South Koreans in struggle against US Imperialism
Last Friday evening and night ten thousands - students, unionists, street vendors and professor - gathered in front of Seoul’s City Hall to remember the killing of the two schoolgirls, Shin Hyo-soon and Shim Mi-seon, by US armored vehicle exactly one year before.
Source :  BASE21
by Christian / Base21 Media Activists
dvs-b@t-online.de
Last Friday evening and night ten thousands - students, unionists, street vendors and professor - gathered in front of Seoul¡¯s City Hall to remember the killing of the two schoolgirls, Shin Hyo-soon and Shim Mi-seon, by US armored vehicle exactly one year before.
Hundreds of - mainly - school-students carried self-made peace birds, huge papier-mache effigies of the girls were erected in front of the stage.
In speeches they called for a retrial by a South Korean court and for the revision of the notorious ¡°SOFA (Status of Forces Agreement)¡± which is much in favor of the U.S. But many people, interviewed, said that they are quite sure that there will be no changes in SOFA in the future, so it would be the best only to kick the USFK (United States Forces Korea) out off Korea. They also expressed their worries about an US attack against the North Korea.
A huge banner with a US flag was burned, like thousands of paper made small US flags. A while after 8 pm thousands started to march toward the US embassy. Around 10.000 riot cops could stop them only by using excessive violence. The cops used truncheons, tear gas and even fire extinguisher against the protesters. Heavy fight between unionists and students on the one side and cops on the other side erupted for a while. A massive rally on Seoul¡¯s Jong-no avenue, blocked for hours by the demonstrators, ended the event.
The crowds were only a fraction of the size predicted by the organizers - who had hoped for a turnout of 1 million people in whole Korea - but were nonetheless the largest in month and showed that anti-US imperialist sentiments remaining strong beneath the surface.
On the demonstrations on the end of last year we could count sometimes hundreds of thousands demonstrators. During this time about 600 civic and political organizations joined the movement. But during the hot presidential election period in middle of December some left political organizations tried to abuse the anti-USFK demonstrations for their own election campaign. Later they said it was a mistake, but - according to activists - the most of the people don¡¯t believed and felt used. In the beginning of the year the people started to stay away from this kind of protests. After the ¡°official¡± start of the aggression against Iraq the issue mobilized again ten thousands of protesters. But also here some political groups made the same ¡°mistake¡± and tried to use the rallies for their own interests. And again the people felt used by them.
Under this circumstances the ten thousands protesters on last Friday¡¯s rally and demonstration were a not so bad result. And the activists promised that they want to continue the struggle against US imperialism and war - all the same whether in Iraq or on the Korean Peninsula.
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