This should pretty much lay to rest any claims that the anti-US beef protests are not anti-American:
It appears that on June 13th, the sixth anniversary of the deaths of Shin Hyo-sun and Shim Mi-seon, killed after being struck by a US military armored personnel carrier, will become the main focus of the candlelight vigils which have been going on for over one month.
On the 12th the “Citizens’ Committee on Mad Cow Disease” announced that the 37th candlelight vigil to be held in front of Seoul City Hall on the 13th against the importation of US beef would incorporate a memorial ceremony for Hyo-sun and Mi-seon.
The sixth anniversary of Hyo-sun and Mi-seon’s deaths will easily excite anti-American sentiment among the citizenry, and the Committee will, on the 13th and 14th, intensify its calls for banning the import of US beef. [Korea Beat]
Read the rest over at Korea Beat but this just confirms my prior statements that the forces behind the US beef protests would next move to use their new found political power to go after USFK. I do have to say it is absolutely disgusting what these groups are doing once again demagouging and hijacking the memories of Shim Mi-son and Shin Hyo-sun for their own partisan political purposes. Then again these are the same people that would regularly hold up signs showing the dead girls bodies at their anti-US protests against the wishes of their families.
Once again these anti-US groups could care less about what the families of these two girls think and are ignoring their requests to not link the US beef issue to the memory of their daughters. These people have no shame, but considering their past actions it is not surprising.
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Required reading, and I never use that term lightly.
Y'all need to make some time and read GI Korea's post "GI Myths: The 2002 Armored Vehicle Accident." He recaps in great detail the events surrounding the deaths of two middle school girls six years ago, and the intense, intense outpouring of anti-Americanism across the entire nation. The article, in our own time of nationwide anti-beef protests and rampant yellow journalism, provides an important reminder of how hateful and how ugly our friends and neighbors can be at the slightest provocation, and is something to keep in mind the next time you hear about Korea's desire to embrace foreigners or its love affair with English. It's exactly why I don't feel at all comfortable around large numbers of angry Koreans, such as we find at the beef protests going on today. Then, after you've read GI Korea's report, go over and read the Metropolitician's take, as well as the vast compilation of material on USinKorea.org's page on the incident and on other anti-American orgies of hate, to appropriate his term.
One of many massive anti-American rallies, this one 50,000-strong.
When I brought up this incident and its aftermath in one of my teachers' workshops---as I was making the connection between Mad Bull Shit and total indifference toward terrible traffic safety---I got the familiar lines "the US never really apologized," "people were mourning the girls," and "the US was arrogant." They were completely ignorant, though, of the basic facts surrounding the actual accident and of the particulars of the aftermath of hate. "Some Koreans" participated, they said. Well, after kidnappings, stabbings, numerous assaults and innumerable cases of harassment, intimidation, and discrimination, is it too much for us to demand an apology? I'll tell you what, and yes I'm being completely serious, that's something we as a community ought to be fighting for.
While most of you who read this site are bloggers yourselves and will most likely have read GI Korea's page well before you got to mine, I'd encourage the rest of you---especially my new visitors in Jeollanam-do---to pass these reports along to friends, family, and coworkers, in order to put both these latest protests and ourselves as foreigners into some context here.
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So Beef Protest Not Anti-American
Today is the sixth anniversary of the tragic incident in which two Korean middle school students were struck and killed by a US Army vehicle while walking to a birthday party. The aftermath of that incident looked similar to what you see right now over US beef — massive protests and candlelight vigils, anti-American signs and sloganeering, calls for the president to be replaced (which he was, as Roh Moo-hyun was swept into office).
So organizers of the current round of candlelight vigils are going to incorporate this anniversary into their protests. I personally think that this should put to bed the idea that anti-Americanism is not an animating force for protestors whose real target is Lee Myung-bak — I mean, if that were so, why did people until beef was coming to start expressing their discontent with his governing style?
It appears that on June 13th, the sixth anniversary of the deaths of Shin Hyo-sun and Shim Mi-seon, killed after being struck by a US military armored personnel carrier, will become the main focus of the candlelight vigils which have been going on for over one month.
On the 12th the “Citizens’ Committee on Mad Cow Disease” (광우병 국민대책회의) announced that the 37th candlelight vigil to be held in front of Seoul City Hall on the 13th against the importation of US beef would incorporate a memorial ceremony for Hyo-sun and Mi-seon.
The sixth anniversary of Hyo-sun and Mi-seon’s deaths will easily excite anti-American sentiment among the citizenry, and the Committee will, on the 13th and 14th, intensify its calls for banning the import of US beef.
But with the candlelight vigils having started on May 2nd, over 40 days ago, and with their scope greatly increased because of the 21st anniversary of the June 10th democracy movement, citizens with “vigil fatigue” are not unlikely to start staying home.
Accordingly, some are calling for plans for the future, after the beef situation is resolved, to be drawn up depending on how many come to the candlelight vigils on the 13th, the day of the anniversary, and on the 14th, the day of the funeral for Mr. Lee Byeong-ryeol, who set himself on fire to call for the ouster of the current government.
If the same large number of people attend the vigils on the 13th and 14th as did last weekend, there is a strong probability that the vigils will extend past June and through July, the time of US President George Bush’s planned visit to Korea, but if fewer people come then the spirit of the protests will weaken and drain away.
If the government fails to begin renegotiations of the beef deal by next Friday, the 20th, the Committee says it will join directly with the movement for the ouster or resignation of the government.
The government has announced that it is seeking further negotiations with the US government and is considering limiting the size of protests for the reorganization of the President’s cabinet.
Update: The Chosun Ilbo reports that the father of Hyo-sun and the grandmother of Mi-seon are against the beef issue being connected to their families. Essentially they both say, “thanks for remembering, but please knock it off.”
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------South Korean Internet catches "mad cow madness"
SEOUL (Reuters) - Angry South Korean teenagers, Internet-savvy and armed with gadget-filled mobile phones, have helped turn a new conservative president's triumph into crisis and possibly changed the way the country does politics.
President Lee Myung-bak, hardly in office three months, has been caught badly off-guard by the fury swirling in the world's most wired country, which began with a flurry of gripes about importing "dangerous" U.S. beef and turned into a blizzard of complaints against his brief rule.
"Maybe, we have been experimenting with a new type of politics without even knowing it," said sociology professor Chun Sang-chin, of Sogang University.
"The Internet has appeared to many people as the only platform to achieve democracy," he said.
When Lee won the presidency in December, it was by the biggest margin in a democratic South Korean leadership election.
By the time the anger over beef had mushroomed into the biggest street protests the capital has seen in 20 years, the former construction company boss had became the most unpopular president at the start of their term that the country has seen. His approval rating now is barely scraping 20 percent.
Social and political commentators said allegations that an April deal to import more U.S. beef put society at risk of mad cow disease tore through the Internet and on SMS messages so fast that they became fact before the government or mainstream media had a chance to weigh in.
One early claim, which appeared to win wide credibility in one of the world's most educated societies, was that the homogeneous Korean race had a gene which made it particularly susceptible to the disease.
It was based on the paper of a South Korean scientist who later said his thesis was blown out of proportion.
DIAPER RISK
By the time his rebuttal was published in the largest daily, the debate on the Internet had shifted to new fears, such as how easily Korean babies might catch bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) from diapers made with material from U.S. cattle.
Students, already suspicious of Lee's planned education reforms, were sending each other messages warning of a secret deal to import the supposedly diseased U.S. beef for their school lunches.
"Mad cow madness" wrote one leading daily, the JoongAng Ilbo, of the fear-mongering. But a growing number of Koreans paid little heed.
"People are unhappy with the established media's coverage and have created their own," said Lee Jong-ho, a producer for OhmyTV, part of the OhmyNews and one of several Internet news sites publishing articles, opinion pieces and multimedia material from "citizen journalists".
As the technology has evolved, so has the nature of the Internet debate.
"The Internet has generated what can be called 'lifestyle politics'. These are soft, everyday issues that can quickly become major political topics," said Kang Won-taek, a political science professor at Soongsil University.
One of the most popular sounding boards for the debate over Lee Myung-bak's policies has been the Agora section of leading portal DAUM (http://agora.media.daum.net/ ).
Normally with up to around 40 million pages views a day, the number exploded during the height of this month's protests to more than 200 million a day across a wide range of age groups.
The use of the Internet has given a new impetus to South Korea's long tradition of mass rallies.
Now, the protesters discuss the best sort of video equipment to use -- preferably resistant to hard bumps and bursts from police water canons -- and quickly post video clips and photos while detailing their experiences on blogs.
Observers said the beef debate has seen the merger of online and offline politics.
Protesters shout slogans and also shoot pictures and videos on their top-end mobile phones that are quickly sent out on the Internet. They send SMS messages to friends to meet up at protests and warn them when the police are starting to arrest those who are acting up.
One of the more popular refrains from those on the Internet is how best to use newspapers.
"Bring a copy of one of the big dailies with you to the rally," one comment read. "You can sit on it to keep your pants clean."
(Additional reporting by Jack Kim and Park Ju-min; Editing by Jonathan Thatcher and Alex Richardson)
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