South Korean Mayor in London to Protest U.S. Naval Base

This was written on October 23, 2013, a day after the mayor visited London. The assignment was to produce a story based on an interview.  I interviewed the mayor through his translator. 

By Phoebe Yu

The mayor of Gangjeong Village in South Korea hopes to rally support in London against the building of a US naval base.

Mayor Kang Dong-Kyun is protesting the construction of a naval base in his village on Jeju Island, a volcanic island off the South Korean mainland in the southwest.  The island is a popular tourist destination with three of its volcanic sites declared as World Heritage Sites by UNESCO.

Construction for the naval base is well under way and will be completed by 2015, if things go as planned.  It will be able to hold up to 20 warships and two 150,000-ton cruise ships. 

Even if the base is almost 50 percent done, Kang says he will continue the fight against its construction.  Kang is against the adverse effects it will have on the environment and is concerned about the increasing militarization of the Korean peninsula.

“War destroys the environment and our livelihood,” he says. 

The South Korean government says that the base would help national security and would revitalize the small fishing and farming village. 

Kang contends that building a military base would not act as a deterrent from attacks, but would actually provoke it, and subsequently destroy nature and the people’s way of life.

“If they say it’s for national security against North Korea, why is it Jeju Island? So they should go to somewhere near North Korea to build it,” suggests Kang.  Therefore, he says that the base is meant for attack, not defense.

Kang suggests that both Koreas are caught up in power plays between superpowers US, Russia and China.

“We are still being used by their powers,” says Kang, referring to the North-South relations.  “If anything happens more in the future, smaller countries and places will be compromised.”

The US currently has military bases encircling the Pacific.  According to Global Research, a Canadian think tank, the base in Jeju will be a key port in the Asia-Pacific, as part of the US strategic ‘pivot’ into the region to contain China. 

Kang would like to farm his land freely, preserve it and pass it onto his descendants.  But he says he wouldn’t be able to do that if war breaks out.

Even if the decision to build a military base in Gangjeong had come from the South Korean government and not from the US, Kang says he would still oppose it because governments should be able to reutilize existing bases and increase technological capabilities there instead of building new ones.

Kang was detained for three months in 2011 for illegal assembly and obstruction of government business.  Before arriving in London, he visited Dublin and other parts of England and is set to go to Paris next.