International Delegation Calls on President Lee Myung Bak to Stop Construction of Naval Base on Jeju Island

이명박 대통령에게 제주해군기지 건설 중단을 촉구하는 국제평화인사들의 기자회견문

We are five members of the global community, and we have traveled all the way across the Pacific Ocean to stand in solidarity with the residents of Gangjeong village who are resisting the construction of the ROK/US naval base that will turn their small fishing village into a target of a US proxy war against China. Our delegation includes a reverend, medical doctor, defense policy analyst, professor and writer. We are here to bear witness to the grave human rights abuses committed by the Jeju police against the villagers and activists. We are appalled by the violence used by the ROK Navy and Government to repress the nonviolent villagers and activists who have been calling for a just and democratic process.

Growing numbers of individuals worldwide have been monitoring the situation in Gangjeong village over the past several months. We have grown increasingly concerned as more activists have been arrested, including Professor Yang Yoon Mo, peace activist Choi Sung-Hee, Village Chief Kang Dong-gyun, Leader of the Anti- Base Construction Committee Ko Gwon-il, and peace activist Song Kang-ho. Today three remain in prison despite the fact that they have committed no crime. Instead, these individuals have used every possible democratic means to challenge the unilateral decision by the ROK Navy to construct the base in their small fishing village. In their pursuit of peace, they have been arrested, dealt heavy fines and barred from entering the waters and land that they have known and lovingly preserved for generations. This is a frightening indication of the return of authoritarian rule by the Lee regime and stains the reputation of South Korea's hard-won vibrant democracy.

We are inspired by the courage of the villagers who have steadily resisted the base construction for four long years, living in tents and placing their bodies in front of cement trucks and tractors that have destroyed their way of life. On Monday, as 1,200 police descended upon Gangjeong, politicians and members of the South Korean civil society joined residents who chained their bodies in a human fence to prevent the trucks from tearing up the road into the construction site. This is the power of humanity to stand up for what is morally and ethically right, and we, as observers of the global peace community, join these courageous leaders in their resolve to keep Jeju the Island of Peace.

Our time here coincides with the anniversary of the signing of the Armistice Agreement that formally ended the Korean War. We know that the unresolved Korean War has served as a justification for the build up of arms, the expansion of military bases and the intensified US-ROK military exercises. As people living across the world, we are working to bring awareness of how the naval base in Jeju will forcibly destroy the livelihoods of farmers, fishermen and women sea divers and the rich marine ecology surrounding them - all in the name of building a base to stage Aegis destroyers that will be central to the US missile defense system. At a time of severe global recession, we as a global community can no longer afford to spend billions of dollars daily on a false notion of military security that only leads to the death of human life and destruction of our planet.

2011. 7. 28

The Global Campaign to Save Jeju Island

www.savejejuisland.org

주관 제주해군기지건설 저지를 위한 전국대책회의


방한 해외 평화활동가 약력

Christine Ahn is the Executive Director of the Korea Policy Institute and a senior policy analyst at the Global Fund for Women. She has organized several peace and humanitarian aid delegations to North and South Korea, and has addressed the U.S. Congress, the United Nations and the National Human Rights Commission in South Korea. Ms. Ahn has been interviewed on CNN, ABC, NBC, Al-Jazeera, National Public Radio and Voice of America. She is a columnist with Institute for Policy Studies' Foreign Policy In Focus, and her op-eds have appeared in TheInternationalHeraldTribune/TheNewYorkTimes,AsiaTimes,andtheSanFranciscoChronicle.ShehasbeeninductedintotheOMB Watch Public Interest Hall of Fame and recognized as a Rising Peacemaker by the Agape Foundation. She holds a master’s degree from Georgetown University.

Imok Cha, M.D. is a physician specializing in cancer diagnosis using minimally invasive methods. She received her M.D. from Columbia University, Physicians & Surgeons. She served as a clinical professor of Pathology at University of California, San Francisco Medical Center from 1995 to 2006. She has been interested in environmental issues, especially preserving marine life, through organizations in San Francisco bay area and South East Asia.

Reverend Lutz Drescher has been involved in the German peace movement since the 1980s. From 1987 to 1995, Reverend Lutz worked with Koreawith PROK, Do Yeo Su minjung democracy church. He has long been closely affiliated with the human rights movements. Since 2001, Lutz was the East Aisa Liaison Secretary of EMS (what is this?) and involved with questions of peace on the Korean peninsula. He has visited North Korea several times and has attended two international conferences with the North Korean Christian Federation. In 2008, he organized an international conference on Human Security in Korea with the North South Peace Foundation.

Matthew Hoey is a former senior research associate at the Institute for Defense and Disarmament Studies (IDDS), a United Nations Non-Governmental research organization located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. As a contributing editor to the Arms Control Reporter, Hoey wrote on international security issues such as nuclear forces, missile defense, military space systems and dual-use technologies. As a consultant, he has provided emerging military technology analysis to the U.S. government, the private sector, nonprofits and foundations. His research has been featured by the Council on Foreign Relations, The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, The Space Review, The Nuclear Threat Initiative, and The Center for Defense Information, among others. Hoey has also lectured at the Boston University School of Law, The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and the MIT Science, Technology and Global Security Working Group.

Christine Hong is an assistant professor of Asian American literature, Korean diaspora studies, and critical Pacific Rim studies at the University of California, Santa Cruz. She received her Ph.D. from and completed a postdoctoral fellowship at UC Berkeley. Her work examines the historic relation of post-1945 human rights literature to the Pax Americana, the U.S. military "peace" that restructured the Asia Pacific following World War II. She is a member of the steering committees of the Alliance of Scholars Concerned about Korea and the National Campaign to End the Korean War.