[Jeju Update] [Translation]: Voices of Gangjeong: My Son, My Parents.

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* To see all the issues of the Jeju naval base, click HERE (138 on the date of June 24, 2010)
제주 해군 기지 이슈에 관한 모든 블로그는 여기를 클릭하세요 (2010년 6월 24일 날짜로 138개)
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* Kim Kyung-Duk, reporter of the Seogwipo Daily Newspaper has introduced some people who fight against the Jeju naval base plan including this site manager, for a while. The series of her article can be seen HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, and HERE. On June 15 and June 22, she interviewed and introduced two people. The first person is Ms. Koh Byung-Hyun (77), mother of the current Gangjeong mayor, Kang Dong-Kyun(54) and the second person is Ms. Koh Yong-Hee(21), the eldest daughter of Mr. Koh Young-Jin(51) and Ms. Kim Kyung-Ja(44) who have been in front of the struggles when faced with the navy and police who want to enforce the naval base plan. Below are the summary translations from the reporter’s interview with the two.
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“I always feel frightened for the possibility that he might be killed”_ Mother of Mr. Kang Dong-Kyun, Gangjeong Mayor

By Kim Kyung-Duk, Seogwipo Daily newspaper, June 15, 2010
한국어 기사는 위의 링크를 누르세요.

* Image source: Kim Kyung-Duk, Seogwipo Daily Newspaper

‘ I hope it is not my son [who is destined to suffer],’ Koh Byung- Hyun (77), mother of Mr. Kang Dong-Kyun, Gangjeong mayor, trembles whenever she looks at his son who has been often taken away by the police for his struggle against the naval base and quietly suffering by himself without anyone’s attention for the tremendous fines charged [by the prosecutors for the village’ struggles against the naval base plan].

She, having gotten the traffic accident nine years ago, cannot do the hard works since she got the damage in her brain and knee. Since she has lost her husband when she was 28 years old by traffic accident, she has made living by farming and selling the crops in the market for decades, raising her only son and four daughters by herself.

When her good-natured son became the mayor of the village in 2007, voted by the villagers, she scolded his son not to take charge of it because she worried about him. She felt great loss because her son had quit the government officer job in the Education Agency and Land-related public business company and has been only a good farmer since then.

* Image source: Bruce Gagnon blog( photo credit: Michael Lujan Bevacqua from Guam)
' Gangjeong Mayor, Kang Dong-Kyun'

Still, she joined the opposition movement against the naval base because she was afraid that somebody might kill his son. When the police have arrested her son, she cried appealing to the villagers to let him quit from the mayor position.

* Image source: Seogwipo Daily Newspaper (for the blog, see HERE)

However as she became to know that the navy and Island government was not hearing the villagers’ opinion at all, she became to criticize them, saying, “They don’t hear us and has rather divided the villagers with pro-and-con. Is it the ethical way that the nation is supposed to do?.”
She currently lives always worrying her son for the possibility of being getting worse in his health or being harmed by somebody, “ May my son who is sick for the diabetes always be healthy. I hope he is always beside me as he has been. It is enough for me.”
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"My Father Taken Away by the Police, My Mother Having Gotten with Bandages in Her Arm"
By Kim Kyung-Duk, Seogwipo Daily newspaper, June 15, 2010
한국어 기사는 위의 링크를 누르세요.

* Image source: Kim Kyung-Duk, Seogwipo Daily Newspaper

Koh Yong-Hee (21) secretly wiped out her tears when her father and mother who were the farmers all their lives became the ‘criminal’, looking at her father taken away by the police and mother having the bandages in her arm.

She is the eldest daughter of Mr. Koh Young-Jin (51) and Ms. Kim Kyung-Ja (44). Having spent the childhood and youth in Gangjeong, she is now the Jeju University student, with her major in sociology. She is the student reporter in the University newspaper.

Her affection in her hometown is tremendous. “ Our town was like the family living in one house. It was really a village with humanity-filled while everyone vowed to one’s elders.”
But as the naval base issue came in, she became to witness the villagers being in conflict one another. The villagers even go to the shops separately according to the shops’ position of pro and con on the naval base plan. She became to know the naval base plan was like the poison to the villagers.

* Image source: Kim Kyung-Duk, Seogwipo Daily Newspaper

She has the childhood memory of Gangjeong stream where she visited and played with her friends as soon as classes in the school ended. “ I am so sorry to think that my young brother, Minsung (6) may miss the joy that I have experienced if the naval base would come to my village.”

* Image source: Gangjeong villager(click HERE)

Yong-Hee is strong and brilliant girl. She has made the issue of the naval base plan in her articles in the University newspaper. Her family’s poor economy led her to dream the reporter job.

“ I want to change the world through my articles, from the viewpoint of poor people. One article will change one person and one person will change the world.”

She is the great defender of her parents going to demonstration. She knows her parents are innocent and hard working farmers who would go to their farms next day of their release from the police, even though they would get the damage by the police violence. She knows her parents are so rightly practicing the farmers’ natural rights. She is proud of her parents.

* Image source: No Base Stories of Korea