Video Fwd: Corals and Dolphins in the Gangjeong Sea_No Naval Base in the Jeju Island!

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* Sherrin Hibbard currently living in Jeju Island thankfully pointed out that my expression of ‘Coral reefs'’ was wrong. She rightly pointed out that it should be not ‘coral reefs’ but ‘coral’. I fix my mistakes here. I apologize for the mistake. And thanks very much, Sherrin, for letting me know on it. _______________________________________________________________________________________

* Cartoonist Koh who lives in Gangjeong village sent the two videos on the living creatures in the Gangjeong Sea on March 18. According to Koh, filmmaker,Yang Dong-Kyu recorded the two videos, last summer, in 2009. The first one is the soft corals and creatures living under the Gangjeong sea where the Jeju naval base is planned to be set up. The second one is the record of hundreds dolphins who appear in the Gangjeong Sea, where the dolphins visit every summer, from June to September. Please watch the two!

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Thanks, Bruce Gagnon, please see HERE.

브루스 개그논, 감사합니다. 여기를 보시길.

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1. Beautiful Gangjeong Sea as It Is: No Jeju Naval Base! (Youtube URL)

2. Gangjeong Sea is also for One of the Dolphins’ Ecosystem Sites: No Naval Base in the Jeju Island!(Youtube URL)

Koh says hundreds of dolphins annually circulate from Alaska through North Pacific Ocean and visit the Jeju Island sea which is the only area the dolphins visit in the Korean ocean.

He says the dolphins visit the Gangjeong Sea every year without fail. It is his concern that if the naval base would be set up, in the Joongduk coast, the dolphins would lose one of their ecosystem sites, along with the destruction of corals and creatures living under the sea.

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The Jeju naval base issue has been brought out in 2002. The South Korean navy, being ambitious to extend its maritime power into the world, especially in the Southern sea, has announced to build the naval base in the Jeju Island and has repeatedly announced that it would build the base by 2014, despite the fact that the Jeju Island was designated as Island of Peace by former Roh Moo-Hyun government during its term from 2002 to 2007.

However, after five years' fierce struggles by the villagers in Hwasoon, the first candidate area and the struggles in Weemee, the 2^nd candidate village, the navy has currently attempted to build up the base in the Gangjeong village, located at the southern Seogwipo area of the Jeju Island, despite the villagers’ three year death struggle there, with the unjust measures of government power.

The South Korean activists, and many international activists, for example Bruce Gagnon, have said there was the US domination strategy behind the Jeju naval base plan, through surrounding China by controlling her oil passage in the southern sea, with missile defense system that would contribute to the completion of the US missile defense system in the North East Asia. And Prof. Michel Chossudovsky has said the planned Jeju naval base is to militarize the maritime border against China.

Renowned Korean novelist, Hyun Ki-Young has said that the Gangjeong has been designated as one of the most excellent ecology villages and the most beautiful village in the Jeju Island as its nickname, ‘IlGangjeong (means ‘Gangjeong, the best’). The Gangjeong sea has also been designated as the absolute preservation area by the South Korea and Island government and the as the environment preservation area by the UNESCO in 2006.

2010 is biodiversity year and the Jeju Island government would host the World Conservation Congress, sponsored by the IUCN in Jeju, in 2012. How contradictory it is to build the naval base then?

We, the Gangjeong villagers, all peace loving citizens in Korea and world, oppose against the planned Jeju naval base that would be utilized as one of the outposts of the United States for her domination strategy for the seizure of energy in the South East Asia, Middle East, Afghanistan, Central Asia and Africa.

The devoted Gangjeong mayor, Kang Dong-Kyun has said he dreams of the village for peace and life that could be inherited to the descendents and of the time when all the countries in the world discuss peace in the true Island of Peace, the Jeju Island.

We truly share same dream with him.

For more info. on the struggle against the Jeju naval base, please see HERE.