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1. Today's Korea Herald "predicted" that the.. "Protests against U.S. beef imports, which have been going on for two months, will either continue or die down as a result of government clampdowns.."

And today's reality: Right now (it's 11 p.m., KST) tens of thousands of people (some activists are estimating 70,000!!), "ordinary" citizens, incl. some Christian and Buddhist clerics, anti-FTA, KCTU and student activists etc.., are occupying since around 7 p.m. the avenue between Namdaemun, the City Hall Plaza and the police barricades (aka the MB Castle) near the Jong-no/Sejong-no intersection.. DESPITE THE ANNOUNCED CRACKDOWN (by the S.K. gov't) against the protest movement!!

2. Today's Hankyoreh said that..

6.29 becomes 5.18
 

The police, thoroughly armed with shields and truncheons, arrived en masse. Citizens cried out in distress and scattered, and one by one, many of them fell when they were hit. A young woman who had fallen to the ground was surrounded by police who stamped on her with military boots and slammed her down with the edges of their shields. A lady well over sixty who had been standing on a sidewalk fainted after being hit on her face and shoulders with a truncheon. A doctor in his thirties who had been administering first aid was dragged away by police and beaten. A 24-year-old female office worker who protested when police were beating on people was hit in the head by a group of riot police and left bleeding. One woman’s rain clothes were drenched in blood. A man in his fifties lost consciousness. A high school student’s lips were bleeding.

That was the scene along Taepyeongno, the street that extends from the Gwanghwamun intersection to Namdaemun in downtown Seoul, early on the morning of June 29. It was just like the Gwangju of May 18, 1980, without the gunshots. The indiscriminate violence began again exactly 21 years after June 29, 1987, when the military government of Chun Doo-hwan, which had committed the atrocities in Gwangju, finally surrendered to the country’s demands for democratization. Did the clock get turned back a few decades to the past?

This comes just a few days after National Police Agency chief Eo Cheong-soo said, on June 26, that he “might like to use severe eighties-style tactics sometime.” In other words, police behavior early on June 29 was not just something that unfolded spontaneously, it was something that had been planned in detail. One can see the motive. The calculation that has been made is that by inciting a clash, and thereby isolating the candlelight protests, it will be easier to quiet them.

The police and government must not try to legitimize their violent suppression of protests. While it would be hard to figure out which side the violence originated with, no matter what the situation police cannot escape responsibility for excessive violence that goes beyond the boundaries of what is legal and appropriate. Like the military, the police are highly trained in the use of physical force, making the abuse of that training all the more dangerous. In Gwangju in 1980, the group called the “New Military Leaders” used excessive force in suppressing citizens protesting the usurpation of power and, in so doing, brought about a tragedy in resistance and slaughter, and still it said it was carrying out the law legitimately. This is something that should not be repeated.

The candlelight protests are an important outcry of popular sentiment, one that must not end with having been a clash with police. While we understand the sentiment of protesters angry at how the government has shut its ears and is trying to put them down with the police, they still must not treat as enemies young riot police who are easily excited. Many citizens have been hurt, but they say not a few riot police have been injured by citizens wielding steel pipes and wood clubs. That is sad. Are not the ones who should be held responsible for the situation somewhere else?

3. Related articles/reports:

->Police Raid Offices of Protestest Organizers (Korea Times)
->Protesters trampled, beaten by police (Hankyoreh)
->[6.29/30] NewsCham Report
->[6.28/29] Video Report