Comments on: Jeju residents protest ROK Navy base construction

By: The Marmot’s Hole » ROK Navy Base Vote Canceled Amidst Violence

The Marmot’s Hole » ROK Navy Base Vote Canceled Amidst Violence — Wed, 20 Jun 2007 04:03:34 +0000

[...] vote on the proposed construction of a ROK Navy base in the village of Gangjeong on Jeju Island was canceled after things got ugly, with villagers on [...]

By: KimSuBok

KimSuBok — Tue, 10 Apr 2007 04:17:09 +0000

I should have said my Jeju mother in law, not mother.

By: KimSuBok

KimSuBok — Tue, 10 Apr 2007 04:15:02 +0000

There has long been an underground independence movement on Jeju Island. After the Japanese Surrender, many on Jeju saw an opportunity to attain more autonomy if not independence. For most of it’s history as a possession of Korea, Jeju was administratively a part of Jeolla province. In 1946, Jeju was given full provincial status for the first time. This taste of autonomy, I believe, helped to fuel a desire for even greater self determination leading ultimately to the April 3 incident of 1948.

Next to the 516 road (named for the date of Park Jung-hee’s coup d’etat) is a large building surrounded by barbed wire which is the Jeju headquarters of the Korean Information Service (KCIA). I was told in 1996 by a former student (and Jeju Provincial government civil servant) that its primary function was to monitor Jeju’s underground independence movement.

Interestingly, last year Jeju was elevated to an “Autonomous Province” (제주특별자치도). This might have been part of some sort of quid pro quo related to the establishment of the naval base.

Let’s remember that Jeju is a province where many people boycot Emart. Why? Because it is mainland owned. My Jeju mother has gotten angry at me before for buying a cake at Paris Bagette (a mainland company) when I could have bought one from a Jeju owned bakery.

Jeju people have a complex relationship with the mainland. When Korea does something positive like do well in the World Cup in 2002, Jeju people suddenly feel Korean. Otherwise, however, Jeju people feel towards mainlanders the way Koreans feel toward the US and Japan. The Xenophobia runs very deep.

By: lirelou

lirelou — Tue, 10 Apr 2007 00:04:50 +0000

Reference the Cheju “massacre”. I’d love to see an unbiased account of this. The various references to it always come up with wonderfully round numbers, such as 25,000, 30,000, 15,000. Such a scale is possible, but the mere number raises serious questions, considering tht only 6,000 allied soldiers were killed assaulting the beaches at Normandy, and this was a full Allied Army consisting of surordinate armies, corps, and divisions, all fully armed to the teeth, and up against the most tactically proficient Army of its time, who’d been preparing for this event for several years. Most of what I know about Cheju-do I’ve picked up off of Kimsoft’s website. His problem is that he posts some good materials, such as an account by the former Army commander of the island, but he apparently lacks the critical reasoning skills to spot the discrepancies bedtween the very materials he posts or links to. For instance, the state of the Korean Army of the period, initially armed with Japanese Arisaka rifles and ammunition that, in Cheju-do, had been reclaimed from the sea by local divers, makes it highly unlikely that they could have been able to inflict casualties on such a scale. The former Regimental commander (who only had a single battalion in his regiment) alludes to the police being better armed, and in conflict with the population. Of course, some accounts reference the U.S. Navy as “sealing off access to the island”, something that does not appear in any U.S. military accounts, while others allege that U.S. troops participated, again without any corresponding reference in U.S. military histories of the period. 10,000, 15,000, or 25,000 bodies or more cannot simply disappear. We’ve had over ten years of government by administrations that could have uncovered the necessary mass graves. Even if the bodies had been dumped into the sea, piles of bones would remain. So why hasn’t a full inquiry been launched and specific civilian casualty figures published? 1,500 would be a tragedy. Adding more zeroes does not make a massacre more worthy of commemoration. Or could it be that the scale was such, that the legend serves a better purpose than the truth of disappointingly (to the ultra nationalists) smaller real numbers?

By: SomeguyinKorea

SomeguyinKorea — Sun, 08 Apr 2007 01:11:55 +0000

…I’d say in this case, it’s probably money to be lost: many of them are going to end up living in apartment buildings because they won’t be able to afford a house near the coast with what they government will give them (there aren’t enough up for sale to meet the demand, which will drive up the prices).

By: SomeguyinKorea

SomeguyinKorea — Sun, 08 Apr 2007 01:02:37 +0000

When people get that excited about something, it’s usually because there is money to be lost or made.

By: railwaycharm

railwaycharm — Sat, 07 Apr 2007 12:26:45 +0000

If only it were true. Ever since the Jeju-do Massacre of April 3

You have to understand that Cheju-do was used as a “devils Island” before it was ever considered a valuable tangerine growing resort. The massacre was a terrible thing, but the people were not completely innocent.

By: clark66

clark66 — Sat, 07 Apr 2007 06:48:06 +0000

You can see a lot of the people in those pictures are old. They protest everything. I remember once in my mother-in-law’s neighborhood they protested Korean Electric opening up an entrance to the new Korea Electric building on their road. It seemed completely random to me.

By: Dave in Songtan

Dave in Songtan — Sat, 07 Apr 2007 06:39:36 +0000

WJK, Maybe we can get some “Let’s go Mets” headbands and shave our heads if they don’t make it to the playoffs! However, I will not cut off a finger.

By: wjk

wjk — Sat, 07 Apr 2007 01:30:22 +0000

you know, sing some songs, get a head band, maybe sport a bald look when you come back, do a lot of drinking, kick some riot police butt, and make sure someone gets you by the end of the day, if you don’t come back home… kind of like a party??