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Elderly women sit on a road as trucks pass by

“These bastards - it’s not right. We can’t live with THAAD as a neighbor.”

It was around 1 pm on Mar. 29, and elderly women were blocking the road in front of the Soseong village center in Chojeon, a township in North Gyeongsang Province’s Seongju County. Four 4.5-ton trucks and one 5-ton truck were stuck, unable to reach the former Lotte Skyhill Seongju Country Club golf course site. The trucks were loaded with what appeared to be equipment for a geological survey. Two kilometers up from the village center is the golf course where a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) missile defense system is being deployed. Hundreds of police officers were surrounding local residents, and frictions between residents and police were breaking out all around.

“In accordance with Article 20-1 of the Assembly and Demonstration Act, all demonstrators must disperse immediately.”

The announcement issued over and over from the police command vehicle. But the residents stayed put as the standoff continued for one hour.

The trucks finally drove off around 1:40 pm. Ten minutes later, the police also withdrew from the road in front of the village center. Around 200 Seongju and Gimcheon residents who had been in the road returned to the center.

At 2 pm, the residents held a demonstration against the THAAD deployment on the village center’s front yard. After leaving, the trucks reportedly parked near the center around the Won-Buddhist Daegak Temple.

Trucks were once again stopped on their way to the Seongju golf course by 30 or so residents around 8 am that day. Residents blocked the road, holding a banner reading “Peace will come when THAAD leaves.” At around 8:40 am, the trucks finally returned to the parking lot at the Seongju Police Station.

It was the first time equipment-bearing trucks had attempted to enter the golf course since it was decided on as a THAAD deployment site. Before that, the Ministry of National Defense had only brought barbed wire into the site via helicopter.

“The Ministry of National Defense must stop violating the law and send the equipment back. The police should not be intimidating residents engaged in justified resistance,” read a statement issued that day by the Seongju Committee Fighting for Withdrawal of the THAAD Deployment, the Gimcheon Citizen Countermeasures Committee Opposing the THAAD Deployment, the Emergency Countermeasures Committee to Product the Won-Buddhist Sacred Site in Seongju, the Daegu/North Gyeongsang Countermeasures Committee Opposing the THAAD Deployment, the tentatively titled Busan/Ulsan/Gyeongsang Countermeasures Committee Opposing the THAAD Development, and National Action to Stop the THAAD Deployment.

“We can’t understand why the THAAD deployment is being forced through like this without lawful administrative procedures, such as a strategic environmental impact assessment or resident consent,” said Kim Chung-hwan, co-chairperson of the Seongju Committee Fighting for Withdrawal of the THAAD Deployment.

“[Blue House National Security Office chief] Kim Kwan-jin and the Ministry of National Defense need to stop forcing the THAAD deployment right now. We will fight to the end to stop it, and the THAAD deployment must be abandoned before anything unfortunate happens,” Kim said.

By Kim Il-woo, Daegu correspondent

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