SAY NO TO LOTTE

Campsite on overlook of Gyeyang mountain

Welcome to Lotte World. Lotte Group, a major South Korean corporation, has their hands in many things. Cookies, real estate, golf courses, electronics, hotels, baseball teams in Korea and Japan, heavy chemicals, financial services and more. In all the Lotte Corporation has 60 distinct business units.

You might recall my blog post ,while I was in Incheon during my recent trip, about meeting a local minister who sat in a tree house in the woods for 155 days in protest of the Lotte Corporation's plan to tear up the Gyeyang Mountain, the highest mountain around Incheon with many rare plants and animals. Lotte wants to build a world class golf course for the rich.

For several years the pertinent government agencies would not give Lotte Group permission to bulldoze the mountain. Then 2MB (also called the bulldozer) got elected president, recall that I said he is married into the Lotte family, and everything changed.

Today 55 organizations in Incheon are organizing to stop this destruction of one of the few remaining wilderness areas around the sprawling city. They have undertaken a rolling fast to help build opposition. People do a hunger strike for 24 hours and go into the mountain and sleep in a tent.

Before I left Incheon my host Sung-Hee Choi signed up to strike on October 29 and I agreed to join her in solidarity. Since they are one-day ahead of us in South Korea, her action is already done. I've just begun mine and will not eat until 9:00 am on Friday morning. Not a huge sacrifice but the folks there issued a news release yesterday proclaiming they now had international support and participation. I am glad to help a bit.

Everywhere in South Korea that I turned I saw signs of the Lotte Corporation. All big corporations seem to be imperialists these days. They want to take over the whole world, including the trees and the plants. The least I can do is to help say no.