5112개의 게시물을 찾았습니다.
Yesterday's "top story" by KCNA: Kim Yong Nam, president of the Presidium of the DPRK Supreme People's Assembly, arrived in Harare on Monday to visit the Republic of Zimbabwe.
According to KCTV(5.11) Kim Yong Nam visit has been "enthusiastic welcomed by Robert Mugabe, the military leadership and the chief of the national police.."
But not everyone in Zimbabwe welcomes the DPRK delegation in general and Kim Yong Nam in particular, as you can read in one of today's top stories in The Zimbabwe Telegraph (influential newspapers in the south African country):
MDC-M official issues ultimatum to Korean Delegate
The leader of the anti-Mugabe camp in the MDC has issued a 48-hour ultimatum to the DPRK President of the Presidium of Supreme People’s Assembly of the Democratic Republic of North Korea Mr Kim Yong Nam to leave Zimbabwe.
He indicated to Mr Kim that his visit was not welcome since the DPRK was responsible for training the fifth brigade which massacred the people of Matebeleland(*) and Mr Sikhala indicated that his aunt was a victim in that horrendous and hellish crime against humanity.
Moreover Mr Sikhala spelled out that North Korea represents the most satanic outpost of tyranny and urged Mr Kim to go and organise elections in his country where people are languishing from unmitigated poverty and gross human rights abuses.
Mr Sikhala further stated that Mr Kim comes from the same club as Robert Mugabe and must not have the leisure of visiting countries which respect human rights.
Shockingly, Mutambara, Mugabe’s blue-eyed boy and his master, Robert Mugabe were the ones who were seen flanking the disgraceful despot from North Korea and it is believed that the controversial Robotics Professor was enthusiastically inquiring about nuclear technology.
Mutambara’s master, Robert Mugabe later thanked North Korea for training facilities which they rendered to Zimbabwe and weaponry and this has infuriated thousands from Matebeleland whose relatives where massacred by the North Korean trained Fifth Brigade...
Mr Sikhala said that he is closely monitoring the movements and meetings being held between Mugabe, Mutambara and the North Korean despot and urged Zimbabweans to be on high alert.
http://www.zimtelegraph.com/news_article.php?cat=23&id=670
* In 1981 Kim Il Sung dispatched 106 "military specialists" to train the 5th Brigade of the Zimbabwean army, which went on to commit numerous atrocities in the rebellious Zimbabwean region of Matebeleland that resulted in the deaths of an estimated 20,000 people.
김영남위원장과 짐바브웨대통령 회담 (조선중앙통신)
Related stuff:
☞ Kim Yong Nam Feted by Zimbabwean President (KCNA, 5.12)
IMC S.K.: This is the third broadcast of Be the Media, a program of the alternative radio station Media Redevelopment Action Radio at the Candle Light Media Center in Yongsan, Seoul, South Korea. Be the Media is a radio program project of Korea Indymedia. DJ Dope and Giraffe are MCing this show.. (more about it here!)
Listen to the program to find out more about what's going on in Seoul, South Korea!
Related link:
☞ Media Redevelopment Project(YongsanRadio)
STREET ART
Impressions from the "Yongsan Village Festival" (5.10)
(source of the pics: 두바퀴)
Related video:
☞ 평화로운 마을...용산!!
While the residents and activists of the area where 110 days ago the Yongsan Massacre took place had planned for yesterday and today an impressive "Village Festival" the cops - at least for yesterday - had a complete different schedule! From the morning hundreds of riot cops (including their water cannon vehicles) closed the area(*) and declared the "Village Festival" as an "illegal rally"!
Today the situation was a bit relaxed (the cops lifted the closure partially), as you can see in the video impressions, captured by comrade "Hong Gil-dong..". But because of yesterday's police terror today's part of the "Village Festival" was far away from festive mood..
* Here some pictures from yesterday:
(source of the pics: K. Human Right News, 5.10)
More pictures/reports from yesterday's "festival" you can see/read here:
☞ 용산마을잔치..
☞ 용산참사 희생자 추모미사 열려... 경찰, 추모집회 저지
Huang Qichang, a "Chinese worker and socialist" (according to Infopartisan, Germany) writes for chinaworker.info. Few days ago he said in an interview with the German "socialist" daily newspaper Junge Welt: "For a considerable time Maoism is becoming more and more popular. The major part of the New Left in China is influenced by the Mao Zedong-Ideas. They have the prevalence and not alone in the generation of the elders!
For example: last year an underground organisation was founded under the name of 'Maoist Communist Party of China'('MCPC'). It's describing the present leadership of the CPC as 'complete pro-capitalist and revisionist' and the 'MCPC' is seeking its overthrow. The revival of Maoism is the result of the neo-liberal policy of the government."
Now, Asia Times (HK, 5.06) published following interesting coverage:
Tough times breed nostalgia for Mao
Although Mao Zedong died 33 years ago, the founding father of communist China seems to still be alive in the hearts of many Chinese.
A new wave of nostalgia for the late chairman is sweeping the nation ahead of the 60th birthday of People's Republic of China (PRC) and amid the global financial crisis. The leader, who led the PRC from its establishment until his death in 1976, is surging though his brand of socialism has long been officially abandoned and there has been criticism of "serious mistakes" such as the Cultural Revolution.
Chingming is a traditional Chinese festival for the dead when families tend to the graves of their ancestors. It normally falls on
April 4-5 each year. During Chingming this year, tens of thousands of visitors flocked into Shaoshan, Mao's native village in Hunan province, to pay homage. According to Hong Kong's Ta Kung Pao daily, on April 2 alone at least 30,000 people from various places of the country visited Shaoshan.
The visitors ranged from retired party and government officials to primary and high school pupils. They first bowed and placed wreaths at a 10.1-meter-tall bronze statue of Mao erected in the village - the numerical figure 10.1 stands for October 1, the date on which Mao declared the founding of the PRC in 1949. They then visited the mud-walled, clay-tile-roofed rural house where Mao was born. Many also went to pay tribute to the tombs of Mao's parents and ancestors near the village.
Another sign of growing nostalgia for Mao is the comeback in popularity of his Little Red Book among Chinese university students, according to a report by the France24 news channel. "We are selling five times as many copies of his book as before the [financial] crisis," said Fan Jinggang, the owner of neo-leftist Utopia Bookstore near Peking University. He said 200 copies had been sold a month since the start of the economic downturn late last year.
The global financial crisis has already cost some 25 million migrant workers their jobs in China, and university graduates also face an uncertain future.
"I have spent so much money in going to university to study," 22-year-old student Yang Lu was quoted as saying on the France24 report. "I will graduate next June, but I don't know if I will be able to find work. In this kind of situation, how could we not feel nostalgic for the Mao era, when all students were guaranteed work?"
Chinese are also increasingly worshipping the late chairman like a god. The Beijing-based Horizon Research Consultancy Group last year conducted a survey on religious beliefs in 40 cities, including Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Wuhan.
It found that 11.5% of the families surveyed had a shrine in their homes of Mao, in the form of a statue or bust. This was only slightly less than the number of families (12.1%) that keep memorial tablets of their ancestors. Only 9.9% of families had a Buddhist icon, and 9.3% and 8.8% of families worshiped icons of the God of Fortune and God of Land, respectively. The survey did not cover rural areas, where many families are known to keep statues or pictures of Mao in their homes.
According to Hong Kong's Ming Pao daily, some of the visitors to Shaoshan during the Chingming Festival prayed to Mao to bless them with health, fortune or love, while some high-school students hoped Mao would help them pass their university entrance exams. Some retired cadres prayed to Mao for an end to official corruption.
During the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976), Mao was worshipped like a god with his Little Red Book read like the bible. But shortly after his death, his merits were re-evaluated by the party when it was led by Deng Xiaoping, whose reform and open-door policy ran counter to Mao's ideal of socialism.
In the 1980s, Mao was "taken down from the sacred shrine" and articles and novels published that denounced the Cultural Revolution, a nationwide social and political upheaval spearheaded by Mao that he hoped would eliminate his political rivals and revolutionize Chinese society.
Between 1966 and 1968, Mao encouraged his young supporters, the Red Guards, to take over power from state authorities and form "revolutionary committees" to replace government establishments. But soon Mao's supporters split into factions and started fighting one another...
Then in 1993, the centenary of Mao's birth, a wave of nostalgia for the chairman swept the country. It was partially encouraged with official memorial activities. Some people close to Mao, such as his guards, secretaries or doctors and nurses, published articles or books about his daily life, and movies and television series about Mao in war times were screened. One feature was common in all of them, Mao was depicted as a human leader - a great one, but not a god.
Even after Mao was removed from the "sacred shrine", some mysterious phenomena seemingly occurred that added to his god-like status. On its completion, Mao's statue was inaugurated on December 20, 1993, six days before Mao's 100th birthday. Former Chinese president Jiang Zemin visited it to remove the red silk covering the statue, but after several tries he still could not pull down the cover. After some whispered advice from one of his staff, Jiang respectfully stepped back and bowed three times to Mao's statue. Only after this did he succeed in pulling down the silk. Stories like this have led many people to believe that Mao had become a god after his death.
But the worship of Mao like a god, for whatever reasons, is just a by-product of the growing nostalgia for the chairman. Although Chinese people may generally live a better life today, they feel much less secure and safe than under Mao's rule.
"I earned less than 100 yuan a month [US$14 at today's exchange rates] in Mao's time. I could barely save each month but I never worried about anything. My work unit would take care of everything for me: housing, medical care, retirement and my children's education, though there were no luxuries. If I had some problem, I could always turn to my work unit for help. Now I receive 3,000 yuan as a [monthly] pension, but I have to count every penny - everything is so expensive and no one will take care of me now if I fall ill," said a retired middle-ranking official in Beijing.
China today faces social evils which were apparently less common - or publicized - during Mao's rule, such as rampant official corruption, a growing wealth gap, and rising crime such as drug abuse and prostitution. This is another reason people fondly remember the Mao era.
In a old joke, Deng was troubled by growing problems caused by his reforms, so one night he paid a visit to Mao's memorial hall at Tiananmen Square. Looking at Mao lying in his crystal coffin, Deng murmured, "Chairman, pray tell me how to deal with the problems." Suddenly Mao sat up pointing a finger at Deng and said, "You come in, I go out. And all these problems will be solved!" The joke shows that even years ago public discontent with societal problems had already began to grow and people wished for a strongman like Mao to solve them.
In the hope of finding a solution to these problems, some educated people such as the neo-leftists are re-reading Mao's works. They are outspoken critics of capitalist-style economic reforms and demand a return to some sort of socialism.
But the liberal intellectuals who support capitalist-style reforms strongly resent the public nostalgia for Mao. Well-known author Zhang Xianliang, who is also deputy to the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, once tabled a motion urging the government to suppress the nostalgia for Mao, saying such sentiment would jeopardize ongoing reform and "opening up".
Apparently for Chinese communist leaders, Mao is still a legacy. So, public nostalgia for Mao could help justify the legitimacy of the communist rule of the country. For, while Mao's socialism is abandoned in practice, Mao Zedong thought is still upheld by the party, at least in theory. In this sense, the nostalgic sentiments could also somehow help fill the nation's ideological vacuum left by reform and "opening up".
However, for the communist leaders, nostalgia for Mao could also be a double-edged sword. If they fail to ease growing public discontent behind such nostalgic feelings, one day public discontent could erupt and threaten their rule.
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/KE06Ad02.html
From today's Hankyoreh:
Police treat laborers as criminals in
labor-management dispute
Labor criticizes recent police arrests for last year’s incidents as police "ignore" special facets of the labor-management dispute
Police and prosecution’s investigations of labor-management disputes have generated criticism from labor that argues that the authorities are treating laborers as criminals.
The Korean Metal Workers Union (KMWU) Cor-Tek branch issued a statement on Tuesday, saying, “Prosecutors suddenly indicted 19 union members who participated in last year’s factory occupation and sit-in demonstration.” The union added, “Prosecutors are conducting an unreasonable investigation because two leaders of that occupation have already been punished by the court.”
Frankfurt a.M. (3.28): Cor-Tek trade union activists joined the central "Anti-G20 Protest"
Cor-Tek, the international guitars and basses maker headquartered in Germany, caused labor strife last year when it decided to close its Korean factory located in Dungchon neighborhood of Seoul and move it to China. On November 25, 2008, 23 union members of Cor-Tek occupied the Korean factory and held a sit-in strike, however, within four hours, they were round up by the police. Two leaders of the union were sentenced to one-year imprisonment, which was then suspended.
Prosecutors recently indicted the other 19 union members on charges of housebreaking with weapons. The crime of housebreaking with weapons carries a minimum prison sentence of one year.
Sung Sei-kyung, the chief of education and public relations department and a senior official of the KMWU, says, “The union members thought the case was over, and we feel the indictments are preposterous.” Lawyer Park Jae-eun who is working on behalf of the union says, “The indictments seem excessive because the prosecutor usually hands out summary indictments for these kinds of cases.”
However, labor says that there have been many similar cases recently. The prosecution arrested two leaders of KMWU’s Donghee AUTO Co. in-house subcontracting branch on April 21, four months after they participated in a demonstration held last December. Donghee AUTO Co. supplies parts for Morning compact cars as a subcontractor of Kia Motors.
The leader of KMWU’s Donghee AUTO Co. in-house subcontracting branch says, “Three union leaders have already been sentenced by the court in connection with last December’s demonstration in front of the factory.” He added, “However, police suddenly came to the union office in April and arrested the other two leaders. It seemed that police were able to obtain an arrest warrant for a different reason, after they failed to get the warrant for the demonstration in front of factory.”
Another senior official of KMWU, Park Jeom-kyu says, “Police used to recognize special facets of the labor-management dispute, however, now a days, they treat laborers as criminals.”
http://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_national/353456.html
Related articles:
☞ “노조원을 조폭 취급하는 검찰” (참세상, 5.06)
☞ G20 반대 집회서 울린 "안티 콜트" (참세상, 3.30)
Also (somehow) related:
☞ A suicide protest of a cargo transport worker (Hankyoreh, 5.05)
☞ 박종태 동지의 유서입니다. (노동의소리, 5.06)
After the wave of police terror in Seoul (between last Thursday and Saturday night) the S.K. gov't is increasing the pressure on the progressive protest/resistance movement, as today's Honkyoreh reports:
S. Korean police round up citizens
holding press conferences
Prosecutors aim to book and indict all 220 people recently brought in under a new zero tolerance climate
Prosecutors have announced their hardline plans to book and indict an estimated 220 people hauled in during the Labor Day and “candlelight anniversary” protests held between April 30 and May 2. Moreover, since Monday, police have been in the forefront of public criticism that public powers are violating the people’s freedom assembly and their right to demonstrate and express opinions due to its forceful round up of civic group members who were protesting the excessive arrests.
On Friday the Public Security Department under the head of No Hwan-gyun of the Supreme Public Prosecutor’s Office said that they plan to book all of the approximately 220 people brought in for the illegal and violent acts that took place during the one-year anniversary of the candlelight vigil demonstrations, with the exception of those who show substantial repentance. Prosecutors added that in principle all the booked suspects would be indicted.
They further added they planned to finish their caseload within one to two months from the date of the incident, at the latest. They indicated that they will be taking measures to seek sentences that fit the suspects‘ actions by submitting evidence, including the social and economic damage resulting from the illegal gatherings and demonstrations, to the court.
In accordance with this hardline plan by prosecutors, large-scale punishments are expected to be meted out to this year’s candlelight vigil demonstrators, too. A prosecutorial official said guidelines calling for a stern and tough response have been finalized, and that it appears up to an estimated 10 people will be arrested in connection with Saturday‘s candlelight vigil demonstration. In the case of last May and June’s candlelight demonstrations, some 1,647 people have reportedly been punished as of March, including 44 detainees.
Seoul’s Seodaemun Police Station, meanwhile, forcefully hauled in Monday six of about 20 civic and social group members who held a press conference in front of the National Police Agency (NPA) headquarters in Seodaemun-gu criticizing police for what they called an excessive crackdown on the Labor Day and one-year candlelight anniversary demonstrations. The arrested included a Ms. Myoung-sook of SARANGBANG group for human rights.
After hearing that demonstrators chanted for the resignation of NPA commissioner Kang Hee-rak and an end to violent crackdowns during the press conference, the police charged participants with holding a demonstration without prior notification. Kim Sang-mun of Seodaemun Police Station said the demonstration protested the police’s execution of its duties, and since the guideline for law enforcement has changed into a principle of no tolerance, the police responded out of principle.
About this, Human Rights Network activist Rang-hee said this was almost the first time anyone‘s been hauled in for a press conference, which are being held all of the time. It seems police are stopping even press conferences to block the spread of opinion.
The Human Rights Network Korea, the Korea Progressive Alliance and Korean Confederation of Trade Unions issued a joint statement Monday claiming that even participants in a press conference condemning violent arrests by police have been violently hauled in. They call for police to stop their excessive crackdowns and guarantee the freedom to assemble and demonstrate.
Meanwhile, Lawyers for a Democratic Society interviewed protest participants currently undergoing questioning at 11 police stations in downtown Seoul after they were arrested in candlelight-related demonstrations. Seol Chang-il, a lawyer with Lawyers for a Democratic Society, says it appears a fair number of high school students and even citizens who were watching the demonstrations were round up. He also said there were individuals who needed hospital treatment after they were severely assaulted during their arrest.
http://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_national/353268.html
Related article:
☞ Police seek warrants for protesters (JoongAng Ilbo, 5.05)
"The Gag Man" (Hankyoreh cartoon, 5.05)
President Lee Myung-bak praises prosecution and police leaders in the voice of a famous ‘gagman,’ “Good Job! The service was lovely! You are suppressing the citizens absolutely.”
The police run to apprehend citizens who participate in the first candlelight vigil demonstrations anniversary.
Last Saturday - Another Day of State Terror in S.K.
Before yesterday thousands of people in Seoul wanted to celebrate the first anniversary of the latest Candlelight Mass Protests. The planned "event" was organized by around 50 civic groups, political parties, labour and resistance organizations.
But (surprise, surprise!!) the police did not allow the demonstration to take place, and deployed 13,000 riot cops to block the rally. In response, hundreds of citizens and activists moved to the Seoul Plaza in front of City Hall and occupied the “Hi Seoul Festival” stage, leading the Seoul city gov't to cancel the festival.
At least from that point on the riot cops attacked with massive violence any movement of the protesters, injured many of them and arrested about 140 people (today's Korea Times reported 240 arrests!).
Related articles:
☞ Police rounded up 240 citizens during weekend demonstrations (Hankyoreh)
☞ Protesters, police clash in beef deal anniversary (Korea Herald)
More pictures and reports:
☞ 서울축제속 촛불 1주년 행사 및 도심 기습시위
MUST SEE! An impressive video documentary about the "event", produced by "Hong Gil-dong.."
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