Two Reports from U.S. Activists in Korea: Cindy Sheehan and Medea Benjamin

Two Reports from U.S. Activists in Korea: Cindy Sheehan and Medea Benjamin

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Two Reports from U.S. Activists in Korea: Cindy Sheehan and Medea Benjamin
November 28, 2006

Asia Watch: Projects of Peace No War Network
http://www.Asia-Watch.net
http://www.PeaceNoWar.net


Siege and Seizure in Korea
Cindy Sheehan

Traveling around the world these past months has given me an education about
American history that majoring in the subject at UCLA never did. I have
witnessed first hand what US imperialism and militarism can do to countries
and societies. I sat with indigenous Hawaiian tribal leaders who shared
their tragic stories of how US colonialism and militarism ruined their
fishing waters and turned their lands into super-fund sites. I stood in
solidarity with Irish peace activists who want the US military off of their
soil and US transport and rendition planes to stop using Shannon Airport to
land to refuel. These are just a few stories, everywhere I go, the local
populations have stories of greed, crime, corruption, pollution, etc., that
all go hand in glove wherever the US military is present. Not to mention the
“hot” war zones where hundreds of civilians are murdered, maimed, or
displaced on a daily basis.

This rampant, arrogant, and care-less US militarism has nowhere been more
evident than here in South Korea, especially in the village of Daechuri,
near Pyong-taek City. The loathing for George Bush, America, Americans,
irresponsible capitalism, corporatism, imperialism and militarism is a
planetary phenomenon, but above what the US is doing to the wretched
countries of Iraq and Afghanistan, I have never been more ashamed of the US
government than when I visited the village of Daechuri with 17 other
American peace and social justice activists and a campesino from Colombia.

Miles before our bus reached the village on the evening of November 20th, we
were stopped by approximately 200 South Korean riot-police who were decked
out in their full riot regalia with bullet proof shields. We were traveling
with Father Moon, an elderly Buddhist priest who has been an advocate for
the villagers for a few years now. Father Moon got out of the bus and
negotiated with the police captain for what seemed hours in the near
freezing cold, but was only about 20 minutes. Finally, in what the villagers
said was an unprecedented move, they allowed us entry into the village
(after we passed another heavily guarded checkpoint). Villagers must present
ID to get into their own village and visitors are rarely allowed to go in.
Why? Because the village of Daechuri is under-siege in a criminal
collaboration between the governments of South Korea and the United States
of America and the governments don’t want the world to see what their crimes
are doing to yet more innocent civilians.

The village of Daechuri has the unmitigated gall to be located next to a US
military base, Camp Humphreys, which is slated for an eleven-billion dollar
expansion that would include a golf course for the use of soldiers stationed
there. The only problem is (not for the governments) that the village of
Daechuri and their thousands of acres of farmland, mostly rice paddies, are
in the way of the juggernaut of US military expansion. The people of
Daechuri have been cut-off from their farmlands by razor wire, guard towers,
and armed foot patrols. Over two-thirds of the residents have the small
village, but that leaves about one-third of them there to stand against the
mightiest Army and the greediest government in world history.

In the ‘80’s, Ronald Reagan famously said: “tear it down!” regarding the
Berlin Wall. There are many more walls on Earth that separate people from
their farmlands, families, jobs and country that need to be torn down, but
so-called civilized nations are building more walls and fortifications to
contain and control free human movement and expression and curb populations
that are just trying to live their lives in the traditional ways that they
always have.

After our tour bus pulled up into the village, we were ushered into a large
warehouse where the villagers were holding their 811th nightly candlelight
vigil in protest of the US incursion. We joined their vigil and heard their
stories. We heard stories of May 4th, when 20,000 Korean police descended on
the village with heavy-hands and strong arm tactics that allowed the barbed
wire fences to be constructed, thereby effectively cutting the farmers off
from tens of thousands of dollars worth of un-harvested rice. We heard
stories from village elders who lived through Japanese imperialism and
occupation to the US Korean police action that killed 2.5 million Koreans,
and are now having their lands and ways of life robbed of them by “Pax
Americana.” My heart broke for the people of Daechuri and was filled with
disgust for whom the people of Korea call “Georgie Bushie” and whom I call
“BushCo.”

Daechuri has become “ground zero” in the struggle against violent US
military extremism. We Americans can no longer sit idly by and turn ignorant
blind eyes to what Georgie Bushie does around the globe. The people of such
places as Daechuri, Shannon, Pearl Harbor and Iraq are our brothers and
sisters whom we are allowing our governments to oppress and suppress.
In all my life, I have never witnessed such courage, strength, and
determination. 150 people are standing firm and will not be moved no matter
how many acres of their familial land is seized, how many of their homes are
bulldozed or how close the razor wire gets to their homes. They have
decorated every fence with bright and cheery paintings of hope for the
future and they have erected monuments and memorials to what they have
already lost. Their determination and courage should be inspiration to all
people around the world who also struggle for basic human rights.

This week, 18 Americans chose to give up their family holiday celebrations
to come to Korea to stand with the people of Daechuri and the Korean peace
movement.

On the day after Thanksgiving when most Americans were watching football,
trampling each other in Wal-Mart in a frantic feeding frenzy to get the
newest cheap toys that are made off of the backs of virtual slave labor all
over the world and/or spend most of the day circling parking lots at malls
across the country to find a coveted parking space, four women from our
delegation, myself, Medea Benjamin (founder of Global Exchange and Code
Pink), my sister, Dede Miller (co-founder of GSFP) and my assistant, Tiffany
Burns, walked across about 2 acres (up to our armpits) of ruined rice crops
toward the “dmz” between the village and Camp Humphreys to hang a sign that
said: “Arms not Farms” on the nasty looking razor wire, despite the warnings
of the Korean guards who were waving their arms and screaming something at
us from behind two rows of the barbed wire.

The people of Daechuri have very little to be Thankful for. Our soldiers in
the field and innocent people in Bush-torn countries have very little to be
Thankful for. For me, on the third Thanksgiving I have had to bear since
Casey was killed, I can’t think of anything else that I would rather have
done than help the people of Daechuri struggle against the very same thing
that took Casey’s life. The villagers honored us with a “ Gold Star Families
for Peace/Code Pink” Peace House that had been abandoned by an owner that
took the cash settlement to leave. The villagers that remain don’t want the
government’s blood money; they just want to keep their lands and homes.

The villagers who walk the narrow streets of Daechuri, bowed by lifetimes of
carrying heavy burdens and children on their backs, are now carrying burdens
placed there by American imperial gluttony, and I, as an American want to
help them carry this burden, as many kind people all over the world have
tried to help me carry mine.

Not only is the expansion of Camp Humphreys hurting the people of Daechuri,
but it will have the effect of further de-stabilizing a region already on
pins and needles due parially to US intervention. You can bet your turkey
left-overs that North Korea is watching these developments very closely and
only the people of Korea and this region will pay for US infiltrations in
South Korea. I know I don’t feel any safer by the raping and pillaging of
Daechuri…in fact the expansion of Camp Humphreys will only do what Georgie
Bushie is becoming infamous for: making America and the world less safe and
secure. As an aside: I took a straw poll of about 400 South Koreans and 100%
of them said that Georgie Bushie is far more frightening than Kim Jong-Il
and they want the US out of Korea so they can put their divided country back
together again.

With the complete destruction of Daechuri scheduled by the end of this year,
our efforts may be too little, too late for the ill-fated visitors who are
going through long-distance BushCo callousness, but we can prevent other
villages, towns, countries from experiencing the same fate with the exposure
of what is happening here. We are in this together. Making the sacrifices of
the villagers count for justice is as important as making US troop and the
Iraqi civilian’s sacrifices count for peace. Peace and justice are two
values that are intertwined and inter-connected and they are the
responsibility of us all.

What can we do stateside to help these people? We can lobby our
congressional reps to hold hearings into the tragedy of Daechuri. We can
donate money to help the villagers get fuel for heating their homes during
the bitter Korean winter and to obtain food, since they can’t access their
fields for harvest. We can turn off our TVs and educate ourselves on US,
corporatism, imperialism and militarism by reading such books as:
Confessions of an Economic Hit Man by John Perkins, or Hegemony or Survival
by Noam Chomsky. We can do with less, especially in the season of
over-the-top consumerism and waste. We can support organizations financially
who work for peace and justice in lieu of a seemingly obscene over-abundance
of presents or decorations.

I hope when Americans play golf on the golf course that will be constructed
over the rice fields that sustained and gave sustenance to the villagers for
generations, they stop and reflect for even a brief moment that an entire
village was destroyed and hundreds of people were displaced for their
recreation.

Golf! A village was obliterated for golf. If this is the “American way” then
we obviously need a new way, as speedily as possible.

Mail your tax deductible donation for the villagers of Daechuri to:
Gold Star Families for Peace
2010 Linden Ave
Venice, Ca. 90291
Earmark the donation for the villagers.

Cindy Sheehan is the mother of Spc. Casey Sheehan who was killed in Bush's
war of terror on 04/04/04. She is the co-founder and president of Gold Star Families for Peace and the
Camp Casey Peace Institute.She is the author of three books, the most recent is: Peace Mom: A Mother's
Journey Through Heartache to Activism.


============================================================
U.S. Military Expansion vs. South Korean Farmers
By Medea Benjamin

It isn’t easy getting into the South Korean village of Daechuri, a farming village that is scheduled to be razed by the end of 2007 for the expansion of a U.S. military base. Residents can only enter and exit through checkpoints set up by the South Korean military, despite the fact that the Korean National Human Rights Commission declared the checkpoints illegal and a violation of the villagers’ human rights.

Visitors are often prohibited from entering Daechuri, especially “troublesome” peace activists supporting local efforts to save the village. Our U.S. delegation, organized by the Korean American group KAWAN, was met by an overwhelming force of some 200 police in riot gear! They had obviously heard that an international delegation, including well-known peace mom Cindy Sheehan, was going to attempt to enter the village and spend the night there. But perhaps because we were accompanied by a gaggle of press, after much back and forth between our Korean hosts and the police, we were eventually allowed in.

In Daechuri, we were ushered into a warehouse where over 100 villagers were holding a candlelight vigil. The most amazing thing about this vigil is that it has been going on every evening for over two years! Rain or shine, in the bitter winter nights or the sweltering summer evenings, the vigil is a constant. It’s a way for the residents and their supporters to come together and renew their commitment to keep trying—despite the odds—to save their village.

The vigilers, mostly elderly farmers, broke out in applause when we entered the room. While the U.S. military is scheduled to obliterate their village by the end of the year to expand its base at Camp Humphreys, the villagers welcomed the solidarity from Americans. They laughed and clapped wildly when we ended our introductions with a popular Korean slogan we’d learned on the bus ride from Seoul, which sounds like “Georgie Bushie Chigura Donada”, or “George Bush, leave this planet!”

After the vigil, we were taken to several abandoned homes to spend the night and in the morning, we awoke to see what had once been a prosperous farming community. The land was flat and rich, spanning out across the horizon in neatly divided golden rice fields. The rice grown in this region near the city of Pyongtaek is legendary for its high quality and commands a good price on the market. With much hard work over generations, the local farmers—who are both men and women—had been able to build middle class communities. For farmers in poor countries, these homes would look like mansions. They had electricity, running water, “ondol” (the traditional Korean under-floor heating system), and spacious living quarters. The home we stayed in had three bedrooms, two baths, a hearty kitchen and a spacious sitting area with a lovely inlaid wood ceiling.

But on May 4, 2006 the South Korean government, using the power of eminent domain, sent in over 20,0000 troops to demolish dozens of homes and the public school the villagers had so lovingly built for their children. So far, 81 homes have been demolished, and the 147 remaining homes are scheduled to be bulldozed by the end of 2006. And in November, 2006, in a further effort to drive the residents out, the Korean military built trenches and laid miles of razor wire fencing to keep the villagers from their fields.

For over three years now, the villagers and their supporters have been fiercely resisting eviction. They organized a tractor tour around the entire country, set up huge rallies of up to 10,000 people, and went on hunger strikes. They even chained themselves to the roofs of their homes to keep the bulldozers at bay. In the process, they’ve faced brutal police violence and repression. Over 1,000 people have been injured and over 800 people arrested. On November 3, 2006, Ji-Tae Kim, Dachuri village leader and Director of the Residents Committee against US Base Expansion, was sentenced to two years in prison on charges of “obstructing government affairs.”

“The South Korean government is supposed to be democratic,” said Father Moon, a Catholic priest who has been supporting the villagers, “but it has beaten and jailed the villagers, demolished their homes, stolen their land by erecting a barbed-wire blockade to keep them from their fields—all to expand a U.S. military base that the people don’t need or want. It’s shameful.”

The expansion is part of the first major relocation and consolidation of U.S. troops in Korea since the armistice that ended the Korean War in 1953. The U.S. and South Korea government came to an agreement to move U.S. forces stationed in Seoul and the demilitarized zone and consolidate them in two "hubs" in Pyongtaek and Pusan, both south of Seoul. The move changes the role of US forces in Korea from a defensive posture against North Korea towards a more flexible, rapidly deployable force for the wider Asia-Pacific region. The U.S. military refers to this as "strategic flexibility". The total number of troops will be lower—from 37,000 to 25,000 by 2008—but its technological capabilities will be enhanced.

The move to Pyeongtaek will put U.S. troops outside North Korea’s missile range, and the upgraded weaponry is designed to make the US military more efficient and better prepared for war with North Korea.

But many South Koreans we encountered feel that the expansion of US military's role is a provocation to North Korea, increases the tensions on the peninsula, and acts as a deterrent to the peaceful unification of North and South Korea. They also wonder why the U.S. needs to take up so much land for the Camp Humphreys base expansion if the U.S. troops are being reduced by 12,000. The Camp Humphreys base has already gobbled up 3,685 acres of prime farmland, and with the expansion it will almost double to 6,535 acres. Farmers were further angered when they discovered that part of their confiscated land will be used for an extensive leisure center for American soldiers, including an 18-hole golf course!

Prior to leaving the U.S., our delegation had requested a meeting with U.S military commander in South Korea General B.B. Bell or another appropriate representative to talk about the implications of the base expansion. Unfortunately, the meeting was denied. After seeing first-hand the devastating effects of the planned expansion on the Daechuri villagers, however, we decided to go directly to the base in Seoul to ask the U.S. military to reconsider our request for a meeting.

Instead of agreeing to a dialogue, the American officials closed the base gate, which is normally open for pedestrian traffic, and blocked our path with riot police. When we protested our exclusion, the military issued a terse memo saying, “While we respect and defend the right of American and Korean citizens to express their opinions, we have no specific statement in response to today’s impromptu protest.”

While our own U.S. military refused to meet with us, our friends in the village showered us with hospitality and kindness. They even painted a Cindy Sheehan/CODEPINK plaque and placed it outside an abandoned house that they designated as an international peace center. Kim Suk Kyung, father of imprisoned village leader Kim Ji-Tae, told us as we were leaving the village: "Many of us are elderly and this is the only home we know. We are determined to live and die in our village, and that’s why we need your help. Please go back home and tell your government to let us live here in peace."

Our delegation is returning to the United States determined to raise awareness and funds for the villagers, and to call on our new Congress to hold investigations into the U.S. military realignment in Korea. The expansion of the base will not enhance the security of the people of the United States or South Korea, but will only fuel militarization in the region and anti-American sentiment among those who believe, as we do, that the Pyongtaek villagers, who have been farming these lands for generations, deserve to stay there.


Medea Benjamin ( medea@globalexchange.org This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it ) is cofounder of Global Exchange and CODEPINK: Women for Peace. To support the Korean villagers, go to www.codepinkalert.org



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