Successful Resistance To Save Jeju Island From Destruction By Navy Base

Last week I blogged about private-public partnerships being touted by, among other 1%ers, a World Bank speaker at an international conservation conference on Jeju Island. Now comes an encouraging report that the determined activists from Gangjeong village have gotten their message directly to the delegates. Re-posted from my friend Bruce Gagnon's blog Organizing Notes:

Great News From Jeju

Paco writes from Jeju Island, South Korea:

Basically things are going super well! Our presence at the IUCN WCC grows every day. Today many villagers and activists were both inside and out, dancing, talking, handing out information, inviting to tours, singing, etc. Everyone knows about Gangjeong, what has happened to us, and what is happening. Today I didn't meet a single person who hadn't heard of it, and 95% of the people I met were totally in support us, loved our resolution, our actions, and our talks. We barely gave out any of our newsletters today because almost everyone already read it!

Inside the WCC there were several great Gangjeong related talks and a press conference as well as a short Gangjeong traditional folk performance and short talk by Mayor Kang in the 3,000 seat Tamna Hall. It wasn't full of course, but there was a good crowd. We also got our revenge about blocking our booth and just set one up ourselves inside the main hall. Muc
h better position than the regular booths and totally free! After so much bad press, the police at the WCC are very careful with us.

Meanwhile back in Gangjeong the police are not careful with us and attacked the gate protesters 5 times today. There weren't many people because many people were at the IUCN. This new shipment of police (they change every 2 weeks or so) is from Seoul and they are very rude, violent, and rough. They especially don't like cameras and hit several peoples cameras and also aggressively blocked people who were not doing anything except taking pictures.

Tomorrow is another huge day, mostly in the village. a lot of people are coming to join another eco-cide tour of land and sea of Gangjeong. Also the IUCN has arranged for 100 of their top people to come to the village from 2-4 pm and have a meeting with the villagers. Don't really know what its all about, perhaps just a good will visit, hopefully nothing worse/sinister, hopefully something more supportive. Who knows what the police will do but probably they will hide again since so many visitors are coming.

The navy and ministry of defense are very scared of all the support and attention we are getting and are issuing several sudden and silly statements as well as suddenly publishing a poorly made English/Korean booklet about the naval base, which they are giving out at the WCC. It offers zero evidence for their absurd claims and sometimes even accidentally supports us.

Well once again, I guess not so short. Everyone is feeling very great about the all the support we've gotten. Everyone is also very tired from non-stop work in both the village and the convention center. The resolution was handed in. Now we wait to see if it is accepted and will go to voting.

Thanks for all your support! Keep up your great solidarity actions and spreading the word, and prayer, and general awesomeness!

We can do! Let's totally revoke the naval base!

Check our web site at http://savejejunow.org/

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Thank God men cannot fly, and lay waste the sky as well as the earth.  ~Henry David Thoreau