Published: Sat, 15 Jul 2006 14:18:28 +0900

Well, you be the judge:

Hordes of protesters against a Korea-U.S. free trade agreement turned central Seoul and nearby areas into pandemonium for about eight hours Wednesday. Coupled with the pouring monsoon rain, the demonstration made workers on their way home in the evening suffer immense inconvenience. As anticipated, members of the Korean Alliance Against the Korea-U.S. FTA wielded 3-meter bamboo sticks against police and broke police car windows with iron pipes. They threw broken paving blocks at the police and mobilized fire and sand as protest tools.
They broke out of the area where they were supposed to have staged their demonstration, occupied roads and even blocked the Gwanghwamun intersection, where the law bans demonstrators from congregating.
Traffic was rerouted and the streets near Seoul City Hall were little more than parking lots.
While over 20,000 riot police were on hand there, only about 300 traffic police were on hand to try to help motorists. In the name of protesting against the free trade agreement, they they were not shy about showing their anti-U.S. sentiment, crying, "Americans should get out of this country," and the traditional "Yankee, go home." When some anti-FTA protesters went to Washington for demonstrations early last month, they never deviated from the legal boundaries. They mobilized peaceful means such as holding candles and pickets, effectively attracting the attention of Americans there.
Why did those people take peaceful measures in the United States while adopting extremely violent and illegal measures here? Do the Korean police look like scarecrows while the U.S. police seem frightening in their eyes?
It is true that the protesters are doing wrong, but the passive attitude of the local police is also open to criticism as well. The police arrested not a single protester at the demonstration site after warning earlier that illegal protesters would be dispersed forcefully or arrested. A police official said, "Arresting protesters on the spot could have aggravated the already bad situation at the time, because the venue was central Seoul and it was raining heavily." That attitude just encourages demonstrators to ignore the law.

Tags: FTA, korea, us

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I'm not sure patsie is the right word. It sounds like the cops may have been counting on the rain to quench the tempers. South korea is a prime example, unfolding before our eyes, of how small numbers of mal-contents can use any situation to try and make their views the popular sentiment. Cops have to be careful not to crack too many heads in these cases because it could create some empathy for the mal-contents. Unless the real powers in the ROK, the financiers, bankers, big business owners, Chaebol (sp), and others don't begin to show support in public for the US/ROK relationship, and unless they do it often and with loud voices, the mal-contents will grow stronger. How many times and in how many countries have we seen this scenario play out, over and over again.

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The Korean police loose in the media either way. Either they are too tough or too easy.

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The Korean police don't need to bash heads they need to arrest people and give them heavy fines and jail time. That is why these protesters remained peaceful in America because they knew the US police would not take any crap from them. Once they get to Korea they know they can cause chaos, destroy property, and assault people with little to no fear of arrest. That is the fundamental problem.