Sorry for the lull last week – the video project had taken a bit of a toll. But I’m getting back into the swing of things, have a new monitor to stop the headaches, and have our first user submission for you here, done by Bum Lee, the creator of the SeoulGlow animation intro, no less. The final part of the “Dinner with Soyeon” series will be up in the near future, by the way. From Bum:
“The farming village of Daechuri is being evicted by the Korean government for the expansion of a nearby U.S. military base. For several years, the villagers and activists have resisted the forceful eviction, but the residents of Daechuri recently signed an agreement with the government to leave their village by the end of March.”
“I visited Daechuri on Saturday March 3. Behind the perimeter of fences guarded by police, many of the homes had been demolished and the unharvested fields were trenched off with barbed wire. But there was art everywhere amidst the ruin – murals, sculptures, junk art, and a gallery filled with paintings. The villagers held their nightly candlelight vigil in a hall surrounded by painted portraits, and in the evening they sang songs around a bonfire.
This video is a tribute to the art of Daechuri.”
29 Comments
The murals of the farmers at work, seen in the opening, are really impressive.
Anybody know how much financial compensation was paid to them? It sucks to be evicted, just hope they didn’t get shafted too.
Can anybody tell me why Korean farmers are so poor? At twentyfour-thousand for ten kilos I would think there’d be some profit margin. Who’s running with the money? The markets? The bag men?
I am sure the government paid them the market rate. The wire went up well after the funds were delivered. In some cases the farmers got an extra crop or two from the land. This is communist drivel.
Wow - pretty harsh, don’t you think?
I know they may have been compensated at the “market rate” or even above it, but these are still people – farmers – forced to move off their land.
And although I don’t like the people who throw Molotov cocktails at US bases, or fire up into violent protests, I think that the expression of grief and anger on the part of the actual farmers in question doesn’t constitute “Communist drivel.”
Yeah, they’re salty at the US and the Korean government. They have a right to be. From the farmers’ point-of-view, they really can’t be anything other than bitter that they have been forced to move, and no amount of money is going to salve that grief.
It’s just the artwork and song of pretty powerless, poor people, and I think it’s powerful and worth recording, worth seeing. We’re not talking about violent NGO protesters lobbing firebombs, nor Cindy Sheehan coming to ride another political bandwagon.
They’re just the farmers, with mostly their wives and children, making crafts and paintings, and dancing around a bonfire, a la Burning Man, dude. Not the radical, left-wing hangers on who ride causes like we see them do.
It’s like the big anti-American protests at 2002-3. Yeah, a lotta NGO’s and other unsavories played the deaths for all they were worth after the acquittal, but the original group of locals who met after the girls were killed – who were just angry that they had been smushed by an armored car, regardless of politics, I don’t lump them together with the political protestors who show up after the ambulance door closes.
Same with these farmers, who’ve gotten booted. Yeah, maybe the processes are inevitable, just as the US-Korea FTA is going to screw farmers (as did NAFTA), but that doesn’t mean you can’t have a heart.
I think US-Korea FTA is going to be good for the Korean economy in the long run, but farmers are going to be displaced in the economy, just as a few hundred thousand were displaced because of NAFTA, which is what is largely responsible for the migration of workers north, where the underground labor economy actually has a lot of need for them and still does.
Maddlew - please tell me you don’t actually think independent farmers are sitting on heaps of profits, do you? Even in the American Midwest, you can read stories from just a few weeks ago about how much the few remaining farmers are making ends meet with “agri-tourism” – bringing tour groups of kids and yuppies through the farm for cash – because profits have been steadily dropping for years.
It’s really unfortunate that certain things always have to be interpreted through this archaic Cold War-era lens. And cold hearts.
Personally, I didn’t see any “communism” in this video at all. I saw poor people who were both pissed and sad.
If you see Kim Dong-won’s “Sangyedong Olympics,” you’ll see the Seoul City government forcibly – with the help of thugs – move a group of squatters off their land, twice, because they were deemed embarrassing a sight to be seen from the 88 Olympic Highway.
A lot of us foreign types “tsk tsked” at how brutal the Seoul City government was with their policies, but when the US is partially implicated (although not in the same style of brutal crackdown, but nevertheless, being implicated in the forced relocation of folks from their land), it’s funny to see how the reaction seems different – they’re “commies.”
Unfair. Offsides, I think.
That was terrible! Horrible music, immature lyrics, poor video work…Ooof!
No, not harsh nor unfair. Farmers moved off their land - with compensation - for the good of the whole nation. Being moved off your land sucks. Playing a part in making sure a regime like the one in Pyongyang is detered from starting Korean War II might be a nicer way to look at it.
That’s not true. If it were not for the vampires of the anti-US in Korea movement, the professional protest leaders, you would not see all this artwork, and you would have witnessed far fewer hold outs (and the suffering of those hold outs). So, whether we consider these leaders Cindy Sheehan’s or noble NGOers tryng to help their poor fellow human beings - they have been the driving force behind what has been going on at Daechuri for a couple of years now.
And when they can no longer milk the Pyongtaek expansion, they will drop the real locals, pull up stakes, and head to another place that can be a focal point - like I watched them do at Koon-ni and in Wonju. In Wonju, they got a few of the locals to hold out refusing compensation and kept holding out until the legal time period for filing for redress had passed, but once USFK announced it was closing both bases in Wonju - poof - they were gone…
And to try to focus on more than just the helpless plight of the farmers and tenants (and I mean those who were on the land before the US ever decided to expand Pyongtaek - not those who moved in for the PR later) — I’ll talk about my inlaws (who happen to on the outskirts of Wonju):
Since 2000, they have been moved out of their homes (and the land the homes occupied) twice: once for new highway construction - once so the city could expand by building another series of tall apartment buildings. The first move was the type of thing that happens in nations and could losely be chalked up to the public good. The second was unnecessary - but where were the protesters?
The “drivel” is all the stuff that made the “plight” of these real farmers a showcase. All the stuff put on by both the professional anti-US in Korea protest leaders - and - those many others who are so easily sucked.
Sucked in by things like, “From the farmers’ point-of-view, they really can’t be anything other than bitter that they have been forced to move, and no amount of money is going to salve that grief.” What percentage of people are like that? Maybe I’m just too cynical. I have the tendancy to believe once the price reaches a certain point, 95% would have gone with a smile. But it thoughts like this on “salve that grief” that helps block consideration of things like necessary national defense and just what kind of nation needs protecting from.
and who is really spearheading the hold out campaign — and what kind of NGO they run…
Your comment gives zero consideration to the groups that have lead the charge in Pyongtaek, forcing, in my opinion, a distorted focus by reamining completely on what were a handful of local families who did not move out with the majority until forced out — you completely ignore people like The Priest and others who work with him, who he got outsiders to come and squat on land vacated by other local families, who have been sucking on the real locals like vampires.
Actually, you argue that there are no Cindy Shehans involved or the kind of people who organized the bomb throwing, pipe wielding, violent protests like from 2002-2003 —- when the same exact leaders have been behind both campaigns and just about any other of note on the anti-US/USFK front for at least a decade.
And if we stop to think past our understandable sympathy for the real locals who have been on the land for generations (perhaps) - we might actually get around to considering how these NGO leaders spearheading the campaign —– also tend to be rather pro-Pyongyangish.
I try to avoid terms like “communists” because it can so easily be swatted down as remanants of a “cold war mentlaity” — especially in Korean society.
And I’d rather have as few distractions as possible when trying to point out how it is an undeniable fact that the NGOs who sucessfully grab and exploit items like Daechuri do in fact also cheerlead for a hell of lot of understanding for the likes of Kim Jong Il, Pyongyang, and North Korea as a nation.
We can get lost in a rather useless debate here about ideology - but the plain reality is clear: the legitimate farmers and locals being hurt by having to move - have had their anguish extended, manipulated, and exploited by groups who are —— pro-North Korea and anti-US. And these groups are made up of the same leaders, and a fair amount of misguided young adults who are duped just like some of the locals.
And what has my anger are the ones who manipulate these people whose grief and hardship I can understand and sympathise with.
And the biggest problem is —- they ARE lumped together. I can understand the grief and hardship of the few, and I don’t blame them for being in a position where they let themselves be sucked meaningless by the vampires, but they do.
In the 2002 tank accident, there was a candlelight vigil held on the US base with locals and VIPs of USFK, the Embassy, and the Korean government, and the families were supposed to come, but they backed out at the last minute - because the anti-US leaders got to them - and then the one father was used by The Priest and the DLP presidential candidate like a whore. I felt sorry for the father. I wanted to…..do bad things to the leaders…
There is no problem with the temperature of my heart. I’m just not going to go so far out of my way to ignore the fundamental role the real people behind the hold outs have had in the situation harder in the end for these families.
I hope the families that were on the land a long time and held out got more money for the effort these last couple of years. I mean that. They were in a hard situation, and they were sucked in by the vampires, and they went through a lot more agony to further the goals of the vampires, and since I can see how a person could be sucked in easily in such a situation, I hope they get something more for it.
I have no sympathy for the squatters who moved in after it became clear Pyongtaek was going to be a focal point of anti-US activity. I have no sympathy for the young adults in college too stupid to think for themselves or can’t seem to resist being duped so easily. And I have a fair amount of hatred for the adults who go here and there across Korea supporting the handful of leaders like The Priest — the adults who so actively support groups who have somehow shoved their heads so far up their asses — North Korea is to be championed and a “better understanding” of what “North Korea really is” while at the same time going out of their way to see how the US is implicated in all that is bad in Korea —- bad in the major issues like a Kwangju Massacre — and bad on things that are a normal process in even the most democratic nations on the earth — like my in-laws having to suffer (and it was a tough time, both times) when the government decides it needs to take their land for the public good.
Not harsh at all. When the land deals were sealed, they in-fact became squatters. The government is correct to push squatters off land that is not owned by such. There is no free lunch. Burning a bonfire and doing a dick-dance will not un-do the contract that they signed. I think they should run the drunks off of the Seoul Station while they are at it.
On the Cindy Sheehand comment, I don’t mean to end up sounding too critical, because the only people who have my anger up on this are the NGO leaders and some of their shock troops, not your comment or you —- but —– you do distort the reality of the situation here by forcing us to focus only on this one video.
The video is about what has been a protest campaign going on for several years. And, in fact, there were several violent clashes - especially in 2006 and 2007.
And I said about a year or so ago, you could tell from the anti-US websites, the leadership decided the best way to suck this issue dry sucessfully (milking it for all it could be worth) was to “paint a family” face on it by doing things like this artwork and kite flying and so on.
Same groups. Same goal. Different tactic.
And if they had decided to give up the use of violence altogether in their struggle to promote North Korea and be a thorn in the side of the US in Korea - I would applaud them. But, it is just a tactic of the moment…
There is one point not mentioned yet about the plight of the locals that some readers will not be aware of that explains why some of the locals are legitamately put in a more dire position: it was the same position my in-laws were put in.
They owned and had built the houses that were demolished with one home having been in the family for a couple of generations. But, they and the other families around them did not own the actual land - so the amount of compensation they got (including the couple of resident farmers) was significantly less than what the non-resident land owner got.
However, in both cases, my in-laws got enough money to purchase and remodel (or build a new home on other land) - but again - not land they owned.
Some of these locals in Pyongtaek might not have been getting enough money to set up a similar arrangement in another location.
especially in 2006 and 2007.
should be 2005 and 2006 — sorry for the mistake and correction post…
this is an artistic way of venting. It’s not communism.
You think they’d be venting if they got a handsome share of money to leave the land? No way. They were underpaid, more than likely. Undervalued, much more likely.
I didn’t see this specificly, but as a kid, I did see harsh looking men driving around in pick up trucks, using force, brute force to tear down roadside vege/fruit selling trucks/stands/po jang machas, and being very rough and brutal in the way they did it. That was 1988 and I remember it. Back then, I was wondering why the police don’t come and take care of these thugs. Rough men who looked like convicts. Years later, I realized these were gong moo wons, sort of. Govt hired. It was probably necessary, but they didn’t want to pay them off what they deserved or what they thought was a fair value. Instead, they used brute force, hired thugs, and cleaned these little roadside shops off.
Eyewitness.
I suppose invalid. Because there is no “paper trail”.
sorry to mention in double, but there used to be a panja chon, dal dong nae near the apt area I used to live in. I used google earth today, and I can verify now these are occupied by tall, multi complex apt’s.
Hmm. I wonder how these people got re-located.
One kid, in particular, sat right next to me in class, and I hated his existence for about 6 months. Wore the same clothes for 3 months, always smelled like old sweat, I think he even gave me lice, once.
But, I’m sure their departure wasn’t handled in a pretty way by the South Korean govt.
Retrospectively, he was a nice kid. Just born without the silver spoon. Undeserved sorrow and heartahce from the get-go.
No one likes to leave “home”. I miss that area myself. I think I’ll definately go back sometime in the future.
As has been mentioned before, relocating of families is nothing new in Korea with the fast pace of development. It seems like the entire town of Uijongbu in the last five years is being systematically knocked down and replaced with high rises, new shopping centers, and highways. Heck part of CRC and other buildings outside CRC had to be knocked down to make way for a highway overpass. Yet no activists groups in Uijongbu are sticking up for the families being forced to move there.
In Dongducheon they knocked down a line of homes and businesses right through the middle of the town for the new subway line. No activist groups showed up there either.
The only reason the Camp Humphrey expansion that is forcing families to relocate is raising an eyebrow is because it involves the US military. The usual suspects have jumped all over this issue in order to create anti-US sentiment in Korea. Now we know however after the breaking of the North Korea spy scandal that many of these anti-US activists are in fact North Korean spies.
Also the claims that the farmers are not being paid market value for their land is some what distorted. The farmers are not getting the market value for what their land is worth right now, they are getting the market value for what their land was worth before the announcement of the USFK Camp Humphreys consolidation. If anyone thinks that is wrong than they need to take it up with the Korean government, they are the ones in compensating the farmers, not USFK.
The initial compensation was good enough for most because the vast majority of the farmers took the money and relocated. I wonder how many other farmers would have took the money and relocated if the anti-US activists had not gotten a hold of them first?
Well said, GI Korea and usinkorea. There are people being “moved” off their land every day to make way for new construction - the only reason these farmers are an issue is because the U.S. military is involved.
The music was really bad as is the terrible synthesized intro music. Please change it because I’m willing to bet a lot of people don’t bother to watch your videos cos they hear the first 5 seconds of that terrible fake sax. I like what you’re trying to do but I think this video did look a lot like a super left-wing pro-communist propaganda piece even though that wasn’t what you were trying to make. I think the art is interesting though. Keep trying Micheal.
I sympathise with these folks. My question was sincere. Don’t tell me their situation is similar to that of the American farmer. There is no rice from anywhere else in the world here. Not yet. And the competition with the agro conglomerates is not nearly as intense. In the States the corporate farms bring down the prices to the point that small farmers can’t compete. There is absolutely none of that happening here. Koreans pay more for rice than even Mexico. Highest prices in the world from my understanding. The competition is not bringing down the price. In fact, it seems they can damn near charge what they want.
Where’s the money going? Honestly!
“Communist drivel” is spot on. Just listen to the lyrics- avoid the subtitles, as they dodge displaying the true goals of those involved (hence, drivel). Calls for the joys of production, uprising of ‘real’ owners, criticism of capitalism and bourqeois, desire for revolution….my translations here are off the top of my head, so not exact, but a lot closer than the subtitles in the video!
No mention of how the move is for a military based here so that they have the right to protest… its not a shopping mall they’re being evicted for, its a military base expansion that allows the return of a huge plot in Seoul that the same protesters have been whining about for years.
On another note, I wonder how many of those protesting the eviction of the poor farmers realize that the song on the video calls for a borderless world…one in which, I imagine, there would be free trade that most of them are ALSO protesting against…Communist drivel.
Well, I expected a negstive reaction from some before making the post. All I can say is that it’s an interesting voice worth listening to, and I think the artwork was interesting.
It’s a story. There are others to be told. I, for one, agree with the general sentiment from which a lot of the negative reaction seems to come from, which I think has to do with the inordinately negative images of foreigners in general and Americans specifically in the Korean media, and I anyone who reads my blog knows what I think about the Korean left wing, which I am ideologically sympathetic to in theory and in my own country, but personally find petty, distasteful, and self-serving. I myself had mixed feelings about the song, but felt it worth putting it out there. I still think these people’s anger is worth listening to, even if one disagrees with the politics of the situation. That’s where I’m coming from, anyway.
As for representation, I think this would be a good chance to have someone do something like “A Week in the Life of An American Soldier” or something otherwise interesting and, to many Koreans, counterintuitive in terms of the story it would tell.
I am all about humanizing big “issues” and seeing them for the people, because even in the biggest political battles and protests and overall messes, there are still real emotions there at base.
In fact, having done this video would lend greater defense against the accusation that this podcast is “pro-American” because of the simple fact that I’m American, making it a less effective tool to connect with the Korean audience. In fact, if and when one of you submits something that can show a different side of our lives than what many Koreans are used to hearing in the media, having posted this video actually adds legitimacy to the entire project.
I get on the back of Korean nationalism and social problems on my blog, which is where I work things out and engage certain issues with a mix of intellect and emotion, but the video podcast has a different goal; I could easily make it a function of just my opinions, like my blog is, but I want it to be something bigger than that.
So with that, as well as your comments above, I truly welcome a submission that could humanize “our” side of the debate(s) or the skewed representations that many of us see in the media, and hence, on the minds and lips of many Korean people.
I’m not being facetious here - I’d love, love to see a thoughtful piece along the lines of “A Day in the Life of…” that can make people rethink their assumptions. I have some ideas about future content that’s being planned to do that; but if all of the podcast just a single voice, it would be even better.
Submissions! I’m laying down the friendly challenge to have a some of you out there use them expensive toys and gadgets we own to express these opinions.
I’m trying to create a new kind of conduit for conversation here - but I’d like other voices. I’m not a soldier, for example, so I can’t really be that voice. I’m not all kinds of other voices – so I’d love to hear more of you all.
Thanks for the feedback, and I get what you’re saying, even if I have a different angle on certain things.
I’m glad a conversation’s going, though.
There seems to be a lot of misconception about the relationship between the farmers and the activists. The farmers who chose to stay in Daechuri were not a minority being manipulated by anti-American activists, North Korean spies, vampires or communists. About half of the villagers chose to stay and many of them were elderly people who have memories of being evicted after Liberation when Camp Humphreys was built on top of their old village. For them, Daechuri is not just a piece of land to be swapped for real estate in Yongsan that mid-level bureaucrats can peddle away to land speculators for pocket change. Their farmland and their community have sustained them economically and spiritually from one eviction to the next.
In February, the Korean government finally offered a relocation village - which the villagers had been asking for as a minimal acknowledgment of the sacrifice they are being forced to make - as well as some provisions for elderly residents in low-income households - 10 million won ($10,000) in financial support for resettlement and a monthly allowance of 200,000 won ($200) until 2014. Whether the government will keep its side of the bargain remains yet to be seen, but the villagers took the offer and signed the agreement to leave by the end of March, and the only reason they were offered even this much is because they drew so much attention to themselves and stuck out for so long.
There are already videos online showing violent protests and police brutality. I’m an artist, and I was impressed with the artwork at Daechuri, much of which is very emotional and political, as well as the music that was made by some of the activists. So I chose to document the artwork for the sake of posterity, because I’m afraid that after the villagers leave their efforts may be forgotten.
I agree w/ the metropolitician that the artwork depicted is not only interesting in its own right, but helps to keep the podcasts accessible to all- in that right, it serves its purpose well. My reason for replying earlier was the flowery introduction afforded the video at first, then the defense in regard to the ‘communist drivel’ comment that followed.
Being American means that one might have to go the extra mile to ensure that Korean viewers understand one’s neutrality. However, being American does not mean that the other half of one’s audience is captive.
“The only reason they were even offered this much…”
If we mean by this that they got more by holding out than they would have otherwise, it means one thing. If we mean that they would have gotten nothing or next to nothing if they had not drug negociations out, refused to negociate, or hold out, it means something else. And there is a big difference between the two.
We can argue whether they would have gotten too little or enough. We can argue what the right amount of compensation should have been. But, I don’t think it can work if we try to argue they would not have been compensated without a 3 or 4 year hold out.
I also don’t think we can argue that the pain and suffering caused by losing their homes “naturally” means they should not have been moved — because as several of us mentioned, people in Korea (and around the world) get moved off their land by their government for things much less necessary than detering Kim Jong Il’s North Korea…
It would be interesting to compare the amounts given between those who agreed to leave around the time of the first deadline and those who have held out until now.
I did a little news archives quick search:
A Feb 2007 article says 150 residents were left to sign the final deal. (The quote above listing 330 or 61% households applied for compensation was from May 2006. That would mean at that time 211 “households” not individuals were holding out…I would guess.)
It doesn’t seem to indicate that holding out until now or Feb added much, but this is just a little piece of information.
One of the tactics of the anti-US groups (and other NGOs against government NIMBY issues) is to delay and delay on talks — as I said above — to milk the issue for all the political capital it can hope to bring. That is where the activists step in, and there is no way to dismiss that they have had a major role in Pyongtaek going back to 2003. The Priest moved down their officially and set up up organizing the effort and was joined by a lot of the familiar anti-US NGO groups -
and they staged both peaceful and violent protests with participants ranging from several hundred to several thousand — many more than just the residents were holding out.
So, whose effort may be forgotten? I mean that as a serious question. And what is the defination of that effort?
An effort to hold onto their land? OK.
Everybody agrees having to leave your land and/or your homes stinks.
Or, is the goal thwarting the plans of USFK?
How much do the two overlap in this or that person’s mind involved in Pyongtaek?
We have no trouble defining what the goal of the NGO leaders and their followers have - and it ends up having little to do with helping those 150 hold outs get more compensation from the government.
For them, it is all about putting pressure on the US-SK military alliance by trying to milk any issue they find which they can play up among the general population.
Do we want to feel sympathy for the people losing their homes (and getting compensated to begin setting up somewhere else)? Do we want to admire their determination to keep their land?
That’s fine. I feel sorry for them and wish them well.
But trying to surgically remove the anti-US NGO leaders from the picture does not work. They are intertwined greatly.
On the videos, I’d like to see some day in the life stuff too. I’m torn between whether I would encourage the GIs who visit the orphanages and old folks homes to carry a camcorder to get video. It would show a good side of USFK, but it is too much like exploiting the situation. It seems to cheapen it in my mind.
Maybe when the farming season is under way and some GIs go out to help as they do each year, that would be a good time to film.
Personally, I think video of GIs training hard, and going through the daily grind of being prepared to go to war to defend Korea at a moments notice should have an impact, but it doesn’t, does it?
Anyway, how about these two videos:
http://www.usinkorea.org/video.....h_2006.wmv
http://www.usinkorea.org/videos/new/8_may_2005.wmv
Rereading #19 — look how surgically the NGO members are carved out. The start is about how there is a misunderstanding of the relationship between the locals and imported activists, but that is all we hear about the activists. Then, “There are already videos online showing violent protests and police brutality.”
Police brutality……ok….got it…
“The enemy of my enemy is my friend.”
Groups with agendas to promote need to attract an audience. If tying up with another group will gain access to a wider audience, they often will do so. If Group A’s passion is to get the US military out of Korea, they can expect to attract audience X to that issue. If Group B’s passion is to halt land seizures, they will attract audience Y. Where a particular land seizure is concerned with US base expansion, it is wholly logical for both groups to ‘lend’ each other their respective audiences. Perhaps a separate group of environmentalists may discover that a local species of flora is in danger - climb aboard!
A dilemma results: are the farmers truly anti-US military, or do they just want the borrowed audience? Will the flora-savior find himself speaking against land appropriation, even if he doesn’t know anything about it? Many of the posts above show the frustrations of the audience in trying to separate the issues.
As Metropolitician continues with his worthy and interesting project, my free advice is to be shrewd with how he manages the Seoul Glow brand. Taking sides may ultimately limit the value of your brand, and perhaps suck you into the dilemma.
I like the video. Keep up the good work.
usinkorea - I am not trying to dismiss the role that the activists have played in Pyeongtaek. If that were the case, there would be no point in making this video. Of course the activists have played a major role, but my point is that the farmers were not merely pawns for anti-US military activity, and that the activists are not there only for their own political agendas, but they are also there helping the farmers who want to stay.
What the farmers are going through IS harsh and IS unfair. This is the third time they are being kicked off their land without a say since World War II, when the Japanese military built bases there. When the US military moved in, the farmers had to leave their land again, with only rice and flour handed out by US soldiers. Now they are being kicked out once more with minimal compensation and no proper assurances that they will be able to support themselves. Given the history of removal suffered by these farmers, the Korean government could have shown a great deal more sensitivity.
I also think that the US government could call upon the Korean government to act more responsibly instead of taking a hands off approach, since it is a US military base that’s being expanded.
Detractors:
I stand firm on my “communist drivel” statement. This is the work of communist opportunists; it is one agenda that supersedes the fact that people are being fairly or unfairly displaced. Free expression is a laughable argument. One should only look to the Blue House to see this cancer in spades.
I have to agree more with railwaycharm. It sounds to champion the poor farmers and tenants. I do feel for their situation. But, you have to work too hard at it to dismiss all the other things swirling around it.
When I take a look around, and I see some familiar faces, faces that I’ve seen at every protest no matter what, as long as it has something to do with putting press on the US in Korea, AND, I loook around and see those same faces at gathers to praise the Sunshine policy, call for doing all we can to help out Korean brothers to the North, and generally by active in trying to help South Koreans feel better about Kim Jong Il’s North Korea ——- I have some SERIOUS problems with an effort to keep the focus on just “the poor farmers.”
And you do extend yourself too far, in my opinion, in what I would characterise as a fight to maintain sympathy for the weak and oppressed beyond what might be reasonable.
For example, being moved off 3 times - 1st under Japanese rule, then by the US military, then by the Korean government for the US military. First, my mind asks me, “How many of the hold outs does this statement fit?” I learned via the Koon-ni/Maehyangri issue that some statements need to be held in a question box, because eventually, it started to leak out into at least the English version of the press that the Korean government was saying the bombing range was built in that area due to people not living in the area, and the small villages grew up around it, as they did around US bases after the war throughout the country.
But, even more germane for the “forced off 3 times” is the fact my in-laws were forced out of their homes twice within a span of 3 years…
Look around Korea. Large population on a small area of rugged land. You have towns of 10,000 people or so with 7 to 10 stories or more apartment buildings: How many times do you think people were moved off their land to make way for Korea’s urban sprawl or the construction of infrastructure (railines and highways and irrigation projects and so on) as South Korea moved from a dirt poor, war torn nation to become the world’s 11th most powerful economic nation?
How many households do you think are still moved off their land each year?
So, how much and what kind of sympathy for the plight of Pyongtaek residents is natural? How much is generated by a distaste for the US military?
And then their are lines about “with only rice and flour handed out by US soldiers” and the Japanese already having a base down there.
What is the actual history of the place and the households currently on the land? I’m sure there will be a variety of life stories. How many of them match this description? I wish I had the Korean language skills to investigate it.
Regardless, what about the 37,000 GIs who died to prevent Kim Il Sung’s version of a “democratic republic” from extending down to Pusan? I normally don’t like to get into a discusion of the Korean War costs when talking about the contemporary condition of the US-SK relationship, but it does fit here — because we are talking about a base that was established soon after or during the Korean War. So, it was tied both directly to the defense of Korea and the economy of the local area at a time when Korea was dirt poor and could not defend itself against the North and had almost become a part of the hell that became North Korea.
So, does any of that factor into the plight of the tenants today? How much? How little? None at all?
And what about #17?:
What about that? What about the subtitles? Do they capture the nature of the message? Do they smooth it up for a non-Korean speaking audience because a more direct translation might point out some other things that the NGOs down in Pyongtaek also fight for? namely things that end up being pro-NK?
The line about the violent videos demonstrating “police brutality” starts to clarify the discussion for me.
So, when I look over these issues mentioned so far, and I get to what I agree is a meaty issue that ties directly to the heart of the situation for the residents I do have sympathy with, I nonetheless have little hope for an adequate discussion — the meaty issue being the definition of “minimal compensation” or “proper assurances” or adequate compensation.
What is a fair price? Did it take years of holding out to get even a “minimal” compensation packet?
I have at least my in-laws to add to the picture. They are working class people. They went through a lot of anxiety about being moved off the land twice in so short a time. But, in the end, they got enough money for the homes they had build or renovated to purchase another home to work on. It was not as good as the original. It was not the home the father had grown up in. But, they got enough money to set up a home somewhere else.
And they did not hold out for years. They did not have NGO members camping out day and night for years willing to smash riot police upside the head with a metal pole with a flag attached to it or a large bamboo pole.
So, I start to wonder if we can have a meaningful discussion of what is “minimal” and what is “adequate” without acknolwledging how the US military being the cause for the move is what is pushing so many to fight for “adequate” compensation….
When we sit down together, and I hear about the “police brutality” that has been going on. I get a real itch in my pants to stand up and walk out rather than end up wasting my time.
I wish I had the Korean language skills to find out what levels of compensation those who agreed to move early on got. The amounts will differ, of course, because their are different ownership issues, land sizes, home values, and so on.
One thing is clear: the variety of claims makes it hard if not impossible to come up with one summary statement about whether compensation was “adequate” or “minimal” without a look at the stats.
Then, what about “acting responsibly” on the part of the Korean government?
The Korean government let this thing drag out for years. They let it drag out to the point it began doing serious damage to the US-SK security relationship. In the past, delaying tactics have seen plans the ROK government didn’t like die, but that did not happen this case, and it seemed to me that time and time again, the Korean government would set deadlines, attempt to negociate with the locals (and the anti-US NGO leaders whom the locals put their trust in), and time and time again, the deadlines would pass, and no deal was cut, and the Korean government wouldn’t move but asigned a news deadline. Whose fault was the lack of agreement? The ROK government being stingy? The NGO leaders? The tenants themelves?….
What about the responsibility of the NGO leaders and the thousands of outsiders who heed their call? What kind of responsibility to they have and for what? This can start to get into the idea of “goals” again….what are their goals? How many of them are good for the locals? the city? and South Korea? How much of their action in this 4 year drama should we deem responsible? How much irresponsible?
The long and short of this irony is the USFK is being run off of their assigned land. Where are the NGO’s when the rights of this fine nations junk yard dogs are being compromised?
If you see Kim Dong-won’s “Sangyedong Olympics,” you’ll see the Seoul City government forcibly – with the help of thugs – move a group of squatters off their land, twice, because they were deemed embarrassing a sight to be seen from the 88 Olympic Highway.
Wjk,
You are lucky that the Marmot supports the disabled, Squatters don’t own land. Have you learned to dodge a wrench yet?
Here’s a link to a bunch of Taechuri pics I took on January 23rd of this year.
http://restlesstimes.com/taech....._index.htm
My photography skills suck greatly, but for the hangul heads here, much of the writing is legible.
Note to self: Never ask a country ajumma if some place is “far.” You could end up doing another five-mile hike.