Video and article Fwd: Message from Gaza

A Scene Of Devastation: Video Report From Inside Gaza
Al Jazeera's Ayman Mohyeldin reports on the public who are struggling to cope under the bombardment in Gaza. Posted January 12, 2009

Gaza is Sinking in a River of Blood:A Message from a Gazan to the World
By Mohammed Fares Al Majdalawi, January 12, 2009 "Commondreams"

"I invite you to come to Gaza and see the Holocaust. Because despite the siege, the barriers, the killing of my people and homes, and the total destruction of our lives by the Israeli occupation, they can not and will not kill the will of our people for equality and justice."

Read whole

Video & Article Fwd: More on world protests against massacre on Gaza

1. Jews protest against Israel and Zionism.



Souce from Sabbah blog


2. Ten of Thousands in Istanbul protest against Israel(Istanbul)




3. Palestinians in Damascus protest against Israeli strikes on Gaza(Damascus)





Worldwide protests in solidarity with the Palestinian people: Jan. 1-5, 2009 (From International Action Center Website)

The following is a summary of actions in solidarity with the Palestinian people of Gaza, concentrating on those that took place between Jan. 1 and Jan. 4, 2009. By Jan. 4 this included some emergency protests of the Israeli invasion of the Gaza strip.

: Africa and Asia, Oceania, Latin America, Europe, North America

Read whole:

VideoFWd: "Stop Killing" from Tel Aviv, London, Washington DC, New York

1. Israeli soldiers refuse to serve in Gaza(Tel Aviv)

Video information:
Non Violence, Czech Republic Website(11.1.2009)
VIDEO: Israeli soldiers refuse to serve in Gaza



2. Thousands of Israelis protest against the war in Gaza(Tel Aviv)





3. Denouncement of attack on Palestine(London)





4. Bill Moyers Journal Covers March of the Dead and Peace Protesters Arrested on Capitol Hill (Washington DC)





Related blog:
Space4Peace(Organizaing Notes), CONGRESS GETS THE BALL NOW (Jan. 08, 09)
Space4Peace(Organizaing Notes), REPORTS ON DC PROTEST(Jan. 11, 09)


5. GazaGazaDontuCry(City of New York)




Related web
Many Thousands March for Gaza -- as Invasion Begins:Largest protest in support of Palestinians ever in NYC

Video FW: More children among Gaza dead

More children among Gaza dead


Al Jazeera Video Report From Gaza - Broadcast January 06, 2009

'Palestinian children are increasingly among the dead as the Gaza death toll continues to rise.

One man has lost his entire family - including children, wife, parents and cousins - after a single attack.

Mohammed Vall reports.' (Souce: Information Clearing House)


* Related blog *

_Sabbah blog( a Palestinian activist)
_Palestinian Mothers
_Bruce Gagnon' blog(Organizing Notes)

Videos Fwd: Two heroes in the Middle East

I wanted to share these videos. Thanks very much for those who let us know the videos.

1. Israel Soldier-Palestine Girl

"A Korean television broadcast this amazing video of a Palestinian girl confronting some terrorist of the Jewish State.

Huwaida Arraf, a Detroiter married to Adam Shapiro, a University of Michigan Poli Sci graduate, and a founder of International Solidarity Movement, a non-violent activist organization confronting Israeli terrorists. They are trying to fire at demonstrating Palestinian children and youth:" (source from Sabbah blog)

The video was informed in the Sabbah blog, Bruce Gagnon's blog and also forwarded by Wilbert van der Zeijden to No US Bases, and Agatha Haun

2. President George Bush Shoe Toss Thrown by Iraq Journalist Lolz





The video was informed in Oversmilers' blog, a young Korean woman activist in the Center for Peace and Disarmament, People's Solidarity for Participatory Democracy(PSPD)

Fwd: Ex-Prostitutes Say South Korea and U.S. Enabled Sex Trade Near Bases

*Image credit/ source and caption*

Jean Chung for the International Herald Tribune, in the article below.
(1)'Bae at 29. Now 80, she lives on welfare and uses an oxygen machine.'
(2)'Bae worked as a prostitute near an American military base in South Korea, an activity that American and Korean authorities permitted, some Koreans say.'

Fwd from the New York Times article
January 8, 2009
Ex-Prostitutes Say South Korea and U.S. Enabled Sex Trade Near Bases

By CHOE SANG-HUN

SEOUL, South Korea — South Korea has railed for years against the Japanese government’s waffling over how much responsibility it bears for one of the ugliest chapters in its wartime history: the enslavement of women from Korea and elsewhere to work in brothels serving Japan’s imperial army.

Now, a group of former prostitutes in South Korea have accused some of their country’s former leaders of a different kind of abuse: encouraging them to have sex with the American soldiers who protected South Korea from North Korea. They also accuse past South Korean governments, and the United States military, of taking a direct hand in the sex trade from the 1960s through the 1980s, working together to build a testing and treatment system to ensure that prostitutes were disease-free for American troops.

While the women have made no claims that they were coerced into prostitution by South Korean or American officials during those years, they accuse successive Korean governments of hypocrisy in calling for reparations from Japan while refusing to take a hard look at South Korea’s own history.

“Our government was one big pimp for the U.S. military,” one of the women, Kim Ae-ran, 58, said in a recent interview.

Scholars on the issue say that the South Korean government was motivated in part by fears that the American military would leave, and that it wanted to do whatever it could to prevent that.

But the women suggest that the government also viewed them as commodities to be used to shore up the country’s struggling economy in the decades after the Korean War. They say the government not only sponsored classes for them in basic English and etiquette — meant to help them sell themselves more effectively — but also sent bureaucrats to praise them for earning dollars when South Korea was desperate for foreign currency.

“They urged us to sell as much as possible to the G.I.’s, praising us as ‘dollar-earning patriots,’ ” Ms. Kim said.

The United States military, the scholars say, became involved in attempts to regulate the trade in so-called camp towns surrounding the bases because of worries about sexually transmitted diseases.

In one of the most incendiary claims, some women say that the American military police and South Korean officials regularly raided clubs from the 1960s through the 1980s looking for women who were thought to be spreading the diseases. They picked out the women using the number tags the women say the brothels forced them to wear so the soldiers could more easily identify their sex partners.

The Korean police would then detain the prostitutes who were thought to be ill, the women said, locking them up under guard in so-called monkey houses, where the windows had bars. There, the prostitutes were forced to take medications until they were well.

The women, who are seeking compensation and an apology, have compared themselves to the so-called comfort women who have won widespread public sympathy for being forced into prostitution by the Japanese during World War II. Whether prostitutes by choice, need or coercion, the women say, they were all victims of government policies.

“If the question is, was there active government complicity, support of such camp town prostitution, yes, by both the Korean governments and the U.S. military,” said Katharine H. S. Moon, a scholar who wrote about the women in her 1997 book, “Sex Among Allies.”

The South Korean Ministry of Gender Equality, which handles women’s issues, declined to comment on the former prostitutes’ accusations. So did the American military command in Seoul, which responded with a general statement saying that the military “does not condone or support the illegal activities of human trafficking and prostitution.”

The New York Times interviewed eight women who worked in brothels near American bases, and it reviewed South Korean and American documents. The documents do provide some support for many of the women’s claims, though most are snapshots in time. The women maintain that the practices occurred over decades.

In some sense, the women’s allegations are not surprising. It has been clear for decades that South Korea and the United States military tolerated prostitution near bases, even though selling sex is illegal in South Korea. Bars and brothels have long lined the streets of the neighborhoods surrounding American bases in South Korea, as is the case in the areas around military bases around the world.

But the women say few of their fellow citizens know how deeply their government was involved in the trade in the camp towns.

The women received some support for their claims in 2006, from a former government official. In a television interview, the official, Kim Kee-joe, who was identified as having been a high-level liaison to the United States military, said, “Although we did not actively urge them to engage in prostitution, we, especially those from the county offices, did often tell them that it was not something bad for the country either.”

Transcripts of parliamentary hearings also suggest that at least some South Korean leaders viewed prostitution as something of a necessity. In one exchange in 1960, two lawmakers urged the government to train a supply of prostitutes to meet what one called the “natural needs” of allied soldiers and prevent them from spending their dollars in Japan instead of South Korea. The deputy home minister at the time, Lee Sung-woo, replied that the government had made some improvements in the “supply of prostitutes” and the “recreational system” for American troops.

Both Mr. Kim and Ms. Moon back the women’s assertions that the control of venereal disease was a driving factor for the two governments. They say the governments’ coordination became especially pronounced as Korean fears about an American pullout increased after President Richard M. Nixon announced plans in 1969 to reduce the number of American troops in South Korea.

“The idea was to create an environment where the guests were treated well in the camp towns to discourage them from leaving,” Mr. Kim said in the television interview.

Ms. Moon, a Wellesley College professor, said that the minutes of meetings between American military officials and Korean bureaucrats in the 1970s showed the lengths the two countries went to prevent epidemics. The minutes included recommendations to “isolate” women who were sick and ensure that they received treatment, government efforts to register prostitutes and require them to carry medical certification and a 1976 report about joint raids to apprehend prostitutes who were unregistered or failed to attend medical checkups.

These days, camp towns still exist, but as the Korean economy took off, women from the Philippines began replacing them.

Many former prostitutes live in the camp towns, isolated from mainstream society, which shuns them. Most are poor. Some are haunted by the memories of the mixed-race children they put up for adoption overseas.

Jeon, 71, who agreed to talk only if she was identified by just her surname, said she was an 18-year-old war orphan in 1956 when hunger drove her to Dongduchon, a camp town near the border with North Korea. She had a son in the 1960s, but she became convinced that he would have a better future in the United States and gave him up for adoption when he was 13.

About 10 years ago, her son, now an American soldier, returned to visit. She told him to forget her.

“I failed as a mother,” said Ms. Jeon, who lives on welfare checks and the little cash she earns selling items she picks from other people’s trash. “I have no right to depend on him now.”

“The more I think about my life, the more I think women like me were the biggest sacrifice for my country’s alliance with the Americans,” she said. “Looking back, I think my body was not mine, but the government’s and the U.S. military’s.”

* The article was also appeared in the Korea Report blog.

*For more reference regarding the crimes of the USFK*

• Check the website of the National Campaign for Eradication of Crimes by U.S. Troops in Korea(Check English in the top right)

Koreans Cry for Palestine

*Image credit/source and caption*

(1) Photo by Lee Jong-geun/The Hankyoreh, Hankyoreh article, Jan.6, 2009
(2) 'Yonhap News’ photo from Nanum Munwha(meaning Sharing Culture) website
(3) Nanum Munwha website
(4) Poster for the Jan.6 Candle light vigil from the Korean Migrant Workers Human Rights Center website
(5) Save Palestine petition from Nanum Munwha website
(6) ‘No Starbucks’ from Save Nature(Green Monkey Blog)


A Follow-Up from the former blog.

Following the Dec. 30 and Jan. 5 protest in front of the Israeli embassy, about 300 citizens and activists from about 20 organizations had again the candle light vigil, solidarity with the Palestine on Jan. 6, 2009. The organizations included All Together, Center for Peace and Disarmament of the People’s Solidarity for Participatory Democracy(PSPD), Civil Solidarity for Human Rights Practice(?), Democratic Labor Party, Friends of Asia, Frontiers, Imagination for International Solidarity(You can see the joint English statement on Dec. 30, 2008, here), International Solidarity for Democracy(?), Intifada Korea, Jinbo Korea, Lawyers for a Democratic Society, Migrant Trade Union, Nanum Munhwa, New Jinbo Party, Palestine Peace Solidarity, Peace Network, Power of Working Class, People’s Solidarity for Social Progress, Korean Confederation of Trade Unions, Korean Federation of Medical Groups for Health Rights, and the Socialist Party.



* Protest in the NY


* ONE MUST SEE THESE TWO(International Fwd)

_Sabbah blog(a Palestein activist blog)

_ Cluster bombs, DU, and White Phosphorus being used by Israel in Gaza
( Fwd from Stop Okupacji, Agatha Haun and No US Bases)

Postcards from Ohyun-ri

Last fall, the Pan-Korean Committee against the Expansion of the Mugun-ri Military Training Fields(tentative title, website in construction, Chair by Kim, Jong-Il, contact: peace_oh@hanmail.net) near the Korean Demilitarized Zone produced the package of the 10 postcards as a part of the raising funds for the struggle which had started on August, 2008. The beautiful photos were taken by the Hyunjang Sazin Yeonkuso(Meaning the field photo research center, Head by Lee, Yong-Nam) who has lead the photo activism long time, especially near the U.S. bases of City of Paju, vicinity of the DMZ of Korea.

I selected five postcards among them, scanned and added the English title of the websites of the two organizations in the bottom of the each scanned image of a postcard and then, collected in an image(Seemed a little stupid later).

I wanted to share the bits of these beautiful postcards with people before I load the summary on the current struggles by people in Ohyun-ri, who live nearby Mugun-ri and are threatened of eviction from their hometown by the SK government’s decision of the expansion of the Mugun-ri military training fields. It would not have happened without the U.S. military strategy change in the Korean peninsula.

The photos taken by the photo activists in the Hyunjang Sazin Yeonkuso reflect the growing tension of struggle behind the beautiful sceneries of a small cattle-raising and farming village of roughly 100 household, 400 people. Koreans concern about that Daechuri, Pyeongtaek where the people there were evicted in April, 2007, for the triple enlargement of Camp Humphreys, a planned north east military hub of the U.S.A. may be the future of the Ohyun-ri.

But like the people in Daechu-ri, the people desperately want to live in their hometown which is often disturbed by the military training fields nearby and losing its clean nature due to the soldiers’ military trainings. But it is their most beloved hometown inherited from their respected and loved ancestors. If one visits Ohyun-ri, one would see the endless wave of the banners starting even before the gate of the village as in the leftist postcard. The yellow banner in the photo says, “We Want to Live in Our Hometown, Stop the Madness [of the Expansion Plan]!” The struggle has been going fierce. The people in Ohyun-ri have even made their mock tombstones in the wood panels, reflecting their will to fight to the end.

And now the Pan-Korean Committee against the Expansion of the Mugun-ri Military Training Fields is being enlarged by the increasingly participating civil organizations' solidarity with the people in Ohyun-ri.

I would love to share the stories with you. And urge your concern for the future solidarity with the people in Ohyun-ri. Please check this blog from time to time .

FW: More than 100,000 massacred by allies during Korean War

More than 100,000 South Korean civilians were massacred by allied troops fighting alongside Britain and the US in the Korean War, an official investigation has revealed.

By Richard Spencer in Seoul
Last Updated: 6:26PM GMT 29 Dec 2008
The Daily Telegraph, 29 Dec 2008

Korean War civilian massacres, Daejeon Massacre, Busan Massacre, Namyang Ju Massacre
Truth and Reconciliation Commission

Authorities in the country have discovered mass burial sites containing thousands of bodies, including scores of children.

Trawls of records including declassified files in Washington have uncovered evidence of the massacres of at least 100,000 people suspected of having sympathy with the North Koreans.

In some cases, American forces are alleged to have been present and in at least one case an American officer authorised a massacre of prisoners believed to have left-wing sympathies.

The Korean War, in which South Korean, American, British and other allied forces fought the North and their Chinese allies to a standstill, was particularly bloody.

It was always known that atrocities were committed by both sides as the battlefront swayed back and forth from the deep south to near the Chinese border.

But under the South's military dictatorship, the crimes of its own forces were rarely discussed. The new findings suggest there was a pattern of disposing of those suspected of left-wing sympathies as the North Koreans advanced, and then again of those who were accused of collaborating as they retreated.

The investigation, run by a national Truth and Reconciliation Commission, has become deeply controversial, with some fearing it is intended to discredit the right and pro-American attitudes in South Korean politics.

(FW by Bruce Gagnon, Coordinator of the Global Network against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space and Dr. Steven Kim, Head of International Cooperation Team, Truth and Reconciliation Commission)

Read more.


* Image source/credit and caption*

_Top: More than 100,000 massacred by allies during Korean War, the The Daily Telegraph, 29 Dec 2008 'Children run past statues of 1950-53 Korean War soldiers at a war museum in Seoul Photo: REUTERS'

_ Middle: Children 'Executed' in 1950 South Korean Killings, Korea Report, Dec. 8, 2008
_Bottom: Children 'executed' in 1950 South Korean killings, Dec. 7, 2008
'AP – This file photograph by the U.S. Army taken in July 1950 and provided by the U.S. National Archives in … '


* Related Organization*

South Korean Truth and Reconciliation Commission


* Related English articles *

439 civilians confirmed dead in Yeosu-Suncheon Uprising of 1948
New report by the Truth Commission places blame on Syngman Rhee and the Defense Ministry, advises government apology
Posted on : Jan.8,2009 12:33 KST, Hankyeoreh

Children 'Executed' in 1950 South Korean Killings
December 8, 2008 (FW by Bruce Gagnon)
By CHARLES J. HANLEY and JAE-SOON CHANG, Associated Press Writers Charles J. Hanley And Jae-soon Chang, Associated Press Writers – Dec 7, 2008

* note: The article was also loaded in the Korea Report blog, Dec. 8, 2008

The South Korean Massacre at Taejon: New Evidence on US Responsibility and Coverup, Korea Report, Sept. 3, 2008

South Korea Says U.S. Killed Hundreds of Civilians, New York Times. By CHOE SANG-HUN, Aug. 3, 2008

The South Korean Massacre at Taejon: New Evidence on US Responsibility and Coverup by Bruce Cumings, Japan Focus. Posted July 23, 2008.

"Thousands killed in 1950 by US's Korean ally", Korae Report, May 19, 2008

"Unearthing War’s Horrors Years Later in South Korea", December 3, 2007


*Related Korean articles*

[Photos] Two Faces of the 58th anniverary of the Incheon Landing Operation: revival of Incheon Landing Operation during the Korean War, Sept. 15, 1950 and the consolation ceremony for the Korean victimes during the operation, by Han, Man-Song, Ohmynews, Sept. 10, 2008
[사진] 인천상륙작전 재현과 희생자 위령제: 58주기 인천상륙작전의 '두 얼굴' 한만송

[Articles] Two Faces of the 58th anniverary of the Incheon Landing Operation: revival of Incheon Landing Operation during the Korean War, Sept. 15, 1950 and the consolation ceremony for the Korean victimes during the operation, by Han, Man-Song, Ohmynews, Sept. 10, 2008
인천상륙작전의 두 얼굴 2008.09.10 11:11
9일 인천 월미도 앞 '상륙작전 재현' '희생자 위령제'로 행사 엇갈려, 오마이 뉴스, 2008 년 9월 10일, 한만송

[Photos and article]"Incheon Landing Operation was the indiscriminating bombing for Us: The families of the more than 100 civilian victims and people of Wolmi-island have the ceremony for the first official acknowledgement during the U.S. bombing, Wolmi-do”
by Han, Man Song, Ohmynews, Sept. 8, 2008
인천 상륙 작전, 우리에겐 무차별 폭격 작전”
민간인 100 여명 이상 희생된 월미도 미군폭격 사건, 올 해 첫 고유제, 오마이 뉴스, 한 만송, 2008 년 9월 8일

FW: S. Koreans ring in the New Year with candlelight revival

'S. Koreans ring in the New Year with candlelight revival

Over 100,000 citizens demonstrate against passage of controversial bills

Posted on : Jan.1,2009 13:01 KST, The Hankyoreh

The candles that lit up the summer of 2008 burned brightly up until the last day of the year. Amid the chaos created by the Grand National Party’s attempt to push through the so-called “MB (Lee Myung-bak) vicious laws,” citizens carried candles and gathered everywhere, including the Bosingak bell tower in Seoul’s Jong-no, where a New Year’s Eve bell-ringing event was being held.

With crowds of over 100,000 citizens gathered at the site of the event Wednesday around the Bosingak area, a candlelight demonstration in opposition to the forcing through of the “MB vicious laws,” including several media-related bills, took place beginning at 7:00 p.m. Among the thousands of participants in Wednesday’s demonstrations were citizens and members of Internet meeting sites such as the Anti-MB Cafe, the Society of Candlelight Demonstration Arrestees and the Citizen Action to Eradicate Traitorous Groups, as well as members of the Seoul chapters of the National Union of Media Workers and the Korean Teachers and Education Workers Union (KTU, Jeon Gyo Jo). Together with citizens participating in the bell-ringing event, these groups held an event, using candles to write the words “Self-destruct traitorous dictatorship Rat National Party” on the road to criticize the president and the GNP’s legislation drive.'

Read more


* Image Source/ credit *

Hankyoreh article, Jan. 1, 2009