Koreans fight militarist destruction of beautiful island

This video is about the beautiful sea around Jeju island, South Korea.

From daily The Morning Star in Britain:

Islanders fight against Korea naval base

Thursday 08 March 2012

Activists engaged in a five-year battle to prevent the construction of a controversial South Korean-US naval base on Jeju Island continued their protests today even as blasting crews moved in.

The Jeju islanders, supported by international activists, are resisting plans to construct the base on the sacred Gureombi rocks in Gangjeong village on the island just a few hundred miles from mainland China.

The base is to become a port for US navy aircraft carriers and Aegis destroyers fitted with SM-3 missile interceptors as part of its global US missile defence programme.

Campaigners argue that the growth in the missile defence system risks heightening international tensions and risks precipitating a new global arms race.

Despite determined opposition and a poll which showed that 98 per cent of the islanders oppose the base, Samsung – the South Korean navy contractor – began blasting on Wednesday.

It moved in just hours after the local governor Woo Keun-min issued an emergency appeal to South Korea’s government to suspend construction.

Protesters entered the blasting site in an attempt to halt the detonation but were forcibly removed.

Yesterday the campaigners blockaded nearby roads in a bid to prevent construction equipment being brought to the site.

Among those who entered the blasting area was Angie Zelter, a British Trident Ploughshares member from Knighton in Powys.

She said: “Gangjeong villagers’ peaceful lives and the pristine nature of Jeju deserve to be protected from this aggressive act by the Korean navy and its US backers.

“Building the naval base does not advance the security of Jeju or South Korea – it just adds to military tension on and around the Korean peninsula. This affects us all.”

And Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament chairman Professor Dave Webb, who has just returned from Gangjeong, told the Star: “The government I think selected this area because they thought it was a small place and the resistance would not be strong.

“The activists who go there are shocked by the way the villagers have been treated. They have been ignored, beaten up, suppressed but they will not give in.

“They have an amazing spirit and sense of dedication.”

He said that the base was being sold as a joint civilian-military installation but that there was no question that it would be predominantly for military use.

Campaigners opposing the construction of a South Korean naval base on a world heritage site will stage a vigil outside the country’s embassy in London tomorrow: here.