5112개의 게시물을 찾았습니다.
It has been ten years since the tragic 2002 USFK armored vehicle accident that killed two Korean teenagers Shin Hyo-sun and Shim Mi-seon. For those that haven’t heard of this accident it was an 'event' that brought the US-ROK alliance to probably its lowest point ever and swept the minor political candidate Roh Moo-hyun into office as President of South Korea...
Yesterday's Hankyoreh had a (very worth-reading) piece:
Tenth anniversary of girls killed by US military vehicle
Ten years after tragedy, girls’ families and communities still
struggle with painful memories
It has been ten years now since two young Korean girls were fatally struck by an armored US military vehicle. It was an incident that raised questions about the basic nature of the South Korea-US alliance and resulted in the country’s first candlelight vigils. The passion would end up carrying through to the presidential election in December of 2002. On June 6, the Hankyoreh visited Yangju, Gyeonggi province where Hyo-sun and Mi-seon where lived.
At around 10 am on June 13, 2002, fourteen-year-old Hyo-sun left her home in Yangju. It was the day before her birthday, and a day of local elections across the country. For the holiday, friends were planning to celebrate her birthday a day early. They made arrangements to meet at the house of Yeong-mi, a friend whose family ran a local restaurant.
On her way to the party, Hyo-sun stopped at the house of her friend Mi-seon, also 14. The restaurant was about 30 minutes away along Rural Road 56. As they always did when going to and from school, the girls walked side by side along the edge of the two-lane road.
Also traveling along the road were armored vehicles that had left their training site in the village of Mugeon in nearby Paju. They were heading to a training site in Deokdo Village near Hyochon.
At around 10:45 am, the two girls had ascended an uphill road curving to the left when they were hit by two armored vehicles driven by USFK personnel. Together, the two vehicles were more than wide enough to cover the shoulder of the road. Hyo-sun and Mi-seon’s short lives came to end just 300 meters short of Yeong-mi’s family’s restaurant.
Hyo-sun’s mother, 50-year-old Jeon Myeong-ja, was reluctant to recall the events of ten years prior. Speaking on the telephone prior to the visit, she repeated, “You don’t have to come. It’s not anything good. You don’t have to come.” When told that a tenth anniversary memorial was being held in Seoul, she wiped something away - whether it was sweat or tears was unclear - and curtly said, “I can’t go. I don’t want to go.”
Perhaps out of a desire to see the reporter off, Jeon assigned some blame to the victims. “When I look at it now, it doesn’t seem like the USFK was in the wrong. Our children made a mistake. Walking on that narrow road without knowing that they did training in the morning. . . it was our children’s mistake.”
The father, Sin Hyeon-su, 58, was out in a rice field fixing a water pump. When he raised his gaunt face and saw the reporter, he hurried into the house. He didn’t say a word, but he made it clear that he didn’t wish to speak. After seeing his own daughter die before him, Sin himself underwent surgery for gastric cancer two years ago. His lungs filled with air just after the surgery, leading to another operation this past May. His weight was down from 70 to 50 kilograms.
Mi-seon’s home is not far away. Her older brother, 28-year-old Gyu-jin, was taking advantage of the day off to rest. He didn‘t welcome attention from the reporter. “I’ve often felt used,” he said. “I’m grateful that people out there are paying their respects, but all of us in the family would like to remember her privately now.”
Father Sim Su-bo, 58, was not home at the time, perhaps because he had heard word of the visit in advance. A quiet man, Sim tries to avoid meeting with either the press or members of social groups, neighbors reported.
The reaction of the two fathers was very different from June 13, 2003, when they attended the first anniversary memorial at Seoul City Hall Square. At that time, they called for an amendment of the Status of Forces Agreement to ensure that such a thing never happened again. The passage of time has left visible signs of exhaustion on Hyo-sun and Mi-seon’s family members.
Sim U-geun, a teacher at Pyeongtaek‘s Cheongok Middle School who chairs the executive committee for a council to erect a memorial to the two girls, has observed the families closely over the past years. “Back when the incident happened, I remember Mi-seon’s father getting very angry after hearing that people with a mediating group called the Korea-US Good Will Society were spreading rumors that [the family members] were after compensation money for their children’s lives.”
But time has blunted even this rage. Sim recalled, “After that, he would sometimes say, 'Shouldn’t the living get on with their lives?’”
The two families are still farming in Hyochon village. Their financial situation hasn‘t improved, and the misfortunes have continued. After Hyo-sun’s father was diagnosed with gastric cancer, her uncle suddenly died while visiting for the Chuseok holiday. On the very same day, Mi-seon’s uncle died when he slipped while hiking in the mountains.
Yeong-mi, the friend who had been waiting for Hyo-sun and Mi-seon that day, carries her own scars. Villagers said that she became the target of anger and resentment from friends, who said the girls “died because of you.” The three were attending the same middle school, but while other friends all went on to a high school in Uijeongbu, Yeong-mi attended one in Paju. Now 24, she works at a company in Seoul. Her father said, “She had a really rough time when it happened. Even now, she hates to talk about it.”
In 2008, the group Solidarity for Peace and Reunification of Korea asked her to be a part of a committee to put up a memorial. She declined. “My wounds haven’t healed yet,” she explained at the time. She did not respond to requests for an interview.
The tradition of the candlelight vigil began ten years ago in this small village, when students at nearby Uijeongbu Girls’ High School held a rally holding candles. This was the origin of the “Candle Girl” mascot. On Dec. 19, 2002, the Hankyoreh printed a story about high school girls taking part in a candlelight vigil. One of them was Gang Mi-jeong, now 28. A friend of Mi-seon’s who was then a senior at Uijeongbu Girls’ High School, Gang was an active participant in the vigils, but no longer. The decade in between has changed that ebullient teenager, too.
“When I was in high school, I was loud, impetuous, and very active,” she said. “But I got out in the world and saw how different reality is from what I believed, and I think it’s kind of made me quiet.” Gang is now director of an academy and a freelance television journalist.
There were minor changes in Hyochon after the tragedy. “The USFK has been very conscious of the reaction since the accident,” a villager said. “They seem to mostly travel at night.” The armored vehicles that do move through the area now must have a soldier positioned on the roof observing the vehicle’s path.
Yeong-mi’s father said, “Things have gotten a lot better now. Back then, pregnant cows would miscarry whenever the US tanks fired a six-inch shell. Pregnant women from the neighborhood went up to the mountains when firing time came around.”
But there are things that even the girls’ deaths couldn’t change. South Korean army tanks still pass regularly through the village. Plans are under way to nearly double the size of the Mugeon training site from its current 18.5 million square meters to 36.4 million square meters. The village’s 120 families and 600 people see it as only a matter of time before they end up being forced out.
http://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_international/537291.html
In the S. Korean capital Seoul the coming days are designed as "Solidarity Week With the Victims of (Capitalist) Exploitation and (Mass) Dismissals".
The action week started yesterday afternoon on Seoul's City Hall Plaza with a memorial service for the 'martyrs' of the pro-democratic/anti-dictatorship movement 25 years ago:
After the memorial service a group of about 200 activists joined a "Walk for Solidarity". The aim: visiting and supporting sites in downtown Seoul where workers are in resistance/strike (Jaenueng Sit-in Strike, SsangYong Memorial Site...) or where the HQ of the ruling, i.e. exploiting and oppressing class are located (e.g. Samsung, responsible for the death of workers, but also for the destruction of Gureombi on Jeju Island):
Allthough the "Solidarity Walk..." was announced and 'licensed'(only on the sidewalk, where it took place) by the cops... the activists were finally attacked and later blocked by the cops:
Related reports:
☞ 6.10 열사정신의 뜻 “투쟁 결의해 달라” (NewsCham, 6.10)
☞ 경찰, '6월항쟁' 기념행진 막고 참가자 5명 연행 (OMN, 6.10)
☞ 6월항쟁 25주년, "열사가 어떻게 죽었는지 기억해야 한다" (VoP, 6.10)
One of today's top stories in the S. Korean and int'l media: "N. Korea says it targets S. Korean media for possible attack" (Yonhap), "Pjöngjang droht Südkoreas Medienkonzernen mit Raketenangriff" (Spiegel), "North Korea threatens to attack South Korean media" (AFP)...
But also in the North Korean 'media'(KCNA and Rodong Shinmun) the piece "General Staff of KPA Sends Open Ultimatum to S. Korean Group of Traitors" is THE 'smash hit'(^^)!!
And here you can read the complete version, published by KCNA:
The General Staff of the Korean People's Army sent the following open ultimatum to the south Korean group of traitors on Monday:
The celebrations of the 66th anniversary of the Korean Children's Union are now taking place in the revolutionary capital of Pyongyang with splendor.
They are a great political festival of children unprecedented not only in the history of the Korean nation but in the long history of mankind.
As many as 20 000 delegates of school children have come to Pyongyang on invitation from all parts of the country, including remote villages and solitary islands.
It was the noble outlook of President Kim Il Sung and leader Kim Jong Il on the younger generation and the future that they showed paternal loving care and solicitude for them, calling them kings of the country (*). This outlook has been steadfastly carried forward by the dear respected Kim Jong Un.
All the service members and people are immensely excited and pleased with this stirring reality.
The world is becoming envious of the DPRK, noting that such great event can take place in socialist Korea only.
But it is only the Lee Myung Bak group of traitors in south Korea that is chilling the atmosphere of these auspicious events of the children.
From May 29 the group set in motion Chosun Ilbo, Choongang Ilbo, "A channel" of Dong-A Ilbo, KBS, CBS, MBC, SBS and other media to launch a campaign defaming the above-said celebrations. It went the lengths of resorting to a new campaign of hurting the dignity of the supreme leadership of the DPRK, availing itself of this opportunity.
The children of the kindergarten in magnificent and modern Changjon Street were so happy as to have a photo taken with Kim Jong Un and sons and daughters of ordinary working people are participating in the above-said celebrations. However, the Lee group is letting loose a string of vituperations describing all these blessings as "charades intentionally orchestrated" by the supreme leadership of the DPRK.
The auspicious political festival was opened amid joy and cheers of three million of schoolchildren, hailed by their fathers and mothers throughout the country. The group, however, is playing down it as "events for publicity stunt," "events to win popularity", "events to curry favor with them." It made no scruple of letting loose a spate of such invectives as deliberately hurting the dignity of the supreme leadership of the DPRK, describing the great inheritance of the love for the younger generation and the future as "act of imitating gesture and copying after Hitler" and "the north's staging of a political show as that staged by the Nazis to train the Juvenile Corps.
And the Lee group went the lengths of describing the unblemished naive schoolchildren as "children on markets" more familiar with capitalist markets than socialist policies and "mere children knowing nothing about the world".
This is a new form of evil action hurting the dignity of the supreme leadership of the DPRK. It is a thrice-cursed criminal act as it is a monstrous mud-slinging at the rosy future of our revolution.
There is no country in the world as the DPRK which projects children as kings of the country.
When babies are born, they are taken care of at palaces of babies and children are rapidly growing at children's palaces, bringing their talents into full bloom. They are leading such blessed lives under the immensely profound loving care of the great persons of Mt. Paektu, something rare to be found in any other parts of the world.
It was President Kim Il Sung who brought up all the children under his deep care with the noblest viewpoint on the younger generation and the future, despite snow and rain. It was leader Kim Jong Il who saw off the children leaving for their camps while starting his journey to the front along rugged roads in adversity.
It was Kim Jong Un who visited the Mangyongdae Revolutionary School on the New Year's Day and put forward its children as future pillars.
It was thanks to this profound care of the sun that the children were provided with ampler opportunities of learning and flags of the Children's Union fluttered more vigorously over their camps under the clean and blue sky of the country even under the difficult situation where its people had to fasten their belts in manifold adversity.
Children are the future of the country and a symbol of hope and victory.
The above-said vituperation let loose by the group of traitors is nothing but a shriek made by the group, utterly discomfited by the bright future of the supreme headquarters of the DPRK and rosy future of the younger generation.
From olden times, idiots are apt to see everything quite different from a reality.
It is quite natural that the group of traitors branded as fools, idiots and blockheads can hardly see the present world correctly.
If it is not true, how can the group describe the great inheritance of our nation as "imitation" and compare the children who would shoulder upon themselves the future of the nation with the juvenile organization of fascist Hitler?
As for Hitler, he was the fascist fanatic who drove guiltless humankind into pitfalls of disasters and death, special class war criminal who destroyed his country and nation and die-hard tyrant who had no love for its children.
The south Korean people had already branded the worst traitor Lee as a notorious "Hitler Lee" and burned the traitor in effigy in Nazi uniform, bearing the same moustache as Hitler's as he has been hell-bent on mercilessly suppressing the protestors at the point of bayonet and enforcing an unpopular rule.
It is said that one's wrong tongue-lashing is as harmful as a sword cutting off one's head.
Upon hearing the news that the Lee Myung Bak group of traitors hurt the dignity of the supreme leadership of the DPRK and slandered its loved children, the officers and men of the three services of the KPA are expressing towering resentment and pledging themselves as one to resolutely settle accounts by force of arms with those who violated the moral law of the nation and defamed the great man whom the people follow and the world look up to.
Officers and men of the army corps, divisions and regiments on the front and strategic rocket forces in the depth of the country are loudly calling for the issue of order to mete out punishment, declaring that they have already targeted Chosun Ilbo at coordinates of 37 degrees 56 minutes 83 seconds North Latitude and 126 degrees 97 minutes 65 seconds East Longitude in the Central District, Seoul, Choongang Ilbo at coordinates of 37 degrees 33 minutes 45 seconds North Latitude and 126 degrees 58 minutes 14 seconds East Longitude in the Central District, Seoul, the Dong-A Ilbo at coordinates of 37 degrees 57 minutes 10 seconds North Latitude and 126 degrees 97 minutes 81 seconds East Longitude in Jongro District, Seoul, KBS, CBS, MBC and SBS, the strongholds of the Lee group orchestrating the new vicious smear campaign (**).
In view of this grave situation the KPA General Staff sends the following ultimatum to the Lee group of traitors:
The revolutionary armed forces of the DPRK are the army of the supreme commander and the people's army which is devotedly defending the supreme commander and protecting his idea and the people and children whom he values and loves so much.
It is the iron will of the army of the DPRK that the dens of heinous provocateurs hurting the dignity of the supreme leadership of the DPRK and desecrating its idea, system and people should not be allowed to exist as they are.
We would like ask the Lee group if it wants leave all this to be struck by the DPRK or opt for apologizing and putting the situation under control, though belatedly.
It should take a final choice by itself.
Now it is impossible for the officers and men of the KPA three services to keep back their towering resentment any longer. In case dens of monstrous crimes are blown up one after another, the Lee group will be entirely held responsible for this.
If the Lee group recklessly challenges our army's eruption of resentment, it will retaliate against it with a merciless sacred war of its own style as it has already declared.
We are fully ready for everything.
* Related previous reports:
☞ Child malnutrition rising sharply in North Korea (AFP, 2011.11.25)
☞ North Koreans will 'die from malnutrition within months' (Guardian, 2011.12.21)
** No comment! But that's just a threat (attempted extortion) to commit MASS MURDER in the center of Seoul...
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