Last night I was able to talk via Skype to our GN board member Matt Hoey who is now in Gangjeong village on Jeju Island.
Matt put a couple of South Korean activists onto the call and they reported that villagers and supporters now have blocked all the construction entrances to the Navy base construction project.
The villagers have two basic demands:
1) Stop construction
2) Begin from scratch and do an entire new assesment of whether the base is actually needed or not. Included would be a proper environmental impact statement (EIS) which was never done in the first place.
The five opposition political parties in South Korea are now supporting these demands. Several of these political leaders have joined the blockades at the construction entrances and leading Catholic bishops in South Korea are regularly visiting the village and holding mass on the disputed rocky coastline.
Some mainstream newspapers in South Korea now seem to be searching for some "middle ground" which indicates the protests, and growing global support, are having an impact. You can see one such article here
On August 6 a large protest rally will be held on Jeju and people will fly to the island from around the mainland. I was asked last evening by one leading activist to request that peace groups around the world send short solidarity messages immediately that can be translated and shared with those at the rally.
So please take a moment and send a brief message to the struggling people on Jeju Island and let them know your organization stands with them.
You can send it to Matt Hoey hoey@spacetransparency.org and he will get them into the hands of protest leaders. It would be good to copy me with your statements as well.
You can follow the Save Jeju Island campaign here
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