[USFK Forums] Troops, demonstrators both can ‘hit the beach’ [JoongAng]

[C. Y. Lee]

Uploaded by C. Y. Lee on Monday, April 3, 2006

Troops, demonstrators both can ‘hit the beach’

The JoongAng Daily, Saturday, April 1, 2006

April 01, 2006 ㅡ [ Photo: Unloable] ▶ In August 2003, students invaded a U.S. firing range in Pocheon, Gyeonggi province. [YONHAP]

The appearance of anti-war demonstrators as the beachfront site of a joint U.S.-Korea military drill on Thursday showed an apparent lack of interest by authorities in keeping exercise sites free of demonstrators and other civilians.

Authorities said yesterday that the police in the vicinity of Manripo Beach, in Taean, South Chungcheong province, had been alerted to the exercise and told to prepare for the possibility of protests. But, officials said, only two policemen were dispatched to the beach; they failed to spot the protesters in time to block them.

The demonstrators waved placards calling for an end to military exercises and blocked the paths of armored personnel carriers and amphibious vehicles participating in the drill, which began on Saturday.

In March 2004, 10 protesters entered an exercise area in protest at Pohang, North Gyeongsang province, where U.S. and Korean marines were training. Eleven months earlier, 13 college students entered the U.S. military’s firing range in Pocheon, Gyeonggi province, and jumped atop an armored personnel carrier there.

Kim Yong-kyu, a public affairs official at the ROK-U.S. Combined Forces Command, said yesterday that the command has tried so far to respect demonstrators’ rights to stage protests and express opinions, but warned that such incidents could lead to accidents. On Thursday, protesters waited in their cars until amphibious carriers landed on the beach and rushed to the scene. By the time police reinforcements arrived, the protesters had finished a news conference with reporters covering the exercise and left.


by Jeon Ick-jin


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