Welcome to BASE21

by Christian / Base21 Media Activists
dvs-b@t-online.de

Since more than one week ETU-MB (Equality Trade Union � Migrants� Branch) activists and their allies from KCTU (Korean Confederation of Trade Unions), Hanguk Migrant Worker's Human Rights Center, Incheon, Nepal Struggle Team and KASAMMAKO (Alliance of Filipino Migrant Organizations & Migrante Sectoral Party - Korea Chapter), are occupying Myeongdong Cathedral뭩 compound downtown Seoul. They decided to use this mean to give the struggle of migrant workers more power, because they are thinking, that the government only will listen to us if we force them.

After they occupied the compound, KCTU (Korean Confederation of Trade Unions) decided to give them much support as possible and organized a rally for Saturday on their struggling place. Also during this week the left youth organization Daham-kke (All Together) decided to support the struggle of migrant workers with a demonstration on the same day and to join later the KCTU rally on Myeongdong Cathedral뭩 compound.

Last Saturday, November 22, in the afternoon masses of workers arrived, got in many good conversations with the sit-in strike team and helped for the last preparations.

A while later, hundreds of Daham-kke members and supporters arrived under great applause the rally area and everyone could see how happy the sit-in struggle team were to get such a massive solidarity.
Of course in all the speeches government뭩 policy against the right of existence for migrant workers here were condemned. ETU-MB activists, made it clear that they will not give up their struggle until South Korean government will meet their demands � "of course" under massive applause of the audience.

A while after finishing the rally International Secretary of ETU-MB and some supporters joined a birthday celebration for Kang Cheol-min, a military service-man who decided, in protest of the planned dispatching of South Korean combat troops to Iraq, not to go back to his army unit and instead to hide in a Christian center in Seoul. They gave some small presents and assured him and his struggle their strong solidarity. Very surprising it was to see, how many of the participants of this ceremony joined only short while before KCTU rally in Myeongdong.

The day before, November 21, in Manila, the capital of the Philippines and in Toronto, Canada, rallies in front of the embassy, respectively the consulate took place. In Manila broad coalition of several of the most important NGO뭩 in the country, like Bayan or the woman organization Gabriela protested against the policy of South Korean government against migrant workers. In Toronto Ontario Coalition Against Poverty (OCAP) organized a rally in front of the South Korean consulate there and delivered a protest letter to the South Korean consul general.