It’s Getting Pretty Grim Out Here
August 7, 2008 | News |
U.S. President George W. Bush arrived in Seoul on August 5, had a chat with Korean President Lee, and left the next day on his way to Thailand and China. Since many of President Lee’s most controversial policies have a close connection to the U.S. (importing U.S. beef over 30 months old, adopting an American-style health-care system, and of course, the Korea-U.S. Free Trade Agreement), tens of thousands of concerned citizens and activists took the opportunity to protest once again. I don’t think we ever posed a security threat to Mr. Bush — we protested at night in downtown areas, far away from where Mr. Bush was supposed to be sleeping — but, as usual, our government responded with despicable violence as if we were “terrorists” or something. According to eyewitness accounts, it was May 31 all over again. In case you’re wondering what happened on May 31, that’s when reports of police brutality prompted me to start this blog. That’s also the night when it is rumored that a few lives were lost.
Above: After the crackdown, abandoned pickets remain steeped in red. Thankfully, that’s not blood; it’s the red dye with which the police showered the People, so that they could easily identify and arrest us later. That’s not a particularly comforting piece of explanation, though.
In addition to existing issues such as beef and the health-care system, a new issue emerged lately: the further deployment of Korean troops in Afghanistan. South Korea has stayed out of Afghanistan for the most part since last year’s hostage crisis in which two missionaries lost their lives to the Taliban; but in recent weeks, it was suggested that Mr. Bush would request further military involvement of Korea in Afghanistan. President Lee’s Hannara Party even said that it would accept such a request. Curiously, it turns out that Mr. Bush never made such a request during his visit. He only asked for non-combat forces, such as medical personnel. Perhaps he was aware of our strong opposition. Or perhaps something else was going on behind closed doors. Or whatever. In any case, this is what happened when we dared to disagree with the government:
That’s right, the water cannon was responsible for creating that bone-chilling red stream of liquid you saw above. Dye was mixed into the tank, so that everyone within the cannon’s range (that is, everyone who was near the front of the rally) was clear marked in red. The special unit I talked about last time was then let loose. Armed to the teeth with combat gear which was obviously paid for with our tax money, they began to chase down everyone who was marked. Well, not exactly. You didn’t have to be marked in red in order to be beaten down and arrested. 14-year-old boys and girls, senior citizens, reporters, human rights watchdogs, banner carriers, unlucky bystanders, and whoever else the police could get their hands on were arrested and carried away. They chased us into parks and shopping centers, as if we were thieves. 167 citizens in total were arrested in the evening hours of August 5, though a few teenagers and disabled people were released after a while.
And there was a reason for this undiscriminating arrest spree. According to this news report (Sorry, it’s in Korean), policemen are being paid $20 for each anti-government protester arrested and $50 for each arrest that results in a jail sentence. No, that’s not a joke. These men in black body armor are being paid to get innocent citizens behind bars, and some of them are making big bucks doing so! The inflammatory report was later verified by the National Police Agency which, facing public outrage, said that it would reconsider its policy. But c’mon, what kind of madman came up with such a policy in the first place? Are we murderers, bank robbers, terrorists? Why is there a price on our heads? Did President Lee get the wrong idea from the Texan cowboy whom he adores? Now, this is getting madder than mad-cow…
And look at this:
While hundreds of us were being chased down as if we were murderers, a pro-government and pro-American rally (mostly by extra-conservative Christians) was encouraged, protected, and even granted the use of Seoul Plaza which has been off-limits to us since early July! What’s the difference between the two rallies? The police agency’s official explanation is that pro-government groups had obtained prior permission to rally there, whereas anti-government groups hadn’t. But of course, it’s the government that decides which group to give permission to rally, so it’s clear why anti-government groups failed to obtain prior permission! In fact, the NGO’s that take care of the paperwork apply for such a permission every single day, and the government refuses to grant them permission every time. Welcome to the world of official favoritism. We know that favoritism exists everywhere — it would be overly optimistic of me to wish it away — but it’s supposed to look little less blatant than this, right?
Without the government’s permission, dissidents had no choice but to take it to the streets, in order to exercise our constitutional right of assembly. The police had already blocked most downtown streets with buses and troops, so we weren’t exactly interfereing with traffic. That’s right, interference with traffic was the official excuse for all the arrests. Technically speaking, those 167 people were charged with jaywalking on a massive scale! But of course, the law in Korea is immensely flexible. If the government feels like it, they can arrest someone standing on the sidewalk for “inteference with traffic” and get away with it.
Oh yes, and President Lee couldn’t even remember what was discussed between he and George. In a widely televised live press conference. President Lee stated that there was no discussion of Korea’s military involvement in Afghanistan, only to have President Bush immediately contradict him. That was quite hilarious…
Lee: (Confidently) As for Afghanistan and sending Korean troops, I think, again, President Bush should be able to answer that. But I can tell you that we did not discuss this issue.
Bush: (Casts an awkward glance at Lee) We discussed it… I thanked the President for the contributions that Korea has made to Afghanistan. And the only thing I talked to him about was non-combat help. I asked him to consider as much non-combat help as possible to help this young democracy.
Lee: (To himself, but his mouth moves) Oh, did we discuss it?
(The White House press release quotes President Lee as having said that “we did discuss this issue”, but that’s a mistranslation. On Korean TV, there was a clearly audible “not” in there. The White House’s mistranslation is understandable, as it would have relied on Mr. Bush’s statement to interpret the sometimes ironic Korean language. But hey, that wasn’t irony! We Koreans know one when we see one, and President Lee’s statement clearly wasn’t.)
On a slightly different note, the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) published a press release yesterday condemning the Korean government for its blatant attempts to control the mass media. That concise article explains the current situation better than I can do here, so please be sure to check out IFJ’s press release regarding the mass replacement of media corporation CEO’s with President Lee’s cronies.
Online censorship also continues. According to this news report (It’s in Korean), the government recently told Daum Communications, Inc. (one of Korea’s most popular web portals, which also hosts the Agora discussion forums) to turn over a list of members who post anything containing the words “juibak”, “impeachment”, or “chojungdong”. For your information, the first keyword is a derogatory nickname of President Lee’s — a portmanteau of “mouse” and “Myung-Bak”. The second keyword is self-explanatory; and the third stands for Chosun, Joong-Ang, and Dong-A, three pro-government newspapers that are being seriously boycotted by a lot of Koreans these days. Anyone who uses these words, therefore, can be expected to be thinking nasty things about President Lee and/or involved in the boycott of Lee’s best supporters. So why wait? Get ‘em arrested! Apparently, Daum Communication, Inc. is having a hard time trying to index millions of articles within the timeframe given by the government. (Daum isn’t a particularly good search engine, at least in my opinion.) The news report linked above says that the company has had to run dedicated servers for the job. And when the indexing work is finished, a list will be produced which contains the names, resident registration numbers, and addresses of each and every offender.
Agorian.kr, a private website where volunteers have been collecting evidence for the death theory, announced yesterday all of a sudden that it would no longer accept posts pertaining to the highly controversial suspicion. All existing posts related to the issue were also removed, and there are pretty convincing rumors that the police is going after those who have been active in the propagation of death theory. I’m planning to introduce that theory in more detail to my English readers in a week or two, so please be patient; but in the meantime, let me just say the following. It is suspected that the government has systematically concealed the death of a man (age 30-40) and/or a young woman (age 15-25) during the violent crackdown on the night of May 31. While the government treats those rumors as nothing more than an urban legend, a considerable amount of evidence in favor of it has been collected by anonymous investigators on the ‘net. To be honest, nobody want the death theory to be true. In fact, I’m dying to find a gaping hole in the anonymous investigators’ logic and evidence. Nevertheless, should it be proven true, the death theory could be the end of Lee Myung-Bak — just as the death of a young activist in April 1960 brought down then-President Rhee, and the death of another in June 1987 brought down dictator Chun.