[Editorial] 'Peace Park' in Maehyangni

                                        The Hankyoreh, 13 August 2005.

 The yellow flag at the US military's international bombing range in Maehyangni has been taken down. It had been there from 1951 to noon Friday to warn of bombing by the US Air Force. On Friday a sky blue flag of peace was put in its place.

Sadly the yellow flag of Maehyangni was a symbol of Korea's incomplete peace and independence. In 1951 the US Air Force started using an island that had been there as a bombing practice range. When that island was wiped out it claimed another one. In 1968 it claimed 380,000 pyeong of farmland from the middle of Maehyangni and started using that area as a land range. The basis for doing that was the unfair Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA).

From morning until evening every day there would be hundreds of bombing and rounds of gunfire. Every other week there would be nighttime training until 11 p.m. Instead of just planes belonging to the United States Forces Korea (USFK), US Air Force bombers from Japan, the Philippines, Thailand, and Guam would come as well. There was no peace in Maehyangni and there was no sovereignty.

It is a victory for civil society and local residents that a flag of peace has been raised there. It is a "small-scale Liberation" accomplished by the desire to stop war and to achieve peace. The decision to take back that 380,000 pyeong 38 years after it was forcibly taken away and build a "peace village" with a "peace park," "peace museum," and "ecological experience facility" is in the same context as that desire.

Local residents have decided to give W2 billion to the peace village project, from the W8.1 billion they have received from the state in the form of compensation. It is touching to see people willingly give from the payment they have received from suffering that has lasted a lifetime. However, it is said the project will cost about W100 billion. It is time for the government to get involved. It would be a good opportunity for the government to restore its honor, having long taken great pains to keep from offending the "occupation forces of Maehyangni."