UPDATE #4: Budaechigae has got a posting on this that provides a link to a video of the protest.
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UPDATE #3: Of course the Marmot has a great post covering the battle at Camp Humphreys.
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UPDATE #2: Mark has got more on this at his site. He compares the battle to Pickett’s Charge during the Civil War. Not a bad analogy.
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UPDATE #1: Nomad has got more on this at his site. He also draws some conclusions about the hypocracy and greed of the people involved in this from this article in today’s Chosun Ilbo..
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Original Posting:
There was a very violent protest that broke out at Camp Humphreys on Sunday. The protesters were protesting the ROK governments move to buy adjacent farm land around the camp to begin building the needed facilities in order to move soldiers stationed on Yongsan and the 2ID area to Camp Humphreys by 2008. Camp Humphreys for the most part is surrounded by rice paddies on three sides which makes Camp Humphreys the ideal place to expand a camp to relocate soldiers.
However, the local farmers don’t think so and have thus begun to protest. Some of the farmers may legitimately not want to move for whatever reason but I have a feeling that many of the local farmers are protesting in order to get a sweeter deal from the ROK government to sell their land. What do they got to loose by protesting? It only helps them in negotiations with the government. These farmers have teamed up with the “peace activists” which I use this term very loosely because would real “peace activists” do this:
This wasn’t violence that just accidentally happened and got out of hand. This was obviously very well planned because the “peace activists” or for sake of clarity I will just call them thug protesters brought plenty of weapons to assault the riot police and brought wire cutters to breach the fence line.
The pictures seem to support my theory that the thug protesters out number the rice farmers at the protest. Basically it appears, I could be wrong that you got the usual suspects (ie-Hanchongryun) that show up at all the anti-American protests joining with some local farmers to raise hell and then they all go back to Seoul drink a few beers and tell their buddies how much fun they had assaulting policemen and destroying private property because that is basically all they accomplished.
Something I find interesting about the thug protesters is that they always try to make things out like they were the victims. Here is this quote from the International Action Center site.
South Korean government dispatched over six thousand police including the notorious 1001 Unit from Seoul. During the ensuing struggle, over 200 people were hospitalized from the brutal attack by the police and hundreds were arrested.
Brutal Attack?! What do you call this picture?!:
This looks scene from Braveheart. I can just picture the Hanchongryun leader yelling, “You may take our lives but you will never take our rice paddies!”
All I see is the thugs attacking the police! I saw the after action review report today and many policemen were seriously injured and one of the policemen is facing life threatening injuries because these people want to go cause trouble and be stupid.
Why should any young policemen be subjected to getting beat down by these thugs? The reason is because nobody does anything to discourage this activity. If you assault policemen you should go to jail. Why should policemen be treated as some ones private boxing bag? Policemen should be held in high regard and they are not in this country. That is why protesters feel free to seriously injure these young mandatory service draftees at these protests. I get extremely frustrated by this because I see these young men getting beat down and these young men are no different then the young soldiers I’m in charge of and I would never subject them to what the Korean policemen are subjected too.
The slogan on the left of the stage says “Drive out the US military” and the slogan on the right says “This land is our life, we will guard it to the end.”
I make a point to periodically thank the Korean police around my camp for what they do. They really do have a tough job and execute their duties the best they can which I appreciate. I wish their own government would do more to appreciate what they do by preventing them from getting injured in the first place by arresting anyone who assaults a policemen. There should be mandatory jail time for this.
Here is some more stupidity from the IAC website:
As part of the U.S. military’s strategic global realignment plan, the role of U.S. military in South Korea now encompasses all of East Asia. To support their new military role, the U.S. military plans to expand their bases in South Korea in addition to building a number of Patriot Missile Bases along the west coast of South Korea, targeting China.
Plan to expand our bases in South Korea?! We have been shutting down bases up here in 2ID land left and right plus redeploying soldiers back to the US to cut troop numbers here. The goal is to get troop numbers here down to 17,500 by 2008 and we are well on our way to achieving that. Plus it is an out right lie that that is being passed here that the US is building PATRIOT missile bases in Korea. The PATRIOT missile batteries are located on Korean Air Force bases in Kwangju and Suwon and also on the US Air Force’s Osan and Kunsan airbases. In addition to this, the PATRIOT missile cannot be used on offensive strikes against China, North Korea, or anywhere else because they are a purely defensive weapon system. A PATRIOT missile is not a Tomahawk Cruise Missile. But these people believe their own garbage they put out.
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Is this Korea or the Gaza Strip?
I really have no problem with them protesting. It is their right to protest which I fully support. However, I do not support violence and destruction of private property. The only way to stop this is by arresting people and dishing out steep sentences.
Finally what I find most ironic about all of this, is that these same thug protesters that went down to Camp Humphreys to stir up trouble are the same people who protest outside of Yongsan Garrison demanding that it be moved. When a plan is made to move the garrison these same people protest about that. Where do they want us to move to? Out in the ocean? When the USFK says screw you guys we will just redeploy soldiers back to the US these same people complain that the US soldiers can’t go home yet because that may increase the mandatory service time which these protesters are trying to avoid. We just can’t win. So I say screw them and let’s buy land on Cheju Island instead.
Hey, way to go idiots teach the kids to hate Americans early before they even have a chance to meet an American. If the kid is really lucky maybe he will get his head cracked open like the guy below. Why in the world would someone bring children to something as violent as this?
