What Next? + Notice   2008-07-09 05:54

Demonstrations have somewhat subsided since last weekend, as the police keeps blocking passage to Seoul Plaza. NGO's and religious leaders who have been leading the protests have scattered, as the government is trying to arrest and prosecute them for obscure crimes. Several activists who are wanted have found refuge in Jokyesa Temple, where the police is unwilling to drag them out due to concerns about the freedom of religion.

Please scroll to the bottom for the "Notice".

The government has also threatened that Christian and Buddhist leaders who take part in anti-government protests may be arrested and prosecuted. What the f...? I mean, if you think they're criminals, just go ahead and arrest them! When a government threatens people with arrests and prosecutions, it does nothing but confirm it ridiculous belief that whether or not these people's actions last week were illegal depends on whether or not they cooperate with the government in the future. So much for the rule of law. Does the government still have the right to suppress dissent "in order to protect the rule of law", when the law just is whatever is convenient for those in power?

Protestant pastors protest the removal of their tent from Seoul Plaza, which they had been using as headquarters as they lead the rallies.

Citizens kicked out of Seoul Plaza keep protesting nonetheless.

Now we face a situation that is harder than ever before. Many of us are just plain exhausted after nine weeks of nightly protests, at the end of which nothing has really changed. Our leaders are being threatened with prosecution, and pro-government groups have notched up their defense. The government is also quickly tightening its grip on the mass media and the Internet. Daum Agora, the Korean People's favorite discussion site, has deleted many of our most thoughtful posts and is threatening to delete more; the company is apparently under great pressure from the government. The site was also redesigned to give pro-government posts a disproportionately large exposure, though clever users have found various ways to circumvent this. Some people are even distributing a customized web browser, called "AgoraWeb", which automatically hides comments written by known government-employed trolls. These trolls post hundreds of nearly identical and highly inflammatory comments every day, and AgoraWeb maintains a database of their usernames. For how long this workaround will continue to work, we do not know. A number of private citizens have already begun to create websites to complement and/or replace Daum Agora in case censorship continues.

Daum.net, the Mecca of Online Demonstrations.

The import of U.S. beef is what triggered the demonstrations back in May; and while a lot of other, possibly more important issues have crept up since then, renegotiating the April 18 beef deal with the U.S. remains one of the People's top demands. The United States is one of the very few countries in the developed world which makes it very difficult to track down BSE (mad-cow disease), the use of growth hormones, and the like. Europe doesn't import U.S. beef; Japan only imports cattle 20 months of age or less; but Korea is expected to import everything thanks to a promise that President Lee gave to George W. Bush. Now, the way the government has handled the issue is typical of President Lee and his gang: give empty apologies, do nothing, stage an "additional agreement" the precise content of which cannot be disclosed, and all while using pro-government news channels to spread propaganda. Now, nobody knows for sure if U.S. beef is safe or not. In a sense, the very fact that the safety of U.S. beef (or lack thereof) cannot be known for sure is the problem. BSE is not very well understood, so any government should use extreme caution when trading beef with a country that has a history of BSE. But using our tax money to run advertisements that repeat the U.S. beef industry's claims? Give me a break.

Son Jeong-Eun, a well-known TV newscaster, demonstrates on her own against the criminal investigation of the "PD Notebook" show, a hallmark of investigative journalism that helped raise awareness of BSE in Korea.

Joong-Ang Ilbo, one of Korea's major pro-government newspapers, made a fool of itself by trying to please the government rather carelessly. It reported a couple of days ago that U.S. beef is selling like crazy, obviously with the goal of making it look as if most people just aren't concerned with the safety of U.S. beef. Joong-Ang's story was accompanied by an alleged photograph of the restaurant's customers enjoying U.S. beef. However, shortly after the story went public, our trusty team of Agorians (members of Daum Agora) discovered that one of the women in the photograph (below) was the reporter herself. More investigation by Agorians revealed that the restaurant in question was virtually empty at the time, and that the scene in the photograph was deliberately arranged. Joong-Ang Ilbo was forced to publish an apology yesterday, admitting the fact that the report was totally fake.

In the meantime, it seems that U.S. beef producers -- who are trying to convince Koreans that U.S. cattle don't have BSE even when over 30 months of age -- have convinced their own government to stop importing Canadian beef from cattle over 30 months of age. (See this document and this document for more detail.) Does anyone still don't understand what the issue is with anti-U.S. beef protests in Korea? We're not even calling for a total ban on U.S. beef. What we have wanted from the beginning is a prohibition on the import of certain kinds beef and beef products (e.g. those produced from cattle over 30 months of age), just like what other countries have. Why is our government so unwilling to grant us something as simple as that? Does President Lee and his few remaining supporters have a vested interest in importing as much U.S. beef as possible?

And the issue of U.S. beef is just one of at least a dozen different policies that are just as controversial in Korea. All of these policies have been introduced since Lee came to power in February: total deregulation of public education, privatization of the national health care system, privatization of public utilities, privatization of this, privatization of that. The revenue from this series of privatizations is estimated to exceed Korea's annual GDP (currently around $1 trillion). Where does all that money go? Why are Lee's friends and relatives already lining up to buy as many public corporations as they can?

What is even more scary is the fact that once the Korea-U.S. Free Trade Agreement -- of which President Lee is a strong proponent -- is ratified, few if any of these privatizations can be reversed. It might be possible to force a domestic private corporation to sell itself to the government if the need is high (effectively de-privatizing it), but the same cannot be done with a foreign firm. The Korean People must therefore make sure that everything that needs to be provided by the government (such as health care for low-income families) is within the government's power to provide, before the FTA comes into effect. But President Lee seems to be impatient. He seems to want to irreversably privatize everything as soon as possible. So again we must ask: Does he (and his gang) have a vested interest in these changes?

If you thought that our demonstrations would lead to some sort of bloody revolution at the end of which all the bad guys will be gone, sorry to disappoint you. We're not there yet. Especially since last Saturday's demonstration (when over 300,000 citizens participated peacefully), we, the Korean People, are taking a little time rethinking our strategies and diversifying them too. Candlelight protests are brilliant (optically as well as politically), but President Lee clearly doesn't give a damn about such protests. More protests are planned for Saturday, July 12 and Thursday, July 17 (a national holiday); but honestly, it is unlikely that they will bring about any real change. Many people are now turning towards consumer movement (boycotting pro-government newspapers and corporations), investigative Internet journalism (uncovering Lee and his gang's true motives as well as their hidden crimes), and various legal processes (judicial review). Of course, the government is already saying -- not literally, but effectively -- that it's illegal to boycott pro-government companies or to raise suspicions of the government's crimes. President Lee obviously doesn't want us to do anything that might get in his way.

It's going to be a long fight. Perhaps it will last the entire 5 years of Lee's term (or even longer if he wouldn't step down). But we had fought for longer than that before: 35 years against Japanese colonialism and 27 years against military dictatorship. The last nine weeks have been nothing more than the beginning of our struggle for freedom and democracy.

Which brings me to the promised "Notice": There will be a change of pace in this blog as well. Instead of reporting every little detail every day (or even twice a day), I will try to provide summaries with comments once or twice a week, with a view to the larger scheme of things. Of course, if an emergency arises in Korea, I'll go back to the daily update schedule for a while. But for now, I'm thinking long-term. In the meantime, Global Candles is a good source of up-to-date news in English as well as several other languages. That site is dedicated to translating the Korean news for a foreign audience, and volunteers are actively maintaining sections in English, Chinese, and Japanese.

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