Restore the operational control authority!
Reduce the defense budget!

The 50th Peace/Disarmament Rally

On Sept. 13, the Ministry of National Defense (MND) announced the "2020 military reform plan". According to the plan, the number of South Korean troops will be reduced to 500,000 from the current 680,000 by 2020, and 289 trillion won (0 billion) out of the estimated defense budget must be spent on introducing powerful, high-tech military hardware in exchange for slashing manpower by a quarter. However, the plan didn't even mention the most essential change. That is to take back the operational control authority from the USFK. Since 1950 the USFK has had control of the military operations of the ROK armed forces.
On September 27, SPARK held its 50th peace/disarmament rally at the building of the MND. The participants enthusiastically demanded, "Without restoring the operational control authority, the military reform proposals are a deceit. The MND must make every effort to get back the operational control authority." and "Reduce the defense budget."

Park Seok-boon, general affairs director of SPARK, denounced the MND for intimidating taxpayers. The Ministry claims that the military reform is impossible without a tremendous increase in military spending, while it ignores the issue of restoring the operational control authority, which is the prerequisite for the military reform. She concluded that the MND's officers must free themselves from their pro-American, colonial mentality before they can achieve "independent defense". She encouraged the participants to energetically act in order to awaken the MND authorities and achieve peace and disarmament.

Gong Dong-gil, director of SPARK's disarmament division, criticized the MND's request for a huge increase in military spending. He asserted that since the six-party agreement was concluded in Beijing on September 19, changing conditions will lead to a peace treaty between Pyongyang and Washington, and establishment of a peace regime on the Korean peninsula. He denounced the MND for clinging to the obsolete Cold War  ideology of the arms race instead of moving forward to the new era of peace and disarmament.