[Jeju Update][May 5] Yang Yoon-Mo meets his 31th day prison fast as of May 6/ On Children’s Day, life and peace are confined in jail

___________________________
See also
Organizing Notes
THURSDAY, MAY 05, 2011
WHAT DO THESE SHIPS DO?
_____________________________
See more photos on May 5 in the below links of the text . Some photos included here also come from the links.
______________________________
Yang Yoon-Mo, Movie critic meets his 31th day prison fast as of May 6, 2011. Even though many people have urged him to stop fast visiting and appealing to him with tears, he is determined to continue fast at the risk of death, until the naval base construction is stopped and all the Seogwipo Police Station policemen who violently arrested him on April 6 is punished. He recently told people that he wanted to write a testament on the day of his 40th day. He has been getting the daily hospital cure arranged by the Jeju prison since May 22 when he fell down because of his fast since the day of his arrest. It seems his determination is getting clearer and higher to many people.

Yang Yoon-Mo, in his 29th day prison fast on May 4, 2011

His first trial was on May 4 that was finished in very short time because the director of a sub-contract company who had accused him for violence charge with exaggeration and lies drooped out his charges. The next trial on him would be on May 13.

When visited by some people on May 29 after the trial, he urged and encouraged people to be stronger until the naval base construction is stopped. His will against naval base construction has moved many people in Korea and helped more and more people visiting the Gangjeong village and supporting people’s struggle against naval base construction.

Go Gwon-Il, chairman of the Gangjeong villagers’ committee against naval base construction wrote a column upon Yang's 30th day fast on May 5 which was also a holiday of Children’s Day in Korea. In his column titled as “Who is a murderer,” he urges to all the Korean people to hear the words of Yang, a martyr “who is willing to die to make live of all the lives living in the sea and land” and one’s own consciousness. The below is the translation of some parts of Go’s writing:

'Yang Yoon-Mo’s claim is very simple: Stop of naval base construction.
He claims because the currently ongoing naval base construction is interspersed with all kinds of the illegal, law-evasive, and law-expedient, it should be stopped and that he would stop fast if the construction is stopped as his claim.

Even though the National Assembly truth investigation committee composed of the headquarters of the five opposition parties on May 4 and there was a press interview to demand the naval base construction, with the name of 21 national assembly men, the navy and construction companies are unmoved.

[..]

It is clearly a systematic murder to neglect to leave alone Yang Yoon-Mo to death. And the Woo Keun-Min, Island governor who neglects [Yang’s fast] even with his right to cancel the construction with his direct authority power should be responsible. And the navy is responsible as well.

We who only watch [his fast] would not be free from the charge of aiding and abetting murder. At least he fired a gun of consciousness to us. As long as our chests are bled, we are all criminal.’

On Children’s Day, some parents brought their children to the struggle site in the Gangjeong village.


And the navy has celebrated the day with its own event, a Jeju article reports. It is vicious and absurd that navy drives the naval base construction while promoting the Jeju to be one of the seven wonders in the world.


* Image source: http://www.sisajeju.com/news/articleView.html?idxno=116675

Because of the navy’s forceful construction that has never been in agreement with the villagers who have been suffering and infuriated by the government’s state power, the Gangjeong Sea-the planned naval base area where the UNESCO protected soft corals are living under is dyeing by the 10,000 concrete structures that have been being made, being dropped into and would be dropped into it.

Even on Children’s Day, construction on those structures have been accelerated. Some people here are determined to be jailed and to do fast along with Yang Yoon-Mo in coming days. Yang Yoon-Mo is awakening all Koreans’ consciousness. The government and navy cannot stop our will. The Jeju Island is the World Peace Island and there should be no naval base that would destroy the creatures in the very UNESCO triple-crowned Island and threaten the peace in the North East Asia.


The navy built the fence blocking the Olle trail to the Joongduk coast, the planned naval base area, early in the morning of May 5 and people prevented it.
Tetra pods being built(May 5, 2011)

Bruce Gagnon, coordinator and co-founder of the Global Network against Weapons and Nuclear power in Space(http://www.space4peace.org/) is planning to a protest along with his collegues against the christening of another Aegis Destroyer, in front of the Bath Iron Works, Maine, United States. The Aegis Destroyers of the United States and South Korea will be moored in the pristine Gangjeong Sea along with the submarines, much possibly including the nuclear submarines and aircrafts.

You may help us by demanding the stop of naval base construction and the prompt release of Yang Yoon-Mo by calling here:

South Korean embassy in Washington DC
202-939-5600
UN human rights embassy
212 439 4000 (ask for 1st Secretary Cho at extension 229. She is the Human Rights desk officer. For more, click HERE)
_____________________________________
Scenes of the Gangjeong village on May 5, 2011

http://cafe.daum.net/peacekj/49kU/275
Photos of protests for Yang Yoon-Mo for a month and of May 5 (Children’s Day)

http://cafe.daum.net/peacekj/49kU/276
Scenes of May 5, 2011

http://cafe.daum.net/peacekj/5ort/163
Recent photos of Movie critic Yang Yoon-Mo (by Boreum Doragi)
______________________________________

A poem by a child in the Gangjeong village(2007). The poem encourages her father who is struggling against the naval base construction.
A copy of a poem that has been put in Yang's tent. The title is "Sisterhood." It is a poem of love between the Joongduk Sea, the reclamation-planned naval base area, and a man who wants to save the Sea. The writer is a woman who calls the man as her brother-in-law and the sea, as her sister.