Thursday, October 26, 2017

No Navy Base Solidarity!

On my first trip to Jeju Island (before the sacred Gureombi rocky coastline was sealed off, blasted and covered with concrete) one of the first things I saw was this metal cut-out of an Aegis destroyer which are built in my hometown of Bath.  It was then that my feelings of solidarity with Jeju were born - as I intellectually and emotionally recognized the 'deadly connections' between Bath and Gangjeong village on Jeju Island, South Korea




The latest US Navy destroyer to arrive on Jeju Island is reported below by Sung-Hee Choi:

On Oct. 22,  another US Aegis destroyer Mustin [built at a shipyard in Pascagoula, Mississippi] came to Jeju. It has recently joined ROK-US war exercise in the west sea water of Korean Peninsula and a part of MCSOF: Maritime Counter Special Operation Force. We had a press conference yesterday and have been busy to monitor and protest. And it has been 15th day as of  today that a man named Kim Kyung-bae, vice-chairman of the anti-2nd Jeju airport project, Seongsan, Jeju, carried out hunger strike against the project. Beside the matter of developmentalism, it would be very likely to be used as an air force base as well. 
Before it came to the base, it had joined the recent ROK-US Maritime war exercise (Oct. 16-22) in the west water of the Korean Peninsula, as a part of MCSOF. The media reported its terrible gun fires on the sea.

The 350 person crew of 9,200 ton guided missile destroyer came here with the reasons of so called 'munition-loading' and 'break' on surface. But as they openly said, what is left behind in the Island of Peace after their leaving is large amount of filth and trashes, as well as the soil of Jeju trampled by them.
We say,
_The Gangjeong Sea cries out! Go away, all warships!
_Close the Jeju navy base! It intensifies military tension!
_Stop all the militarization of Jeju, Island of Peace!
_Stop all the ROK-US and multinational war exercises!
_Jeju is not a garbage dump for foreign militaries!

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