Special Commandos Needed for Protesters in Yongsan Seoul

Six people, including one policeman, were killed and 23 injured on Jan.20, 2009 after Seoul’s special police commandos moved in to the top of the building to quell a strike against Yongsan re-development project. A shipping container carrying about 100 commandos was landed on the roof top of the building where the protesters built a 16 feet – about 5 meter – observation tower. About 40 minutes later, a fire broke out in the watch tower, soon engulfing the whole area.

The protesters, who once were tenants of the building, opposed to the plan because they didn’t believe that the compensation from the government was fair to them at all. Compared to what was paid to the owners of the buildings, the haves, in the re-development zone, the compensation given to the tenants, the have-nots, was just a shallow trick.

The tenants, most of whom ran a business there for a long time, in some cases for decades, were forced to give up their only way of living. The government paid them only for living costs of three months, moving costs and about twenty to forty thousand dollar compensation for their business.

Are the government officers so ignorant that they don’t know it takes hundreds of thousands dollars to start a business like theirs in another place in Seoul, let along their time and efforts to establish business reputation? Or are they just so ruthless that they don’t care their tax-paying citizens are facing motel living in this difficult time, with all their dreams they’ve held for years gone? I mean, regular people’s dreams to send their kids to colleges, to buy a 1000 SQ apartment, or to retire at 65, not like some top 2 percent people’s dreams to buy a mansion near a beach or to spend the rest of their lives cruise-traveling.

The government is simply taking the bread out of their mouths and doesn’t care. Yes, as they argue so strongly, it’s not right for the protesters to use violent methods such as Molotov cocktails and it’s not desirable for them to ally with a rather aggressive group National Displaced Tenants Association. But would they have wanted to throw Molotov cocktails and prepare paint thinners near them if they had had an idea that at least their living wasn’t threatened?

It was the government that decided the development plan and approved that a private company would take care of all the details including compensation. Did the government try to stop the private company when their contractors destroyed the stores of the building and got violent with the tenants on the sly?

If the Lee government cares about these people at all, they should have tried to talk to them first or to negotiate with them first. The fact the protesters prepared Molotov cocktails doesn’t give the government a good reason to send specially trained commandos only 25 hours after the protest began, especially when they were aware of the risks of the operation.

The bigger issue is that there are so many projects like this on the road. They plan them without listening to Koreans and they don’t mind being violent when they’re blocked by protesters. As the representative of the Blue House said after the Yongsan incident, maybe this will set an “example” against people’s protests.

They’re repeating this nonsense of re-development plans that they pay the tenants for a few months of living costs, moving costs and a prior right to move into the new building / or a little compensation money. We all know a few months of living costs, moving costs or compensation money for business are almost a joke.

What about the prior right to move into the newly built complex? Well, easily guessed, a lot of times, this thing doesn’t work for the tenants who don’t have money, by money I mean, sitting-in-the-bank capital. Usually, the deposit money, which could be hundreds of thousands dollars, and / or the rent soar in the newly developed complex, and many tenants don’t have that much money to afford. They end up selling their priority cheaply, even long before the project completes because they can’t find a job or a place to live in after they were forced to give up their business or to leave their place. So the riches buy these prior rights and make much profit by selling them to those people who can afford the loan. It’s a vicious cycle.

The re-development plans that I understand is the “legal” way to make the riches richer and to kick out the have-nots from their base, only to generating more slums.

No doubt Koreans criticize that they’ve got sneakier, more violent, and more dogmatic since they went into the underground bunker! When they heard about the delay of the “fancy” city re-development plan caused by some no-name Koreans, the best method that the government came up with from the bunker was sending highly-trained commandos. Indeed it’s a “War-Room” carrying a war against its people.

This entry was posted on Monday, January 26th, 2009 under Disgrace To Korea.