I am against Korea's National Security Law, because I believe ignorance should be fought with intelligence and the people the law is applied to should hurt themselves more than help if they are allowed to express themselves.

www.voiceofpeople.com has started running English language articles to reach out to the global community. This helps me out a lot, because I can't read Korean well enough to translate stuff to expose how these people think.

Here is one article from yesterday.

South Korea is now under another martial law. Last week, Roh Moo-hyun government 'excellently' re-presented the brutal suppression of grassroots in Daechuri village, Pyeongtaek city, just like the one which used to happen during the military dictatorships of Gen. Park Chung-hee and Gen. Cheon Doo-hwan.

Don't worry --- the Koreans who actually lived and frequently protested in the 70s and 80s do not buy this load of dung. My students generally sympathised with the youth today, but they wished they'd grow up and that the youth of today really had little to protest violently against - as they did under real "martial law".

Emerging as another promising newcomer as a head of suppressive government in the Korean history, President Roh pitted the riot police in full armor and with batons against mostly elderly residents and rice farmers with little self-defense measures to block the public power's evicting them.

Liar, liar, pants on fire....

(see this video)

There have been protests in Pyongtaek over a period of many months that were mostly or half just locals and elderly peasants, but ------ it was clearly done as a propaganda stunt - not the natural outcome of the internal dynamics of the base expansion issue.

Meaning -- the leaders of the movement are the very same handful of anti-US civic group heads who have been seen for years everywhere in the nation protesting each and ever large or small item they think can help put pressure on the US in Korea with the idea of getting USFK to withdraw.

The fact some of the protests did not have the usual masses of university students or the less frequent participation of organized labor simply meant --- those groups were told to stay home in favor of putting a "locals" face on it, because they felt it might sell better in the media.

Minister Yoon also said that the government has distributed protective equipment to soldiers for self-defense because demonstrators attacked unarmed soldiers with pipes.

True, the civic group activists and students who supported Pyeongtaek residents' resistance against the eviction from their hometown were equipped with iron pipes and bamboo sticks which also hurted many riot police and soldiers. In addition, rice farmers and their supporters might have been violating the military criminal law of the 'great' Republic of Korea by illegally occupying the military security zone designated for the US military bases. However, it has been also true that demonstrators began arming themselves since the government's coercive eviction in the name of 'public good' - for economic and diplomatic benefits. Public good for whom? At least, not for Pyeongtaek residents and their supporters, those who fight for their hometown and their neighbors.

Which came first - the chicken or the egg?

It is pointless to get into a discussion of "who started it" in Pyongtaek, because using pipes and bamboo and violence in protests in Korea is old, old, old news. It is the norm. It suprises nobody. The chicken and eggs have been hatching each other for so long, it makes no sense to try to pinpoint who was first right now in Pyongtaek.

Defense Ministry and the National Police Agency should have appealed to the residents with delicate and serious negotiations and other peaceful measures such as more specific proposals for their living.

Horseshit.

The government has backed off different points in its time-table several times.

The land owners and tenant farmers have been negociated with for a long time, and they will gain compensation ---- just like when families are removed to make room for a new highway or a rail line or even a new apartment complex (like my in-laws were).

The only thing those following The Priest and other anti-US civic leaders were interested in "discussing" was the complete erasing of the Pyongtaek expansion plans.

It was the same in Maehyang-ri --- where the Korean government had agreed to relocate the whole village but had the plans die when a less than 50% of the households refused to sign on because The Priest had gotten their ear.

He eventually won in Maehyangri --- both in getting average Koreans to buy his version of the truth - and in getting the training range shut down.

Riot police and soldiers, who are also Korean citizens and youths, should be reconsidered otherwise because they might be the same victims as farmers and activists. They would have felt angry while watching their colleagues attacked by farmers' supporters with pipes and they would have felt sad while watching elderly people and women in their 50s and 60s like their mothers weeping and reproaching them for their deed. The youths should take an action according to the orders given by their chiefs, and they could be changed into devils in the artificial inferno set up by the Roh government.

?????

No clue --- but, English isn't the native language here, so I give the writer some slack.

The violence between Pyeongtaek residents and riot police should be justified as a rightful self-defense. However, so many people were injured and suffered by the artificial ****pit arranged by the suppressive government. The Roh government should make an wholehearted apology to both farmers and riot police and urge the defense minister and the police chief to step down as soon as possible. President Roh can not avoid being called one of the dictators in the Korean history unless he sincerely seek an peaceful solution to the confrontation in Pyeongtaek.

Horseshit.

The Priest and others only care about talk for talk's sake.

The talks legitimize them as real civic leaders rather than men bent on one goal -- getting the US out of Korea and supporting North Korea.

Talking also helps delay things they don't want to see happen as long as possible. It creates problems and frustration.

Then, when plans are actually finished (if they do finish) --

---they pull up stakes and move to another city to take up another issue.

And they will keep seeking items to play up in public day after day, year after year, until the US is out of Korea.