200,000 Protest in Seoul Against Ruling Government

UPDATE #1:  Was it really 200,000? From the Donga:

As many as 50,000 members of conservative groups gathered in front of the Seoul City Hall on September 2 at 2:00 p.m. They held an emergency gathering for South Korea and urged the government to postpone the transfer of wartime operational control and revision of the private school law.

How the hell do you confuse 50,000 from 200,000?  From the picture it is hard to tell but it is a lot of people and looks similar in size to the anti-US protests held there in 2002 that allegedly had 200,000 people attend those.  So who knows.

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This is actually an amazing number of people the conservatives have been able to rally in Seoul against the Roh Moo-hyun administration:

Seoul saw a massive combined protest on Saturday against the government¿s plan to take over wartime operational control of Korean troops and controversial private school laws, two issues that however disparate have galvanized conservatives here. Some 200,000 members of about 200 groups including the Korean Veterans Association and the Christian Council of Korea braved sweltering weather to gather in front of Seoul City Hall.

¿Both national sovereignty and pride are important,¿ said Park Seh-jik, the president of the Korean Veterans Association in a speech. ¿But if we fail to prevent war and the nation is annihilated and turns Communist, where will we find that sovereignty and pride?¿ Park demanded an immediate halt to the wartime control plan.

This is actually the largest number of people I have ever personally seen the conservatives able to rally.  These numbers are on par with the numbers the anti-US groups drew after the 2002 armored vehicle accident.  However, I think it is going to be to little, to late to be able to stop the wartime control from happening.  The conservatives probably realize this and may be showing Washington that a large number of Koreans are for a strong US-ROK alliance and that the problem is President Roh.  This may convince the US government that pulling all the troops from Korea may not be good thing because a pro-US government may come into power in Korea after the next Korean election next year and soldiers on the ground does give the US influence within that government.  So this may ultimately just be a play from the conservatives to at least keep some kind of ground presence in Korea even after the hand over of wartime control.  A ground presence of some sort assures Korea of war time reinforcements from the US in case of hostilities.  This would ensuresthe national security of South Korea, which is ultimately what the conservative want.

Either way I think the debate going on within Korean society over the wartime control issue is very healthy.  To long USFK has been taken for granted and used as a punching bag for variety of groups and politicians in Korea looking for any issue to demagogue and blame on USFK in order to draw attention from the Korean public.  Also many Koreans falsely believed that the US was getting more out of Korea from the alliance than what Korea was getting in return.  Not anymore.  I think it is starting to sink into many people in the country that Korea is not as important in the grand scheme of things to America as they once thought it was.  I think it was a real shock to many that America would be willing to pack up and leave so readily and this massive protest is a response to that.  Like I said before this will be a healthy debate within Korean society that is way over do and hopefully it doesn’t get lost in a wave of slogans and accusations, but turns into a real debate between leaders in Korea about the future of the country and it’s relationship with America.