Pyeongtaek appears to be the hub of unrest over the last couple of years. First there were the demonstrations against the enlargement of the American military facilities in the area and now there is unrest over the closure of Ssangyong Auto.
Remember in the 1980s and 90s when the weapons of choice were molotov cocktails and pieces of broken flagstone? Now it seems everyone, from members of the National Assembly to the common protester/anti-protester at SsangYong Automobile plant, has found the fire extinquisher to be the ideal weapon of choice. Of course, there are still those who are more conservative who employ trusty old steel pipes.
Someone in an earlier post noted that during the various demonstrations in Seoul during the past year, it was to his impression (biased by the press) that the police were responsible for the violence and that the demonstrators were mere victims.
Here are some “victims” at play – grandslam style.
You can see some of the other pictures on MSN’s slide show.
{ 18 comments… read them below or add one }
I had seen the protests when the base was to be extended at Camp Humphries, but those guys are wailing away with steel pipes – does this seem like some low-budget samurai movie (pardon the comparison)? The Blue Hats versus the Brown Cockroaches?
I wonder if arming the police with shields and riot helmets only encourage these guys to get more violent. Maybe it would be a better ideal if the riot police are unarmed and stand there with no protection. Will rioters still dare to hit them with metal pipes and rocks?
cm,
Please look carefully at the pictures. In only one picture are the police equipped with shields. None of the police officers in the pictures is wearing a helmet although a few protesters are. The pictures clearly show that protesters will use weapons to attack riot police without protective gear. I believe the Darth Vaderesque costumes went out of style about ten years ago.
Why not just let them run amok destroying property and creating mayhem at their will? Sort of like the Republican argument against bailouts – let people experience the consequences of their actions rather than shielding them from it.
Let them go amok, let the average citizens see for themselves what society will look like when anarchy rules.
Careful M5, bringing precious american politics into it will get you nothing but scorn and bad bad names from the all knowing true believers.
How can this be? I read a few weeks ago that Korea’s labor market has improved recently. I am so dismayed.
I believe this is the “the unplanned acts of violence caused by a small number of citizens ” that the Hani’s chief editor was referring to the other day.
http://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_opinion/362523.html
I don’t think the police are in these pictures. The guys with the shields are security. The police didn’t want to get involved because it was “a private matter” (ie it’s too much bother, they vcould get in the shit, so frankly, they’re not touching it with someone else’s)
I think they did go in in the end when the inevitable riot happened.
You’re right, Han. The shields and uniforms do not identify the men as the police.
You leave my dad out of this!
Luke is that you?
Mizar5, the Filipino editorial is nothing more than xenophobia. If the editorial was written in Korean, about American invasion of Korea, you’d be more critical no doubt.
This blogger, GI Korea, actually did some home work and found out that South Koreans shipping off entire islands of Philippines is sensationalist exaggeration.
http://rokdrop.com/2009/06/27/is-south-korea-colonizing-the-philippines/#comments
Nice find, cm.
The really hard riot cops in Korea aren’t the young conscripts. They are the older guys – professional shit kickers – wearing jeans with shin pads taped on. I saw those guys enter the fray in “demos” in ’97 and “98. When I saw them go into the crowds in Myeongdong in early ‘ 97, there were no shields or anything. They waded in and started kicking the shit out of people. They got some rocks and other objects thrown at them, but they didn’t back down. These guys were laughing about it! The gas didn’t seem to bother them. It was wafting around and they were hanging out, smoking cigarettes, and laughing at anyone: running away, crying, sneezing, etc. Hardcore. The conscript guys were massed around Uljiro or Myeongdong Stations, apparently trying to keep people away from the action. but the older goons were seriously tough.
The article referred to beaches, and I’m not clear how a google snap clears it up one way or another without a before and after shot. I mean it shows a black sand beach, but not exactly a wide swathe. How are we to know whether before that it was a sweeping area of black sand dunes. Also how does it address whether the removal is elgal or not.
Naturally, there is no substitute for real investigative research. But the beaches are only a single example of what the article points to – the downsides of a massive Korean immigration wave, which include Korean disregard of the environment and the local population as well as attempts to bribe their way past the regulatory landscape, akin to the Dongsan Park scandal in the 1970s. They now call this “the Korean invasion”.
Reports point out that there is growing resentment of a people who are increasingly perceieved as insensitive and haughty, wealthy but classless. You get the picture of a culture clash and the that Pinoys feel that they are being exploited in a one-sided relationship.
Korean men are generally good fighters, this steel pipe play is one of the many proof.
They should have used this to Pro-China Chinese back in Olympic torch relay.
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