평택 투쟁.. #7

About the latest developments you can read here, 민중의 소리

http://www.voiceofpeople.org/new/2006051443151.html

nearly everything..

The semi official news agency Yonhap wrote this..

Korean activists protest against U.S. military base expansion

Ignoring a government appeal for restraint, about 2,000 militant students, shouting "Yankee go home," clashed with riot police in a remote farming village on Sunday, opposing plans to expand a U.S. military base there.

Initial police reports said that 20 protesters were arrested. There were no reports of injuries, however.

Sunday's protests, the second in a little more than a week, were against the U.S. military's plan to drastically expand Camp Humphreys in Pyeongtaek, 70 kilometers south of Seoul.

Under a 2004 agreement with Washington, most of the U.S. military bases in South Korea, including its headquarters in the center of Seoul, will be relocated to Camp Humphreys by 2008.

By the time the expansion is completed, the number of U.S. soldiers in South Korea will be reduced from the present 30,000 to 25,000.

The relocation requires South Korea to level a farm village to triple the size of Camp Humphreys. Most farmers have moved out after being compensated but a few hundred, supported by anti-U.S. groups, have been refusing to leave.

In two days of fierce protests at the farm village, Daechuri, about a week ago, 200 activists and police were injured. Police detained over 500 protesters, of whom 16 were put under formal arrest.

Authorities deployed 18,000 riot police in preparation for Sunday's protests. They blocked all roads leading to the village and checked all vehicles to and from it.

The Pyeongtaek City government has zoned a vast area in the area, including the contested farm village, for the expansion of Camp Humphreys. The area was fenced off by South Korean Army engineers with barbed wires.

To bypass the police cordon, the students, who were unarmed, gathered at a remote school and walked several kilometers along paddy dikes to reach the village where they confronted police.

"Withdraw U.S. military forces. Pyeongtaek is our land," protesters shouted as they kicked and punched riot police who formed human barriers to block their march.

The students, many of them wearing gauze masks apparently to conceal their identity, vowed to break through the police lines.

A South Korean military helicopter showered down leaflets warning that protesters who would violate the fenced-off military zone could face punishment under military laws.

On Friday, Prime Minister Han Myung-sook, in a special statement, appealed for restraint, saying that violence would not do any good to the nation. She said the U.S. base expansion is unavoidable.

Separately in the center of Pyeongtaek, a city of 350,000, several hundred protesters, mostly workers, held a protest rally, demanding that the U.S. base expansion project be cancelled.

After the rally, the workers planned to march a few kilometers through the city and may try to join the students, organizers said.

South Korea plans to draw up a master plan on the expansion of Camp Humphreys by September, along with studies on its possible environmental impact and the location of cultural assets in the area. Construction is scheduled to begin in October at the
earliest.

The U.S. military presence in South Korea is a legacy of the 1950-53 Korean War. The U.S. led 15 other Western countries to fight against invading North Korea in the conflict.