Siege and Seizure in Korea
Cindy Sheehan
Traveling around the world these past months has given me an education
about American history that majoring in the subject at UCLA never did. I
have witnessed first hand what US imperialism and militarism can do to
countries and societies. I sat with indigenous Hawaiian tribal leaders who
shared their tragic stories of how US colonialism and militarism ruined
their fishing waters and turned their lands into super-fund sites. I stood
in solidarity with Irish peace activists who want the US military off of
their soil and US transport and rendition planes to stop using Shannon
Airport to land to refuel. These are just a few stories, everywhere I go,
the local populations have stories of greed, crime, corruption, pollution,
etc., that all go hand in glove wherever the US military is present. Not
to mention the “hot†war zones where hundreds of civilians are murdered,
maimed, or displaced on a daily basis.
This rampant, arrogant, and care-less US militarism has nowhere been more
evident than here in South Korea, especially in the village of Daechuri,
near Pyong-taek City. The loathing for George Bush, America, Americans,
irresponsible capitalism, corporatism, imperialism and militarism is a
planetary phenomenon, but above what the US is doing to the wretched
countries of Iraq and Afghanistan, I have never been more ashamed of the
US government than when I visited the village of Daechuri with 17 other
American peace and social justice activists and a campesino from Colombia.
Miles before our bus reached the village on the evening of November 20th,
we were stopped by approximately 200 South Korean riot-police who were
decked out in their full riot regalia with bullet proof shields. We were
traveling with Father Moon, an elderly Buddhist priest who has been an
advocate for the villagers for a few years now. Father Moon got out of the
bus and negotiated with the police captain for what seemed hours in the
near freezing cold, but was only about 20 minutes. Finally, in what the
villagers said was an unprecedented move, they allowed us entry into the
village (after we passed another heavily guarded checkpoint). Villagers
must present ID to get into their own village and visitors are rarely
allowed to go in. Why? Because the village of Daechuri is under-siege in a
criminal collaboration between the governments of South Korea and the
United States of America and the governments don’t want the world to see
what their crimes are doing to yet more innocent civilians.
The village of Daechuri has the unmitigated gall to be located next to a
US military base, Camp Humphreys, which is slated for an eleven-billion
dollar expansion that would include a golf course for the use of soldiers
stationed there. The only problem is (not for the governments) that the
village of Daechuri and their thousands of acres of farmland, mostly rice
paddies, are in the way of the juggernaut of US military expansion. The
people of Daechuri have been cut-off from their farmlands by razor wire,
guard towers, and armed foot patrols. Over two-thirds of the residents
have the small village, but that leaves about one-third of them there to
stand against the mightiest Army and the greediest government in world
history.
In the ‘80’s, Ronald Reagan famously said: “tear it down!†regarding the
Berlin Wall. There are many more walls on Earth that separate people from
their farmlands, families, jobs and country that need to be torn down, but
so-called civilized nations are building more walls and fortifications to
contain and control free human movement and expression and curb
populations that are just trying to live their lives in the traditional
ways that they always have.
After our tour bus pulled up into the village, we were ushered into a
large warehouse where the villagers were holding their 811th nightly
candlelight vigil in protest of the US incursion. We joined their vigil
and heard their stories. We heard stories of May 4th, when 20,000 Korean
police descended on the village with heavy-hands and strong arm tactics
that allowed the barbed wire fences to be constructed, thereby effectively
cutting the farmers off from tens of thousands of dollars worth of
un-harvested rice. We heard stories from village elders who lived through
Japanese imperialism and occupation to the US Korean police action that
killed 2.5 million Koreans, and are now having their lands and ways of
life robbed of them by “Pax Americana.†My heart broke for the people of
Daechuri and was filled with disgust for whom the people of Korea call
“Georgie Bushie†and whom I call “BushCo.â€
Daechuri has become “ground zero†in the struggle against violent US
military extremism. We Americans can no longer sit idly by and turn
ignorant blind eyes to what Georgie Bushie does around the globe. The
people of such places as Daechuri, Shannon, Pearl Harbor and Iraq are our
brothers and sisters whom we are allowing our governments to oppress and
suppress. In all my life, I have never witnessed such courage, strength,
and determination. 150 people are standing firm and will not be moved no
matter how many acres of their familial land is seized, how many of their
homes are bulldozed or how close the razor wire gets to their homes. They
have decorated every fence with bright and cheery paintings of hope for
the future and they have erected monuments and memorials to what they have
already lost. Their determination and courage should be inspiration to all
people around the world who also struggle for basic human rights.
This week, 18 Americans chose to give up their family holiday celebrations
to come to Korea to stand with the people of Daechuri and the Korean peace
movement.
On the day after Thanksgiving when most Americans were watching football,
trampling each other in Wal-Mart in a frantic feeding frenzy to get the
newest cheap toys that are made off of the backs of virtual slave labor
all over the world and/or spend most of the day circling parking lots at
malls across the country to find a coveted parking space, four women from
our delegation, myself, Medea Benjamin (founder of Global Exchange and
Code Pink), my sister, Dede Miller (co-founder of GSFP) and my assistant,
Tiffany Burns, walked across about 2 acres (up to our armpits) of ruined
rice crops toward the “dmz†between the village and Camp Humphreys to hang
a sign that said: “Arms not Farms†on the nasty looking razor wire,
despite the warnings of the Korean guards who were waving their arms and
screaming something at us from behind two rows of the barbed wire.
The people of Daechuri have very little to be Thankful for. Our soldiers
in the field and innocent people in Bush-torn countries have very little
to be Thankful for. For me, on the third Thanksgiving I have had to bear
since Casey was killed, I can’t think of anything else that I would rather
have done than help the people of Daechuri struggle against the very same
thing that took Casey’s life. The villagers honored us with a “ Gold Star
Families for Peace/Code Pink†Peace House that had been abandoned by an
owner that took the cash settlement to leave. The villagers that remain
don’t want the government’s blood money; they just want to keep their
lands and homes.
The villagers who walk the narrow streets of Daechuri, bowed by lifetimes
of carrying heavy burdens and children on their backs, are now carrying
burdens placed there by American imperial gluttony, and I, as an American
want to help them carry this burden, as many kind people all over the
world have tried to help me carry mine.
Not only is the expansion of Camp Humphreys hurting the people of
Daechuri, but it will have the effect of further de-stabilizing a region
already on pins and needles due parially to US intervention. You can bet
your turkey left-overs that North Korea is watching these developments
very closely and only the people of Korea and this region will pay for US
infiltrations in South Korea. I know I don’t feel any safer by the raping
and pillaging of Daechuri…in fact the expansion of Camp Humphreys will
only do what Georgie Bushie is becoming infamous for: making America and
the world less safe and secure. As an aside: I took a straw poll of about
400 South Koreans and 100% of them said that Georgie Bushie is far more
frightening than Kim Jong-Il and they want the US out of Korea so they can
put their divided country back together again. With the complete
destruction of Daechuri scheduled by the end of this year, our efforts may
be too little, too late for the ill-fated visitors who are going through
long-distance BushCo callousness, but we can prevent other villages,
towns, countries from experiencing the same fate with the exposure of what
is happening here. We are in this together. Making the sacrifices of the
villagers count for justice is as important as making US troop and the
Iraqi civilian’s sacrifices count for peace. Peace and justice are two
values that are intertwined and inter-connected and they are the
responsibility of us all.
What can we do stateside to help these people? We can lobby our
congressional reps to hold hearings into the tragedy of Daechuri. We can
donate money to help the villagers get fuel for heating their homes during
the bitter Korean winter and to obtain food, since they can’t access their
fields for harvest. We can turn off our TVs and educate ourselves on US,
corporatism, imperialism and militarism by reading such books as:
Confessions of an Economic Hit Man by John Perkins, or Hegemony or
Survival by Noam Chomsky. We can do with less, especially in the season of
over-the-top consumerism and waste. We can support organizations
financially who work for peace and justice in lieu of a seemingly obscene
over-abundance of presents or decorations.
I hope when Americans play golf on the golf course that will be
constructed over the rice fields that sustained and gave sustenance to the
villagers for generations, they stop and reflect for even a brief moment
that an entire village was destroyed and hundreds of people were displaced
for their recreation. Golf! A village was obliterated for golf. If this is
the “American way†then we obviously need a new way, as speedily as
possible.
Mail your tax deductible donation for the villagers of Daechuri to:
Gold Star Families for Peace
2010 Linden Ave
Venice, Ca. 90291
Earmark the donation for the villagers.
Cindy Sheehan is the mother of Spc. Casey Sheehan who was killed in Bush’s
war of terror on 04/04/04. She is the co-founder and president of Gold
Star Families for Peace and the Camp Casey Peace Institute. She is the
author of three books, the most recent is: Peace Mom: A Mother’s Journey
Through Heartache to Activism.
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“Our German forbearers in the 1930s sat around, blamed their rulers, said ‘maybe everything’s going to be alright.’ That is something we cannot do. I do not want my grandchildren asking me years from now, ‘why didn’t you do something to stop all this?” –Ray McGovern, former CIA analyst of 27 years, referring to the actions and crimes of the Bush Administration
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