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

Last week in South Korea was full with anti-war struggles. Most activities were directed against the deployment of US Army's Stryker Brigade Combat Team near the border to the DPRK (Democratic People's Republic of Korea/North Korea).

Many here see the deployment of that platoon as a preparation for a possible attack against the DPRK. Especially after OPLAN 5030 (Base21 wrote about) reached the publicity many people here are thinking that the DPRK is the next of Washington's black list for "regime change". In the past, mainly the neo-cons around Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and others said it directly and in the public that nothing else they wish as a political change in Pyeongyang. So, there is no wonder that the people in the Southern part of the Korean Peninsula are scared about the vision of a new war in the near future.

Last week, mainly anti-war and student activists, the most of them members of Hanchongryeon (Korean Confederation of Student Councils) attacked nearly daily USFK (United States Forces Korea) facilities. On Wednesday during a demonstration against the presence of US troops in South Korea activists were throwing color bombs and burned US flags. Next days they surprised with a visit the US troops on their base Rodriguez Complex near Pocheon (again, like on Monday, Base21 reported). They entered the base, occupied a tank and shouted slogans like "Han-bando jeonjaeng bandae!" (No war on the Korean Peninsula!). After some scuffling with US troops they were arrested and handed over to the South Korean Police.

Next day South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun showed his "independence" from the US Imperialism. High-ranking officers from the USFK demanded from South Korean authorities "strongest punishment" against the student and anti-war activists. Like he promised during the election campaign end of last year that the new government will be more independent from the Big Brother (BB) in the US, he promised on that he will do everything what to fulfill his (BB's) wishes. Now South Korean poice is searching for more activists to arrest them.

Meanwhile on Sunday South Korean anti-war movement showed that the protests here also have some amusing moments. In preparing next Friday's mass demonstrations to mark the Day of Liberation (from Japanese imperialism in August 1945) in Seoul's Guro-gu (city district) activists organized a song contest. Student and anti-war activists, but also "ordinary" citizens and workers presented songs and dances for the audience. Some songs, manly presented by "ordinary" citizens were very traditionally pop pieces even some sounded really like North Korean (modern!) music

But mainly the performances given by student activists were very great, but also a kind of funny in a positive sense. Especially Hanchongryeon's performances were worth seeing power- and colorful. And you could see that even - it was partly heavy raining everybody had a lot of fun during the event. After the last songs and dances together it was obvious - the people left the scene with new power for the next round of struggle.