Five people — four protesters and one SWAT team officer — were killed when police stormed a Yongsan building where squatters where protesting a redevelopment plan. The building caught fire — the squatters were armed with Molotov Cocktails — which seems to have led to the fatalities.
Some 17 were injured as well.
Ugly, ugly stuff.
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Egad.
The protesters were armed with Molotov Cocktails… They were ready to kill (thus die) over a redevelopment plan?????
Sounds to me like suicide by “SWAT” team.
What a tragedy.
Oh God..
Sad that the protesters resorted to those measure.. Prayer goes out to the family of the SWAT member that died doing his job.
Sad…
…this is madness!
“Sad that the protesters resorted to those measure.. ”
But hardly surprising. Happens all the time.
“Prayer goes out to the family of the SWAT member that died doing his job.”
Until the next protest when the next group of maniacs decides to light up a bunch of molotovs and throw them at police. And then everyone will say, “How sad.” Again. And do nothing about it.
I love the bit towards the end showing what I presume is one of the protesters pouring kerosene down on the firefighters from a window.
Yup, for sure. That’s one of those containers for re-filling kerosene heaters. Someone had a real deathwish.
It is sad for the SWAT guy who died a terrible death. The protestors got exactly what they deserved. Unfortunately, this will be seen as heroic and a rite of passage into martyrdom. This shit will happen again.
Police have found another body, which they believe to be a protester’s. So it’s now six dead.
BTW, here’s a brief summary of the dispute:
http://news.chosun.com/site/da.....00851.html
They need to make up a new variation of the Darwin Award with a special device/ribbon for those awardees distinguished not only by their stupidity but by their selfish viciousness in taking useful members of the community with them.
Sigh! Here we go again. A travesty, a tragedy, and candle lit demos surely to follow.
The immediate irony is the demonstrators ultimately caused their own demise. But to put this into proper perspective, we must recognize the underlining issue of urban redevelopment, which has become an euphemism for thuggery by the rich and powerful at the expense of the weak.
Redevelopment ordinances and laws meant to replace squatter huts with modern and safe buildings during the 1960’s have been cynically misapplied by wealthy development companies and corrupt city officials to destroy communities where often only a small percentage of the buildings qualify as justifying redevelopment. Furthermore, the original residents are almost never given fair compensation to the degree they can live in their communities once more, or generally not enough to buy new homes elsewhere.
In other words, much of today’s residential redevelopment is nothing less than naked land grabs, with street thugs employed to intimidate, sometimes using violence, homeowners into signing petitions that validate this form of systemic government and chaebol swindling.
An interesting parallel to this tragic fire is that of the Namdaemun blaze. That conflagration, too, was ignited by paint thinner, and by a homeless man who had been cheated out of his home by redevelopers.
Only in December 2008, for the first time, have residents been able to beat back the redevelopers in court. Meanwhile, hundreds if not thousands of families have been and continue to be displaced from their communities. Commonplace are bogus promises and residency certificates good for future apartment ownership that normally end up being of inadequate value to allow the certificate holders to move into the new buildings.
Consequently, if indeed the candle lit parades take place once more, for once I am going to be a sympathetic with the demonstrators.
The location must be right on the bus line between Samgakgi and LG Daykom(very close to the E-mart at Sinyongsan), the buses had to take a detour this morning and the Protestors/Police were back at again this evening. What a bunch of Fugen freaks!
Because of this “redevelopment” in the Seoul area, the poor low-class are being forced to move out of the capital. The compensation is so inadequate or nonexistent they cannot afford to live in the capital anymore. The protesters are stupid to think that violence will solve anything, but at least their anger is justified in my opinion. Plans to make a Seoul a shiny “명품” city obviously doesn’t include them.
Too bad they didn’t round up a bunch of those drunkin’ retards hanging around Seoul Station and throw them in while the fire was blazin’ away.
…….another opportunity lost, Damn !
While I can sympathize for those who are forced out of their apartments due to urban removal, you won’t find me siding with the likes of Chae Jong-gi, the man who burned down Namdaemun, or the protestors in this current blaze. Chae was angry at a developer because he wanted more money–he claimed he wasn’t paid the full amount he was promised–so he attempted to burn down Ch’anggyonggung. He wanted to punish society for a private dispute. When his attempt to burn down Ch’anggyonggung failed, he went and burned down Namdaemun, another strike at society for a private dispute. To make matters worse, he makes himself out a hypocrite by “apologizing” for having done it. It would be more understandable–and still wrong–if he burned down the developer’s office, but he didn’t attempt to punish the developer. He chose to settle his case by breaking the law in a way to punish all of Korean society for his selfishness.
The squatters are no better. Again, instead of trying to deal with their grievances with the developers, they chose not just to punish society, but to murder people. They didn’t have the kerosene in the building by accident. They meant to kill. They were just waiting for the opportunity.
Sorry, no crying over these fools for me.
By the way, I heard from someone on my way home from work today that these weren’t really residents who were squatting in the building, but members of Hanch’ongnyong. Doe anyone know if there is any truth to that?
This reminds me very much of what has happened in Beijing, as per a current article:
Though Seoul may not have some of the antiquities of Beijing (had, that is), destroying the character of a city in the name of profit is mean and ignorant. Though the CCP is wicked enough to piss on their own history (including Korean history), it is no less callous for people who supposedly represent their people to do the same — for money or some failure to understand what makes a neighborhood.
I see few efforts like has been recently noted in Tongyeong, South Gyeongsang:
Could this ever happen in Seoul instead of building more tombstones and killing neighborhoods?
It is all very sad, indeed. Was this the 588 area near Yongsan Station?
I don’t mean to sound crass….but now I know why I was stuck in the f***** 3 tunnel for 1 hour last night around 5:30.
I remember when I first came to Korea in 1996. I was on a Singapore flight and on the main ‘big screen’ they were showing MBC news and the Molotov party at Yonsei University. The cameras were very close and it showed a student blasting 2 cops with a Molotov.
2 hours from landing I wondered what I had gotten myself into.
Those squatters were offered $10,000 to $15,000 to get out their homes and businesses. Would you take that and let rich people take away your homes and businesses? Not only that, get dragged out? They were justifiably angry in my opinion.
As for the police, they were trying to do their jobs.
The Korean media is accusing the police of police brutality and comparing them with the nice and kind police during the Roh’s administration. The media points out that three years ago when something like this happened, the police waited 53 days to make a move. Now they only took 3 days – it must be the military dictator Lee Myung Bak making orders to kill his own people.
Look for a head or two to roll.
“They were justifiably angry in my opinion.”
Maybe, buy how would you justify their use of Molotov cocktails?
Correction…but how.
SomeguyinKorea
I think their anger is justified, I don’t mean that their actions are justified. Violence like this is never the answer.
Apparently this was over the compensation they received from the redevelopment effort.
I cannot help but recognize a pattern here. That is that there are a lot of people protesting, killing and injuring themselves, others, and destroying centuries old national treasures over the amount of compensation they received from the government when some company comes in and takes their home. These don’t seem to be the lengths that rational human beings go to when they are shorted a few thousand dollars of market value, but when they are getting royally screwed to the point that they cannot continue their lives somewhere else.
Now I know I should not be sympathizing with the “crazy murderers” here, but I have to wonder, how much they actually getting for their property, and how did the government go about taking it?
Here is Korea. Someone is often set alight.
Candlelight protests were only “discovered” a few years ago, and occur far less often than the melee. The best ones involve monks, axes and fire hoses.
So true, Seouldout. I lived almost right across the street from Choggye Temple when the monks decided to wage all-out battle amongst themselves because the head of the order refused to step down at the end of his term in service, which eventually led to the police stepping in because the monk war was not ending. There were a lot of police officers injured in that battle, too, as the monks threw desks down on top of officers climbing ladders. Additionally, the candlight protests were discovered when the US soldiers from 2d ID staged candlelight vigils for the two girls killed in the convoy accident. Things are getting better here. Violence used to be the only answer. Now, only a few resort to it.
Many decades ago, when Taiwan was still a developing country, the government paid, in some cases, 3 times the value of land to its owner for development projects. They had few complaints and many farmers became wealthy from land development & sales.
However, such condition was made possible because land was very cheap back then, and the country was under martial law. So protest really wasn’t an option, and the people were simply paid off with a larger bag of money.
Today, land prices are much higher and the government has to find other ways to deal with land acquisitions. During the Taiwan high speed rail construction, they used a “mixed payment scheme” where the land owner is compensated partly with money, and partly with smaller redeveloped lots. So if you owned xx amount of farmland, they paid you a lump sum, and after development, you get a smaller piece of street-facing property near the station that you could use to open a store, live above, or rent it out for profit.
Urban redevelopments are always more messy, because you have to deal with renters/tenants that are not eligible for the land owner’s compensation. In Anaheim, CA, the areas near Disneyland was redeveloped to accommodate for the theme park & hotel additions. The land/building owners were compensated but the renters are simply evicted. There are very few affordable housing nearby. Ironically the people who were evicted, are the workers who work in the hotels and restaurants. So they get pushed out to remote areas with cheap housing, and commute 2-3 hours daily for work, adding to the traffic congestion problem on the freeways.
“where the land owner is compensated partly with money”
These weren’t land or building owners. These were small business owners and tenants. Rumors are that they were offered 15,000 Won to clear out. They argued for more money.
I’m just thinking, how would the police in the west would handle a situation like this (where people are holed up throwing molotov cocktails. Would the police even mess around trying to contain them with batons? I think they would shoot them. And the public would justify that as police self defense. Ironically, that kind of force saves more lives (both police and the violent protesters) – because all sides know that they can’t be acting radically without risking being shot by the police.
In Korea, that fear and respect for the police is non existing. And this is the result – 6 people dead when they shouldn’t have died.
Interesting comments from Tom Coyner. Thank you as always for your informative comments.
Well, cm, don’t you have to consider that in the West, or here in America, there is always the risk that these protesters may have guns themselves? Which would justify the police shooting them in “self-defense”.
You do know that guns are banned in Korea? I would say the law’s benefits far outweigh any costs.
BTW, I’m not sure what is meant by “respecting” the police here in America. If by respect you simply mean don’t do anything stupid that will get you killed, I guess we respect the police here. My best education about the police so far have been that you should keep your mouth shut *at all times*, because indeed, anything you say or do can and often will be used against you if you say or do something stupid, or even something you thought would help them in their case.
Some pitctures from last nights protest:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/n.....736705461/
Oh, anunsaram — you’ve earned a week’s suspension.
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