Spring Love Solidarity Message from Korea

Dear peace loving citizens in Japan, who join the“Spring Love Harukaze”:

Thanks to one of American friends, who is living in Japan and works for this fabulous event, I became to know the beautiful event, “Spring Love Harukaze.”

As one of the Koreans who love the peace in the world and oppose against any military build-up and its expansion, I want to express my congratulation to all the event organizers and participants from the bottom of my heart.

Thanks to many dedicated friends in Japan, I am hearing wonderful protest news in Japan, which is truly inspiring and hopeful for the young people in Okinawa, Japan, Korea and the world. What a beautiful and energetic rising-up! You are showing to the world, how we can connect one another despite different languages and places, for the will of peace and joy.

As South Korea has become one of the outposts of the United States military strategy, Koreans’ best rice paddies of Pyeongteak, have been robbed for the building the United States military’s North East Asia hub. Have you heard the blood-tear struggles of the Pyeongteak farmers who cannot bury their memories of their own beautiful hometown?

Have you heard of the Ohyun-ri farmers who have made their tomb memorials made of their own handwritings on the wood panels to express their will to keep their hometown by fighting to the end against the expansion of the Mugeon-ri military training fields near the DMZ, that is used for US-SK joint war exercise, for which the US soldiers in Okinawa, Hawaii, Guam and even the mainland US come?

Have you heard of the stories of Gangjeong villagers in Jeju Island, who have death-struggled for near three years against the South Korean government plan to set up the naval base to keep their 400 year-old history natural home-town, their cleanest and most abundant water in the Jeju Island, their tangerine farming, and the voiceless corals creatures who live in the sea, which was designated as the bio-protection area by the UNESCO? (Similar issue in Vicenza, Italy, a World-heritage site, part of UNESCO sites, I hear)

I was told that when the concerned U. S. citizens in the world called to the South Korean embassy, in Washington DC to protest against the South Korean government’s oppression on the Gangjeong villagers and to oppose her Jeju naval base construction plan, two staffs in the embassy told the callers, “ Call your government. The US navy is the one that wants the naval base in the Jeju Island!”

As concerned friends in the world say, the South Korea, along with Okinawa, Japan, Taiwan have recently been accelerated by the military build-up- so called Missile Defense system-and relocation plans, for the benefit of the US domination strategy in the North East Asia region to control China’s oil passage and South Asia sea lanes. And people in Guam, like the people in Okinawa, who have suffered for long time, under the US military footprints are rising up against the Guam military build-up, hands in hands with the concerned Okinawa people and Japanese friends, I hear.

Whenever I hear the protest news of Okinawa, including those of Henoko, Uruma, Takae, and the protest news of Kyusu, including Oita and Gurume city, thanks to my Japanese friends, I am really encouraged even though I sigh to think how most governments in the world have been subjugated to the corporate domination, at the sacrifice of the grassroots who have been the true roots of any nations.

We, Koreans dearly support your righteous and beautiful struggles in Okinawa, Japan and the world! Please make live dear dugongs and corals, in the sea of Okinawa! Thanks very much for your courage and love of life.

Sung-Hee Choi
Incheon, Korea
No Base Stories of Korea
http://www.nobasestorieskorea.blogspot.com/