Reduce the defense budget! 
Increase the welfare budget!

The 48th Peace/Disarmament Rally and a Meeting with the Deputy Minister of the Ministry of Budget and Planning

                                                                                   July 28, 2005

The Ministry of National Defense asked the Ministry of Budget and Planning for a 12% increase in the military budget for next year amounting to 23.3 trillion won (.4 billion). This huge rate of increase in military spending is 3 times the rate of the expected rise in GDP in 2006.

In the morning, some reporters asked us whether SPARK planned to hold its peace/disarmament rally, because it was raining heavily and other NGOs delayed their rallies. My answer was: "SPARK holds its rallies no matter what the weather is like."

 

  SPARK held the 48th peace/disarmament rally at the building of the Ministry of Budget and Planning instead of the MND building because the MBP is currently analyzing the MND's budget request along with all the other ministries' requests. This rally was co-hosted together with People's Solidarity for Social Progress, the Citizens' Committee against the Deployment of Patriot Missiles at Mt. Munhak, Women Making Peace, the Center for Peace and Disarmament of the People's Solidarity for Participatory Democracy, and Social Solidarity for Resolving Poverty. They demanded that the MBP should reduce military spending, and simultaneously increase spending for social welfare.

  Gong Dong-gil, director of SPARK's disarmament division, asserted that the MND's request for a large increase in the defense budget will significantly damage the inter-Korean relations which have dramatically improved since June, when Minister of Unification Chong Dong-yong met with N.K. Chairman Kim Jong-il. He urged that the MBP should reject the huge increase in military spending which would reverse the progress of inter-Korean reconciliation and peace.

Yoo Ui-son, general secretary of Social Solidarity for Resolving  Poverty, said that government aid to the 5 million people living below the poverty line reaches only one third of those who need it, because the 2005 welfare budget is only 10 trillion won, whereas the defense budget is more than twice that amount. She asserted that the government should cut military spending and use the money saved in order to increase the social welfare budget.

AT 4 pm, after this rally, representatives of the groups that co-sponsored the rally met with the Deputy Minister of the Ministry of Budget and Planning (MBP) in order to deliver an NGO recommendation for an alternative defense budget, and to urge the MBP to totally revise the defense budget proposal.

Chang Byong-wan, the Deputy Minister of the MBP, and two officers of the MBP took part in the meeting. 
In her opening remarks, Byon Yon-sik, co-chairperson of SPARK, expressed her concerns that the increase in military spending could be an obstacle to peace on the Korean peninsula.

Representatives of the NGOs explained how to reduce the defense budget. They asserted that the funds for the expansion of the US military bases at Pyongtaek, the Korean troops in Iraq, Patriot missiles, and Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) aircraft should be eliminated from the military budget.
Moreover, representatives of the NGOs suggested that the MBP could cooperate with the NGOs to hold a public hearing concerning  the social welfare budget and the defense budget.
Deputy Minister Chang promised to consider the NGOs' opinion and ordered the officers to analyze the NGOs' budget proposals.