May Base Protest 2005

The fact that the protest was against a defensive missile battery says a good

bit about how Korea picks issues to vent frustration over. This protest was small, but if it had been a ripe time for venting, Korean society would have taken it up regardless of the merits of the individual issue. (Here is a link to a more common thought in Korean society concerning the US Missile Defense initiative that seeks to include Japan and Korea as "star wars" technology advances toward helping protect against long range missile from North Korea (and China as well)).

I caught wind of this protest in a Chinese English language news article via google. The Korean English papers haven't covered it as they usually would. There was an image of it in the Joongang Daily, and then the JA ran this editorial about it.

A violent demonstration was staged Sunday at the gate of a U.S. Air Force base in Kwangju by the Kwangju and South Jeolla Province Committee for the Closure of Patriot Missile Bases and the Withdrawal of U.S. Forces From Korea. Some 3,000 people joined in the rally, including civic group members and students from Hanchongryun, the leftist student organization. They tried to make their way onto the base by tearing down barbed-wire fencing.

There is nothing unusual about the protest. The civic groups and university student org are part of the constant agitation against USFK/US in South Korea. A few thousand Turing out isn't a bad showing. In periods of lull, like we are in now, you might only see the civic leaders themselves and a dozen supporters.

The media, on the other hand, represents the Korean majority. Both pick and choose when to get riled up into an anti-US frenzy. There is no efficient way to predict it. A minor incident like an environmental infraction by USFK can send the press into printing several inflammatory articles and editorials each week for months to drum beat the masses into the street. Or, a bigger story like the recent USFK MP who was arrested for shaking down juice bars near US bases and getting free sex by threatening to list a club as off limits to GIs is pretty much ignored or given the kind of treatment you'd expect if the MP were in the Korean army.

The protesters demanded the shutdown of U.S. missile bases and the withdrawal of U.S. forces. In fact, due to the current administration's initiatives, a partial withdrawal and realignment of U.S. forces here is underway. Unlike in 2003, there is a degree of public consensus about the presence of U.S. forces here. It is therefore hard to understand why the demonstrators are trying to raise the issue again.

The lulls in anti-US activity that ignore the same events that have sparked a prolonged sense of "national outrage" usually come when South Korea is worried about its security (economic and military) when possible significant changes in USFK are in the works (as they are now) or they fear the US public might be paying attention, and they want to avoid an anti-Korean backlash.

We have pretty much been in such a lull since the summer of 2003 - which is by far the longest period of relative quiet I've seen since I started watching in the mid-1990s.

If this were a time in which Korea felt strong and secure, the media would not only report the break in for a couple of weeks, they would give much attention to the words spoken by the anti-US leaders. Which is another way to judge what the temperature is in Korean society. If you start reading the radical leaders being quoted in the initial paragraphs in an article while US responses are either downplayed or ignored, you know Korea feels ready to rant.

Here is a link to the base protest he mentioned. here is a link to the US Chamber of Commerce siege after which students were not sent to jail. Here is a link to the video of it. And here is a link to the infamous subway kidnapping in which no Korean students were arrest either. Here is a link to the video shot by the activists. The US Embassy has also been the frequent focal point for activist invasion.

USFK Base Protest