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From today's Hankyoreh:

Co-president of Justice for Yongsan Evictees says...

Fight for Yongsan was a successful struggle

Park Rae-gun says that although civic participation was weak during the struggle, enduring persistence eventually forced concessions from the Lee administration 
   
“I came thinking it would be over in a month. It’s a bittersweet feeling...”

A few hours before turning himself in to police Monday morning, Park Rae-gun, 50, met with a Hankyoreh journalist and talked about the “great suffering” and “small joys” he has experienced as a man wanted by the police. He spent over ten months wanted by police while serving as co-president of Justice for Yongsan Evictees. Police were issued a warrant in early March 2009 to arrest him on charges of holding an illegal rally in connection with the Yongsan Tragedy.

Park was unable to attend the funeral for victims of the tragedy that was held on Saturday. He spoke of weeping as he watched a live broadcast via Internet together with two other individuals wanted by police, Justice for Yongsan Evictees co-President Lee Jong-hoe and Federation Against House Demolition head Nam Gyeong-nam. Park said, “I got through it thinking about the others who were suffering more than me, like the surviving family members and the evictees of the Yongsan 4th Zone.” He added, “Still, I should have been there with the family members as they said goodbye to their loved ones...”

What were Park’s thoughts on the agreement reached on Dec. 30 after a battle lasting close to a year? While some have expressed dissatisfaction, Park called it a successful struggle. Park said, “The Lee administration never once approached negotiations, persisting in a strategy of neglect and viewing it as a conflict between private citizens.” Park continued, “I think it was a success in that they were contending with the Lee administration, yet they managed to get the Prime Minister to say that he felt responsibility, and none of the family members or evictees gave up the fight during the course of the year.”

He also said that what kept the Yongsan struggle going was “the solidarity of poor and warm-hearted people.” Park stated, “Some of the conservative newspapers criticized us as ‘outside forces,’ but solidarity in the interest of human rights is a fundamental and a right.” Park added, “Yongsan is a beacon that has continued to give off light during this age.”

Park is not without his grievances. Discussing the fact that more people did not take part in the Yongsan struggle, Park said, “Yongsan was an ‘inconvenient truth’ for people.” He continued, “For people who hoped for a better life in a ‘New Town,’ Yongsan would have been uncomfortable because it told them, ‘Redevelopment is wrong and most people end up being driven out like this.’”

Another lament was the fact that broad-ranging civic and social groups did not take up the Yongsan struggle. “The Yongsan Tragedy, at its root, is an issue of state-sanctioned violence that took place during the push for brutal redevelopment policies, but the well-known civic and social groups ignored it, saying that that aspect ‘did not have popular appeal.’” He also pointed out, however, that there was a failure to see far enough ahead and provide a space early on where people could participate more easily.

After the interview was over, Park and the other two individuals wanted by the police left Myeong-dong Cathedral in Seoul’s Jung-gu district, where they had been granted asylum and had been staying since September 2009, and turned themselves in to the Seoul Namdaemun Police Station at around 3:40 p.m. on Monday. They were seen off by a crowd of some 100 people urging them to “stay strong,” including five family members of victims of the tragedy and evictees from the Yongsan 4th Zone.

http://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_national/398395.html

A related video (by comrade "Hong Gil-dong..." you can watch here, here you can listen to an audio recording (YongsanActionRadio) and related photos you can see here!