Vol. 79/No. 11      March 30, 2015

The tour is titled “If You Don’t Give Up, You Can’t Lose” and features two veterans of protests against the base, Korean-born Hee Eun Park and Paco Michelson, from Indiana.

The 11-city tour, which starts in Boston March 17 and ends in Portland, Oregon, April 20, also features the film “Gureombi — The Wind Is Blowing,” which documents the fight against the base. More than 700 island residents and their supporters have been arrested for participating in peaceful civil disobedience.

The U.S. military maintained control over South Korean forces from 1950 — at the beginning of the Korean War — until 1994, when Washington ostensibly gave “peacetime” control to Seoul. But Washington retains control over South Korean troops in the event of war.

When completed the naval base would accommodate 20 warships simultaneously and up to two 150,000-ton cruisers. Small farmers and fishermen on the island — worried about losing their land and livelihoods — have spearheaded the fight against the base, which has won the support of a wide variety of environmental and religious groups. The base is scheduled to be completed at the end of this year.

“There has been an influx of U.S. troops to South Korea” as part of Washington’s “pivot to Asia,” Juyeon Rhee, a national coordinator of the tour, told the Militant March 13. “They had cut the number to 25,000 but now it’s back up to almost 30,000.” Rhee is a board member of the Korea Policy Institute.

The fleet and military units at the base are intended to engage “potential threats from North Korea” and “maritime disputes in the South China Sea,” according to Yonhap News. These are euphemisms for conflicts with both Tokyo, former colonial occupier of Korea, and China, just 300 miles away.

As part of these efforts, Washington and South Korean forces, along with military units from France, the U.K., Australia and Canada, launched military exercises called Key Resolve and Foal Eagle March 2 that are scheduled to last until April 24.

Long history of struggle
Working people on Jeju Island have a long history of struggle going back to the division of Korea into North and South by Washington after the end of World War II in collaboration with the Stalinist regime in Moscow. U.S. occupation forces imposed a military government, drawing on officials from the hated former Japanese colonial administration.

Widespread dissatisfaction with the U.S. military occupation exploded on Jeju Island in March 1947 in a demonstration fired on by U.S.-controlled cops, killing six people. The police assault provoked a general strike there.

Popular resistance led to an armed uprising in Jeju in April 1948. The following month Washington staged rigged elections in South Korea, installing Syngman Rhee as president. His first act was to brutally crush the rebellion in Jeju. Hundreds of villages were razed.

The South Korean government admitted in 1995 that more than 14,000 people were killed, but some historians say as many as 30,000 died out of a population of 300,000 on the island. It was one of many massacres carried out by the U.S.-backed dictatorship in the South.

In 1950 Washington poured tens of thousands of troops and dropped hundreds of thousands of bombs to try to crush the advance by Korean forces from the north, backed by many in the south, fighting to reunify the country. The 1950-53 U.S. war against Korea ended in a stalemate, the first ever defeat of U.S. imperialism.

“Everyone involved in the struggle against the base sees the connections to the previous rebellions and massacres,” Juyeon Rhee said. “They know that every time you stand up to the government they accuse you of being a communist.”

Opponents of the base also point out the consequences of its construction for the environment. “UNESCO has designated the island as a world heritage site because of its unique features,” Rhee added. “The base threatens that.”

Farmers, fishermen and others charged for joining the protests face the choice of imprisonment or fines, which now total some $400,000. The tour will raise money to help villagers continue the fight.

The tour is sponsored by Peaceworkers, the Korea Policy Institute and the Channing & Popei Liem Education Foundation. For more information go to www.savejejunow.org.  
 
 
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