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Veterans For Peace - 20 Years of Waging Peace
What have the farmers of Pyongtaek to do with me?

WHAT HAVE THE FARMERS OF PYONGTAEK TO DO WITH ME?

Wilson (Woody) Powell

Why should Americans care about a small group of farmers in South Korea who are losing their land? How are we connected?

Let me offer this:  When I heard the story of the villagers of Daechu-ri and Dodu-ri near Pyongtaek, how the expansion of nearby Camp Humphries was to force their eviction from lands they have farmed for decades, I thought, “That is too bad – do we really have to take over land raising rice and corn to park a few more soldiers on? Doesn’t sound fair.”

Then I found out the farmers were being evicted for the third time by military forces; once during the Japanese occupation early in the last century, then again during the war in the fifties, then now. Each time the farmers had  reclaimed less desirable land, made it productive and each time it had been taken from them for military use. Now there was no more land to reclaim, and these hardy farmers would have to give up farming altogether. Not only that, but the houses they had built for their families, the school they had built for their children were being torn down before their very eyes. This time I thought “This is more than “too bad”, this is monstrously unjust, unfair, and I want to know the reason and who is responsible.”

This is what our small delegation of five Veterans For Peace uncovered:

  1. The US military, with over 100 bases in South Korea, wants to consolidate some of them, including the headquarters of the 8th Army now on very expensive real estate in the middle of Seoul, the capital of Korea. The project is part of a plan to develop striker forces capable of quick response to security and stability threats around the globe.

  2. Because of the terms of our Status Of Forces Agreement (SOFA) with the South Korean government, the US has the political power to force issues such as the eviction of farmers to make way for a vastly expanded military base that will, unbelievably, sport a brand new golf course.

  3. The inherent inhumanity of this project is causing many Koreans to examine their relationship with the US resulting in a growing resentment against US troops in Korea.

  4. The highly dependent economic/military relationship existing between South Korea and the US has also made it possible to get the South Koreans to commit 3,000 ROK Army troops to the US war in Iraq.

  5. At the same time, there is a growing realization that deliberate fear-mongering and demonization of North Korea have fed the belief that a US military presence in South Korea is needed to deter an invasion from the North. A compliant mainstream media, obedient to the conservative industrialists dependent upon a favorable trade relationship with the US, has colluded in maintaining that belief.

  6. A coalition of South Korean progressives, including Korea Veterans For Peace,  is doing their best, through demonstrations, marches, rallies, and a burgeoning independent media, to inform the South Korean public and prevail upon their government to GET THE KOREAN TROOPS OUT OF IRAQ, GET THE US TROOPS OUT OF KOREA and press for REUNIFICATION WITH NORTH KOREA.

Again, why is this a problem for US citizens? For one thing, our tax money funds the building of these immense bases, these outposts of empire, around the world. South Korea is one of many hosts, including Japan, Saudi Arabia, Cuba, Honduras, Ecuador, Dubai, Kazakstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Bosnia, Germany, and, yes, Iraq, for sites of these hugely expensive, permanent military bases. There is a total of 725 bases around the world that the Pentagon will admit to – not including four in Iraq.  

To support these bases the US government must have enemies to defend against. Thus, this administration refuses to sign non aggression pacts with countries like North Korea and Iran, avoids even one-on-one talks with their representatives and subjects them to economic sanctions. Then, thoroughly isolated and frightened, when they rattle the nuclear saber to deter an invasion by the US, we call them rogue states and threaten to bomb them.   

This would seem to be a guaranteed method of keeping military expenditures ratcheted up for a long time to come – good news for empire builders and military suppliers, I suppose, but bad news, once again for the US taxpayer supporting the largest military budget in the world by a factor of ten at least. 

The plight of the South Korea farmers enduring a violent eviction is, I see now, symptomatic of the disease of Empire and emblematic of the fate of simple people of the land throughout the world who stand in the way of Empire.