Welcome to BASE21

By Jeong Gue-sun, President of FWR

With the heat of summer and the angry voices of citizens and migrant workers being raised, its too hot in Korea.

Firstly, on June 13, the fever of the World Cup, a horrible accident happened. Two middle school girls were crushed to death under an US Army armoured vehicle in Gyeonggido. Fifty days have passed since the accident and the US Army hasn't delivered the soldiers who were driving the vehicle and has never investigated the accident. And now it seems that these soldiers are escaping back to the US in secret.
As Korean representative soccer team player Ahn Jeong-whan described at his goal ceremony the scene player American Ono's unfair conduct at the Winter Olympics at the game against the US team during the World Cup, it clearly showed the anti US sentiment of the Korean people to the whole world. And the deaths of the two middle school girls have only increased this feeling. Korean people are asking for an end to the 'humiliation of SOFA (Administration Agreement between Korea and the USA) and withdrawal of US troops from Korea'. It's become impossible for Korean people to bear the violence of the US against the weak any more.

Secondly, results of the Voluntary Reporting Program, conducted by the Ministry of Justice from March 25 to May 29, showed that 93 percent of undocumented migrant workers registered. From this, we can read how many undocumented migrant workers expect a new migrant workers' policy to come from the Korean government. But NGOs and migrant workers are angry that the Korean government has change its mind and will not abolish the trainee system and enact a new law. Instead, it will maintain and expand the trainee system and deport all undocumented migrant workers until March 2003.
This especially dealt another blow to Korean-Chinese because the Korean government announced it would deport all Korean-Chinese who are working here between now and March 2003, and will give new working visas to those who come to Korea to visit their relatives. There is no effort to eliminate discrimination between who lives in rich or poor countries among Koreans residents abroad in the "Special Law for Koreans Residents Abroad".

Even though Koreans and migrant workers are angry for different reasons, there are deep connections between the two. Koreans think they suffer at the hands of the US Army, but they assault migrant workers in Korea. How much difference is there between the wants of Koreans and the wants of migrant workers? Koreans ask for the punishment of the guilty US soldiers and to have equal status and rights with the US Army, while migrant workers ask for the same rights and status as Korean labourers.
Its not only the heat of summer, but also the shameless US soldiers, who didn't apologise for the deaths of two middle school girls and worried about having their faces shown on TV, that make us stifling. Its also because of the shameless actions of the Korean government, who never treat migrant workers as humans, and KFSB officials and agencies, who are sitting back, counting their black money in front of their air-conditioners.

We need to create a cool breeze that blows away the shameless US Army and has all Koreans living together in harmony with migrant workers.