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demonstrators gather in protest of the removal. (Yonhap News)

On May 31, Busan’s Dong District and municipal police forcibly removed a forced laborer statue that had been standing near the Japanese consulate in Busan for more than a month. The statue represented a man pressed into service by the Japanese during their colonial occupation of Korea. Protesters furiously objected that Busan’s civil servants and police seemed to be working for Japan.

At 2:01 pm on May 31, a civil servant from the Dong District Office who had been assigned to remove the statue announced that the removal was going to take place. A handful of demonstrators who were nearby wrapped their arms around the statue in protest. About three minutes later, the civil servant shouted, “We will execute this administrative action according to the warrant.”

At this point, police whose help had been requested by the district office pulled off the protesters one at a time as they clung to the statue and resisted with all their might. The protesters were dragged away as they loudly denounced the Dong District Office and the police. Protesters who were kept away by over 1,500 police officers of 21 companies criticized the government and the police for being in cahoots with the Japanese.

Civil servants of the Busan Dong District office forcibly removed the statue of a forced laborer near the Japanese consulate onto a truck using a forklift on May 31. (Yonhap News)

At 2:13 pm, civil servants from the Dong District Office used a forklift to raise the statue onto a 1-ton truck waiting nearby. Protesters attempted to prevent the truck from reaching the street, but the police moved into formation and opened up a way for the truck to pass by. At 2:21 pm, the truck headed to the National Memorial Museum of Forced Mobilization under Japanese Occupation, which is located in the Nam District. The statue will be temporary housed in the museum’s first-floor lobby.

On May 8, Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-hwa, Minister of the Interior and Safety Kim Boo-kyum, Minister of Land, Infrastructure and Transport Kim Hyun-mee, and Office of Government Policy Coordination Director Hong Nam-ki issued a joint statement suggesting that the statue be moved to the museum: “In light of the comity of nations and domestic laws related to diplomatic missions, it would be advisable for the statue to be installed at a place that is more appropriate for honoring the victims and providing future generations with historical education than its current location.”

Since Sept. 2017, the Special Committee for Erecting a Forced Laborer Statue, under the Busan Campaign Headquarters for Eradicating Deep-Rooted Vices and Reforming Society, has been working to erect this statue in front of the Japanese consulate in Busan with the goal of urging the Japanese government to take steps to address its war crimes. This group had a physical altercation with the police when it attempted to install the statue there on May 1. After leaving the statue on the sidewalk just over 40 meters away from the statue of a comfort woman that is already in front of the consulate, the group declared that the statue had been “installed in its current location.”

Police surround the statue of a Korean man forced into labor under imperial Japanese rule near a truck provided to remove the statue from the premises of the Japanese consulate in Busan’s Dong district on May 31. Nearby

Busan’s Dong District, which is in charge with maintaining streets in the area, sent the special committee a notice ordering it to move the statue and return the street to its original condition by May 23. When the committee responded that “the statue of the forced laborer cannot be moved a millimeter from its current location,” it was notified on May 24 that the statue would be forcibly removed, and this occurred on May 30.

“Even if the government removes the statue of the forced laborer, they cannot get rid of the people’s desire to set right the war crimes committed by Japan. We will take the statue and return it to this spot,” said Kim Jae-ha, leader of the Busan Campaign Headquarters.

By Kim Yeong-dong, reporting from Busan

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