The Rising of the Goons
[Update 3, 5/14: Via the Chosun Ilbo:
Some 4,000 members of the Pan-national Committee to Deter the Expansion of U.S. Bases held a massive protest at the site for the new U.S. Forces Korea headquarters in Pyeongtaek on Sunday. Feared large-scale violence, however, was averted as protestors refrained from using lethal tools like steel pipes or bamboo sticks while police stopped short of full-scale suppression. The coalition comprises members of the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions, the Korean Federation of University Student Councils or Hanchongryon and the Democratic Labor Party.
There was still violence, and there were still arrests. I’m not privy to the red guards’ strategy sessions, but they tend to back off when they can see a backlash forming.
Some 196 companies of riot police numbering 20,000 were mobilized to stop the protests, in which 36 protestors were taken into custody for throwing stones at police. Five people were taken to nearby hospitals after smaller clashes between police and protestors.
]
[Update 2, 5/13: The fun is starting with protests in downtown Seoul:
About 4,000 protestors including activists, workers and student radicals occupied Chongno Street near the American embassy in central Seoul, holding candles as they chanted songs, shouted slogans and waved banners. Thousands of riot police, backed by fire trucks with water cannons, stood guard over the protest Saturday fearing a repeat of last week’s fighting in Pyongtaek. Police buses were parked closely together to block all roads to the high-walled US embassy some 100 meters (yards) away. The protesters carried banners calling for the withdrawal of US troops and an end to the ongoing talks to conclude a free trade agreement with the United States. . . .
The Pyongtaek protests will happen Sunday, Korea time.]
[Update 5/13: The U.S. Embassy has put out a warning because of the potential for anti-American violence this weekend. If you’re in Seoul, this might be a good weekend for X-box, or for reading blogs. If you go out, please be careful.]
The Korea Sojourner’s video editing skills are starting to impress me.* He has some great video, which he usually gets from the red guards’ own Web sites, which he has compiled into this well-done montage of the last round of protests. He intersperses clips of protestors driving back the police with sticks and sharpened poles with others recounting the sacrifices of Americans so that Korea could have (and perhaps throw away) a free and prosperous society. What’s really telling is the degree to which these people revel in their hate and violence, showing the world how they fight the police with weapons.
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Expect more violence within hours. As many as 10,000 of the red guards are already moving toward a roughly equal (!) number of police.
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Fresh polls show Uri trailing badly in the runup to the May 31st elections. Voters appear not to care about mudslinging or scandal-mongering. I can’t prove a connection, but I’m guessing that the Roh administration’s vascillating response to the violence — violence that is deeply unpopular with Korean voters — is hurting his party.
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* Although I don’t always understand his choice of background music — I mean, I got the “I got sunshine,” but why play all of “My Girl?”
Ah the leftist goon division mobilized for showdown in PT. Hell, Gwangju uprising (fact is these goons attached ROK Army and deserved to be shot for armed rebellion). Bring it on PIG Uri and commie agents who in the old days would have been jailed (and tortured – oh yeah!). How I dearly miss Prez Park and even Prez Chun…
Ummm ……….
I’ve put in a number of songs in videos since last summer touching on the love-hate relationship Korea has with the US in Korea with the love-hate mixing within the same individual minds as well as the society as a whole – and flipped around, my own attitude when it comes to the narrow item of US-SK relations as one element of Korean society I got to know intimately.
http://www.usinkorea.org/videos/new/29_may_05_seoul.wmv
was one of the first.
“My Girl”
I’ve got sunshine for the opening scenes which took place at dawn — then used for the recall when the 2nd day of battle stretched into the night.
“What can make me feel this way?” Works for both these Korean radicals and myself seeing these Korean radicals – all bond together in this insanity we call the “blood alliance”.
“I’ve even got the month of May” – It’s May…
“I’ve got sunshine” — placed on a night scene and lyrics of love and images of rage highlighting the nature of the US-SK relationship.
I thought it worked more clearly than the images this video put with the lyrics of its song…..
http://www.usinkorea.org/videos/kill_americans_pop_music_video.wmv
Watching the video makes me appreciate more the work the Korean police and soldiers are doing in Pyeongtaek. Those kids are 20 year old draftees making about $35 a month serving their country and they have to deal with getting the crap beaten out of them and completely disrespected by these hateful commies. Plus these draftees have no support from their own government who continues to let these commie groups attack the police over and over again without arresting anyone.
The idealism of sort of the democratic movement in 1987 era is gone. Those 386 in power had valid point to protest Pres Chun’s grip on power. I’ll never forget the halcion days in Seoul where I was “holed” up in Hilton as I could not conduct my biz for US company. Chun’s party was meeting at Hilton to decide who was going to run for his crony job (the other Roh) and I was asked to clsoe my curtain in my room. I peeked for a second to see the melee below only to get a call within a minute telling me not to peek out. Now this is unfair.
Scroll forward 20 years and now we have commie red guards under disguise of democracy using violence.
Big difference of course is that people – old and young and many of GNP party supported the at time violent movement 20 years ago but not now.
Let the blood spill and let the commies make martyr of those who get killed since it’s what they look for – bloodbath.
These actions will only alienate and hopefully the whole country will lean more towards center/right.
You all talk like a war could break out on the Korean Peninsular any time. The Korean war is a relic, get it? A relic of the past!
All it takes now is for America to put its signature on a piece of paper saying that it will no longer consider North Korea a hostile nation and that would formally end the war.
The problem is there is a lot of “conditions” that America is insisting before it puts its signature, and this is frustrating and wasting everyone’s time. The “conditions” are actually fake. It is simply buying time hoping that Kim’s regime would collapse before it needs to sign it. So it plays this waiting game. Round and round of 6 party talks and still no progress. You are wasting everyone’s time.
If America doesn’t put its signature soon to get a peace accord out, someday, a Korean president will sign it on behalf of America. Those Koreans from my generation who grew up in a confident Korea have no qualms about taking that proactive step.
“I’m not privy to the red guards’ strategy sessions, but they tend to back off when they can see a backlash forming.”
That’s usually the case, but Pyongtaek is too big an issue to pass up, I think, and the chance of achieving movement toward the goal of getting USFK out can be reached without popular support if they convince the US Korea isn’t worth it by delaying construction.
I expect The Priest to shift from protests to missions – sending out small bands of the core radicals to breach the base and do other things including at some point sabotage like at places where heavy equipment and such needed for construction is kept off site.
I also expect they will start varying where they hit instead of focusing on that one village now that access is blocked – I think they’ll try different ways to get into the base in Pyongtaek, and they will hit other bases that are part of the cosoliation and focus on the US Embassy more too.
When the FTA talks come up on important dates for meetings, I expect Labor to join in more.
I would guess we will not see them announce big protests much or frequently from now on since this turn out was so low —
public opinion is already against them, but the more they play up a rally and fail to turn out even there own numbers, it makes them look weak.
One article said that in all, some 45,000 people participated this weekend but spread out over different cities and locations in Seoul.
???
However he does it, The Priest will not back off Pyongtaek, just as he kept plugging away at Koon-ni in Maehyangri.
The construction is going to take a good bit of time.
He will have constant windows of opportunity, and he has the immagination and money and enough core supporters to come up with a lot of ways to seek to delay the project.
Last week was just the kick off….
Mahathir-fan,
You over-simplify, my friend. There is the slight problem that North Korea’s entire legitimacy rests upon its claim to be the rightful government of all Koreans, to include those in the ROK, who are living in “occupied” territory. The ROK constitution, which is far more representative of its people that the Nork’s, likewise contains language to the effect that “north Korean” (sic) territory is properly the ROKs. There is also the small matter of very large indigenous military forces on both sides of the DMZ. The Americans can sign anything they like. The Korean War will be over only when the two Koreas decide that it is so, and take the necessary diplomatic and defense measures to give force to the language of whatever document they sign. I do not believe that the Singapore-Malaysia historical example has any import for the “two” Koreas.