted every legal and peaceful means to stop it. They filed lawsuits. They held a referendum in which 94 percent of the electorate voted against construction—a vote the central government ignored. They chained themselves for months to a shipping container parked on the main access road, built blockades of boulders at the construction gate and occupied coral-reef dredging cranes. They have been arrested by the hundreds. Mayor Kang Dong-Kyun, who was jailed for three months, said, “If the villagers have committed any crime, it is the crime of aspiring to pass their beautiful village to their descendants.”

Jeju is just one island in a growing constellation of geostrategic points that are being militarized as part of President Obama’s “Pacific Pivot,” a major initiative announced late in 2011 to counter a rising China. According to separate statements by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, 60 percent of US military resources are swiftly shifting from Europe and the Middle East to the Asia-Pacific region. (The United States already has 219 bases on foreign soil in the Asia-Pacific; by comparison, China has none.) The Jeju base would augment the Aegis-equipped systems in South Korea, Japan, the Philippines, Singapore, Vietnam and the US colony of Guam. The Pentagon has also positioned Patriot PAC-3 missile defense systems in Taiwan, Japan (where the United States has some ninety installations, plus about 47,000 troops on Okinawa) and in South Korea (which hosts more than 100 US facilities).

[…]

On the island of Jeju, the consequences of the Pacific Pivot are cataclysmic. The UNESCO Biosphere Reserve, adjacent to the proposed military port, would be traversed by aircraft carriers and contaminated by other military ships. Base activity would wipe out one of the most spectacular remaining soft-coral forests in the world. It would kill Korea’s last pod of Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphins and contaminate some of the purest, most abundant spring water on the planet. It would also destroy the habitats of thousands of species of plants and animals—many of which, such as the narrow-mouthed frog and the red-footed crab, are gravely endangered already. Indigenous, sustainable livelihoods—including oyster diving and local farming methods that have thrived for thousands of years—would cease to exist, and many fear that traditional village life would be sacrificed to bars, restaurants and brothels for military personnel.

read more at http://www.thenation.com/article/171767/front-lines-new-pacific-war

The Avatamska Sutra aka Passage to Buddha (화엄경), a film by Jang Sun-woo. 1993.

US Navy Ship Ignored Warning Before Ramming Pristine Coral Reef:

The US Navy minesweeper that smashed into the World Heritage-listed coral reef off the Philippines coast last week ignored warnings to avoid the area, according to a Philippine government official.

The comments from the superintendent of Tubbataha Marine Park, Angelique Songco, added to growing anger in the Philippines over the incident, for which the US Navy may face fines.

According to The Navy Times, the 79 US Navy personnel aboard abandoned ship and the minesweeper is taking on water, “multiple spaces” are flooded.

Park rangers radioed the USS Guardian to advise it was nearing the Tubbataha Reef on Thursday, but the ship captain radioed back telling park rangers to bring their complaint to the US embassy, Ms Songco told reporters on Monday.

Songco blamed the USS Guardian for turning away park rangers who were about to follow protocol by boarding the ship to check if it had the proper permits, but saw the minesweeper’s crewmembers were in “battle position.”

Shortly after the warning, the US ship rammed into the Tubbataha Reef, a UNESCO World Heritage Site on the Sulu Sea about 130 kilometers south east of the western island of Palawan.

The site is protected by Philippine law and is off-limits to navigation except for research or tourism approved by Ms Songco’s office.

Ms Songco said it was too early to assess how severe the damage to the corals is, with the vessel still stuck on the reef and being battered by big waves.

According to Reuters, Philippine President Benigno Aquino has given orders to not allow the U.S. Navy to attempt to salvage the minesweeper without Philippine involvement, in order to minimize damage to coral reefs.

Some politicians and activist groups have said the US ship had violated the terms of a 1999 visiting forces agreement by sailing in the area.

“This incident shows us how the United States military forces have brazenly disrespected our laws and  damaged our country’s environment and national treasures,” said Clemente Bautista, coordinator of the Kalikasan PNE (Kalikasan People’s Network for the Environment).

“At this moment USS Guardian is stuck atop Tubbataha Reef and continues to wreck our national treasure. The US officials until now offer no clear explanation as to why their ship trespassed into the marine sanctuary. No apology or even an acknowledgement of the violation was done… The Philippine government, which up to this day have not filed any formal protest or complaint against the US Navy, is showing how spineless they are before the US. We expect that the Aquino government again to defend the US military forces by invoking the power of the Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA),” adds Bautista.

UNESCO describes the World Heritage site as a “unique example of an atoll reef with a very high density of marine species… serving as a nesting site for birds and marine turtles.”

“The site is an excellent example of a pristine coral reef with a spectacular 100-m perpendicular wall, extensive lagoons and two coral islands,” according to UNESCO.

source: http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2013/01/21-1

alt readings: http://www.rappler.com/nation/20070-us-navy-apologizes-for-tubbataha-grounding

Dr. Song Kang-Ho eating customary tofu after being released from Jeju prison.

On September 28, in the late morning it was suddenly and unexpected announced that after 181 days of imprisonment, Dr. Song Kang-Ho would be released from Jeju Prison.

via http://savejejunow.org/portfolio/dr-song-released-from-prison-after-181-days/