hankyoreh

By Huh Ho-joon, Jeju correspondent

“Gangjeong Village is a beautiful place,” she said. “Its residents seem to be very friendly and affectionate. I felt I had no choice but to come here and join the villagers and activists in opposing the naval base construction.”

These were the words, delivered on Monday, of British peace and environmental activist Angie Zelter, 61, who has been staying at Gangjeong Village in Jeju Island and taking part in the movement to oppose the construction of a naval base there. On the afternoon of March 12, Zelter was arrested by police after penetrating the barbed wire fence that surrounds Gureombi Rocks. After being imprisoned for two days, Zelter was released with an order to leave the country. She went home on March 21.　　

Zelter came to Jeju as a keynote speaker at an international peace conference on February 24. After the conference, she had been staying at Gangjeong Village and opposing the base construction, and was planning to remain for a month.

She became famous for boarding the nuclear submarine “Trident” at a naval base in Scotland and throwing the submarine‘s equipment and data into the water. The previous year she had established the anti-nuclear group Trident Ploughshares, which calls for weapons to be turned into ploughshares.

Zelter said it was a pity that the people of Jeju-do, particularly those of Gangjeong Village, would have to keep on opposing the naval base construction for a long time to come.

Local residents and activists were already so tired after fighting for a long time, she said. But she had been deeply impressed by their brilliant use of nonviolent means to oppose the base, she added.

Zelter also said that the treatment of Gangjeong residents and local communities by the Korean government was outrageous. She criticized the government for ignoring local residents them around in a manner similar to the April 3 struggle.

The April 3 uprising took place when Jeju police fired on residents holding a demonstration marking the end of Japanese rule in Korea. The national army was eventually sent in to suppress the uprising. Between 14,000 and 60,000 people were killed.

The navy and the police had stopped local residents from accessing the coastline at Gureombi, even blocking farm roads, depriving residents of basic rights like freedom of movement.

Zelter, who travels around the world engaging in peace and environmental activism through nonviolent means, has so far been arrested more than 100 times and imprisoned 16 times. In 1996, a court found her innocent after she was prosecuted for damaging fighter jet equipment due to be exported from England to Indonesia.

Zelter said, “If Korean prosecutors had indicted me I could have pointed out who was right and who was wrong in court, and that it was a pity that it didn’t turn out that way. Even when I go back to English, I will continue protests opposing the Jeju naval base in front of the Korean embassy.”

Irish Nobel Peace Prize laureate Mairead Corrigan Maguire has nominated Zelter as a candidate for the same award this year. She has previously won a “Right Livelihood Award,” known as an alternative Nobel Peace Prize and was nominated as a “Hero for a Better World.”

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