hankyoreh

North Gyeongsang Province march toward the Lotte Skyhill Country Club golf course

Lee Jong-hee pointed at police officers blocking the road in front of Jinbat Bridge in Sosung, a village in the Chojeon township of North Gyeongsang Province’s Seongju County and said, “In Chojeon, there’s no state, no ruler. Chojeon has just been cast aside as a sacrifice on the altar of security. Look at those police over there.”

It was around 3:20 pm on Mar. 1, and over 1,000 police officers were facing off against around 400 residents in front of the bridge. Another 1.3 km up the road is the Lotte Skyhill Seongju Country Club golf course, where a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) missile defense system is to be deployed. Residents marched to protest the deployment decision, but were blocked on the bridge by police.

“How can they start construction all of a sudden without telling residents like this, when they can’t provide any evidence that THAAD is safe? The only residents to speak of around here are 170 old people. From the residents’ standpoint, deploying that many police is just going to make them feel more unsettled and angrier,” said Lee, a 60-year-old resident of Chojeon’s Chilseon village, as he and the other residents shifted course to the Sosung village center building.

Residents of Sosung Village in Seongju County

By 2 pm, over 400 Seongju and Gimcheon residents had gathered on the lawn of the village center for a demonstration to denounce the government‘s decision to proceed with the THAAD deployment. Abandoning the necessary preparations for their spring farming, they donned headbands instead to declare their resolute opposition to THAAD. Demonstration participants came from the THAAD site in Chojeon, along with other areas of Seongju and nearby Gimcheon.

“I was relaxed after Park Geun-hye was impeached, thinking the next administration would handle the THAAD issue, but police have been posted throughout the neighborhood since last week, and there have been trucks and helicopters traveling around,” said Baek Chang-im, a 67-year-old resident of Yeonmyeong, a village in Gimcheon’s Nongso township.

“Our community used to be quiet. Now I feel nervous and my heart races whenever the soldiers and police go around, like something is about to happen,” an agitated Baek added. “Do they see us as dogs or pigs? Is that how they can just do this kind of thing without any explanation to us?”

Kim Chung-hwan, co-chair of the Seongju Committee to Fight for Cancellation of the THAAD Deployment, asked, “Who is it that is driving these simple residents into the streets to fight THAAD?”

“[President] Park Geun-hye, [Prime Minister] Hwang Kyo-ahn, [Minister of National Defense] Han Min-koo, people like [North Gyeongsang Gov.] Kim Kwan-yong and [lawmakers] Lee Cheol-woo and Yi Wan-young who are glomming onto it - all of them will be tried in the court of history,” Kim added. “We will fight together until the day peace is achieved on the Korean Peninsula.”

At 7:30 that evening, residents held candlelight demonstrations at a parking facility across from the Seongju County Office and in the plaza at Gimcheon Station to call for withdrawal of the THAAD deployment plan. Demonstrations have been held daily for 232 days straight in Seongju and 193 days straight in Gimcheon. Sosung residents also held their first candlelight demonstration at the same time on the lawn of the village center.

By Kim Il-woo, Daegu correspondent

Please direct questions or comments to [english@hani.co.kr]