2nd Peoples' Rally takes place in solidarity with the strikes
The Korea Peoples' Solidarity, a network of workers, students, farmers and urban poor organizations, hosted the 2001 2nd Peoples' Rally...
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The 2nd Peoples' Rally takes place in solidarity with the strikes
The Korea Peoples' Solidarity, a network of workers, students, farmers and urban poor organizations, hosted the 2001 2nd Peoples' Rally following the first on 31st March. The rally, which took place at Daehakro, brought the oppressed peoples together in solidarity with the workers who are on strike. There were numerous slogans to be shouted at this rally - the denouncing of the US Missile Defense programs and the government's plan to resume its Saemangeum reclamation project, urging for the abolishment of the National Security Law, the expansion of public education and solutions to the financial deficit of the health insurance, and stop to trade liberalization of agricultural products, added onto the slogans from the workers' demonstrations on the 12th June.
There was a preliminary rally hosted by the Korean Committee Against NMD-TMD and For Peace against the attempts by the US to jeopardize the equilibrium in Asia and triggering another round of the Cold War. The preliminary rally was somewhat coloured strongly by a nationalist position against the US, the usual 'Yankee go home' type of slogans from the nationalist student groups.
After an hour of the preliminaries, the main rally took off. Dan Byeong-Ho, president of KCTU, was arranged to make the opening speech, but could not participate due to the police hunt after him. Representatives from other groups also made their speeches and the demonstrators, bloated to nearly 10,000, started to march through Chongro, central Seoul. 30 minutes had passed of the peaceful (and legal) march, when hundreds of riot police suddenly attacked the students in the front. Citizens were shocked as well as the marchers, as police beat down at the demonstrators who had only bags of rubbish picked up from the ground to defend themselves, and confiscated a large caricature of president Kim with the words 'Death of democracy!' on it. Their excuse was that the demonstrators were defiling the supreme ruler of the nation. A passerby was hit by the fragments from a wooden stick that a policeman was using, causing severe cuts on her face. The police backed off after a brief fight, and the march continued but was stopped again after a couple of hours. Riot police beat down on the demonstrators, and after defending themselves for awhile, eventually ended the march in the middle and dispersed.
The Kim Dae-Jung came into power with cajolery that he is indeed the president to overcome the economic crisis and stablize true democracy in Korea. He himself was a political prisoner, serving long terms in prison and surviving through the atrocious tortures of military dictatorships. Perhaps it is too much to expect of this 'past' hero of the democratic movement in Korea, to continue his fight for justice even after he has gained power in the institutional bourgeois political system. He has become one of the most favoured Asian leaders in the realm of neo-liberal economy, eliminating trade barriers, lowering interest rates and enforcing extensive restructuring to fulfillment with its commitments to transnational capital. Part-time workers constitute for more than 50% of the total work force, among which close to 90% are women. Wages have fallen and there have been severe cut backs on benefits and allowances. The gap between the poor and the rich has reached enormous proportions and social welfare (if any ever existed) has completely collapsed. Ever since Kim came into power in 1998, workers who have been arrested on charges of labour dispute mount to 528. This is even more than the 507 workers arrested during the rule of his predecessor, Kim Young-Sam.
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