Updates for the Morning of June 8th   2008-06-08 08:26

Yesterday evening, between 100,000 and 150,000 people gathered in downtown Seoul again to protest. It's been exactly one month since the candlelight protests began, and the number of participants only continues to grow. As usual, many of them -- families and teenagers -- went home after midnight; there are no "official" picket lines here, so anyone is free to come or go. But as of 5:00 am, almost ten thousand still remain in Seoul Plaza and surrounding streets. The police has aggressively blocked all paths to the Blue House since early on, which may have provoked many citizens to stay longer in order to keep the protesters from being outnumbered. The protesters and the riot police have been sharply confronting each other at least since 1:00 am, and some have tried to breach the barricades (consisting of police buses parked tightly alongside one another) by climbing over them with ladders and pulling them away with ropes. Overall, the protesters have been quite a bit more aggressive last night. Maybe it was a direct response to the similarly aggressive tactics of the police. Maybe the People are getting impatient, after one month of nonstop protests failed to bring about any change of public policy. Reserve army officers (i.e. men who have recently been discharged from their mandatory military service) gathered voluntarily and tried hard all night to keep the peace by standing between the police and the protesters, as seen in the picture below.

Violence has been occurring sporadically but continually, either in the form of riot police beating and pushing away those trying to breach the barricade, or in the form of angry individuals smashing the windows and panels of police buses. More than a dozen people have been injured, and a dozen others were arrested. Many peaceful protesters were clearly upset with the violence, and urged both the police and their fellow citizens to exercise restraint. There have been rumors that at least some of the more aggressive protesters are actually government-employed thugs who were placed there to provoke violence and give the police an excuse for a crackdown, but these rumors have not been confirmed and will likely never be. People who have been closely monitoring the various video footages, however, have noted that there are individuals dressed as civilians standing behind the barricades alongside the officers, who are seemingly receiving directives from police officers. Some of these individuals have been observed on the other side of the barricade as well, leading other people to talk about spies. The police is also said to have damaged or confiscated a number of cameras, giving rise to the suspicion that something nasty was filmed which the police does not want to reveal; the rumor of a young woman's death in the hands of the police also continues to spread. Whatever the truth is, we sincerely hope that the emphasis on nonviolence prevails among the protesters as it has done so far. Everyone loses when violence occurs. Overzealous activists must curb their passions. In order for our protests to have an effect, we must not be the evil ones.

Meanwhile, President Lee Myung-Bak is reported to have said, in a meeting with Buddhist leaders, that (1) our protests are a left-wing plot to grab power, and (2) this is somehow connected with the "commies" in North Korea. Not only does this directly contradict what he said in his interview with TIME yesterday about how he understands what we're up to, but it also reveals how he is utterly mistaken in what he thinks we're up to. Of course there are loads of left-wing activists among our number. They, like anyone else, are free to voice their concerns. But the candlelight protests have mostly been voluntary and spontaneous. Many of us just heard about the protests on the Internet. We bought our own candlesticks and made our own pickets. In addition, as we have remarked in an earlier posts, we don't really care all that much about ideology. We just want our food to be safe and health care to remain affordable. If the President wants to live in the Cold War era, let him do so. But he shouldn't drag other people into the past with him.

The Buddhist monks who were invited to the President's lunch were reportedly quite annoyed by the way their host tried to preach to them. Not surprisingly, a number of monks were seen last night among the protesters.

On a slightly different note, concerns are rising among the citizenry as to the effectiveness of the current protests. The People have been trying for many days to get to the Blue House (the President's office and residence), but the police has been highly successful in not letting anyone within a kilometer of the Blue House -- to the angry complaint of those living inside the barricades, who have been practically locked in. Also, because it has been impossible to protest in front of the Blue House, some among our number are growing increasingly impatient and hence violent. So a number of People on the discussion forum Daum Agora (which is thankfully back online) are now discussing the possibility of targeting Hannara Party and the National Assembly in the coming days. That would take the crowd south to Yeouido Island where the party headquarters and the National Assembly are located, instead of north where the Blue House is. The strategy is to convince the ruling party to distance itself from the President's own agenda, which isn't all that unrealistic since we know there are significant factions within Hannara party. There are dangers to the proposed strategy, though. Not least of all is the fact the Yeouido Island is relatively isolated from the rest of the city, being in the middle of a river with only a few bridges and a subway line connecting it to the outside. It would be much easier for the police to control the protests there, simply by preventing people from getting to the Island.

Concerns have also been raised about the health hazards of fire extinguishers, which the police has been using to keep the protesters away from the barricade since water cannons proved too injurious. At first, the police was using Halon 1211 fire extinguishers, which a lot of people argued have dangerous effects especially when sprayed directly at the face as the police was doing. Last night, dry chemical fire extinguishers were employed, covering the 16-lane Sejong street with a fog of white powder. People are reporting temporary respiratory problems from the use of these powdery devices, and at least one person has been hospitalized.

As of 7:00 am, remaining protesters (a few thousand) have been surrounded by riot police and forced to get off the main streets. Machines have been employed to sweep and wash the streets, making them ready for another day's traffic -- as if nothing had happened during the night! No further breakout of violence has been reported, but protests continue wherever there is a gap in the police lines.

Several practitioners of oriental medicine have arrived, and they are handing out drinks with medicinal effects both to the protesters and to the riot police. Police officers seem at least as exhausted as the protesters are, after a long night's confrontation.

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