Pyeongtaek

Pyeongtaek
평택시
Municipal City
Korean transcription(s)
 • Hangul 평택시
 • Hanja 平澤市
 • Revised Romanization Pyeongtaek-si
 • McCune-Reischauer P'yŏngt'aek-si

Flag

Location in South Korea
Country  South Korea
Region Sudogwon
Administrative divisions 2 eup, 7 myeon, 13 dong
Area
 • Total 452.31 km2 (174.64 sq mi)
Population (2012 Jan)
 • Total 427,460
 • Density 945/km2 (2,450/sq mi)
 • Dialect Gyeonggi

Pyeongtaek is a city in Gyeonggi Province, South Korea. Located in the southwestern part of the province, Pyeongtaek was founded as a union of two districts in 940, during the Goryeo dynasty. It was elevated to city status in 1986, and is home to a South Korean naval base and a large concentration of United States troops. The Korean government plans to transform Pyeongtaek city to an international economic hub to coincide with the move of the United States Forces Korea (USFK) to Pyeongtaek. During the Korean War it was the site of an early battle between US and North Korean forces, the Battle of Pyongtaek. It is the location of Pyeongtaek University.

Military base

The United States and South Korean governments came to an agreement to enlarge Camp Humphreys — a US Army installation outside Anjeong-ri, a community in Pyeongtaek — and move the majority of US forces stationed in and north of Seoul to the Camp Humphreys area. Invoking eminent domain, the government obtained the surrounding land for the base expansion. This would result in the community's third displacement from their own land since the Japanese occupation during World War II.[1]

The move originally included the headquarters of the Combined Forces Command, which has operational control of ROK (Republic of Korea), US, and UN combined forces during wartime. In March 2007, US Defense Secretary Robert Gates and ROK Minister of Defense Kim Jang-soo agreed to dissolve the ROK-US Combined Forces Command on April 17, 2012.[2] This would allow ROK forces to have wartime control of its military during a military confrontation with the North. The US/ROK agreement allows USFK to move to one centralized location away from the congestion of Seoul and its surrounding areas. This relocation agreement results in returning two-thirds of the land currently used by the United States Military back to the Korean government. By 2008, the US military was to have consolidated 41 installations down to 10 due to the relocation agreement. USFK's only jail facility in South Korea is at Camp Humphreys.

Osan Air Base is in Songtan, a district in Pyeongtaek City.

Nonviolent Resistance

Korean peace organizations and 200 residents of Pyeongtaek strongly oppose the expansion. They attempted to take legal action to fight the proposed expansion but had no success in changing the Korean government's decision. On August 23, 2004, the Korean government offered $13,000 (USD) to each resident for their land. The residents declined the compensation because the offer was not sufficient enough to justify relocation. In December, 2004, the Korean government included an additional 2500 to 3000 acres of land. February, 2005, an activist group called Peace Wind joined with the protesters of Daechu-ri village in forming a resistance campaign. The group coordinated help from religious groups, artists, and other activist groups to turn the village into a "peace village". Daechu-ri displayed murals, posters, paintings, and inspirational phrases around the town. Residents and activist held a peaceful protest through a candlelight vigil in the evening. In December 2005, the Korean Land Expropriation Committee confirmed the base expansion. Residents whom continued to live in Doduri and Daechu-ri were considered trespassing. The local farmers showed their disdain by burning their Korean residence cards, renounce their citizenship, and turned the town of Daechuri into a sovereign land. The protestors base of operations was set up inside an elementary school in town.

There have been heightened protests against the base expansion. Moreover, authorities evicted protestors from occupying the elementary school and working the fields where the base will be built by placing barbed wire at the boundary of the future base.

Protesters Main Goals

The protesters came up with four goals for the government to address:

Government Retaliation

In March 2006, the Ministry of Defence and police took action in taking over Daechu-ri. 4,000 officers entered the village with intentions to destroy the farmers rice paddies.[4] Protesters used roadblocks and themselves to prevent the police from disrupting their crops for the year. Forty protesters were taken into custody while many others received injuries during the clash. The government made another attempt to put pressure on the protesters on April 6. 5,000 riot police were sent to Daechu-ri to create more difficulties for the farmers to use the land. The riot police used cement on the land and disabled the irrigation system. Twenty households withdrew their efforts and left Daechu-ri with monetary compensation. 190 household continued to resist. In May, the government gave the residents until June to leave the land. A ban was put in place to prevent farming on the land; however, the farmers defied the government by growing rice crops for Spring. Prime Minister Han Myeong-sook met with cabinet ministers to come up with ways to end the standoff.

Protests erupted on May 4, 2006, when some 13,000 South Korean military soldiers and riot police arrived to guard the land where the new Camp Humphreys was to be built. The Korean military build a 29 kilometre fence and blocked all roads to the village in order to cut off all support to the protesters. 8,000 police guarded the outside perimeter at all hours of the day along with 3,000 additional police inside the fence. When the protesters tried to push through the barrier, they were met with violence by the police. Defence Ministry forces managed to destroy the elementary school which resulted in the injury of 200 protesters and the apprehension of 500 others. Both Amnesty International and the National Human Rights Commission of the Republic of Korea condemned the actions taken by the government.

Actions by Other Activist Groups

After the violent conflict the protesters created a group called the Pan-national Committee to Deter the Expansion of US Bases which was led by a Catholic priest named Mun Jeong-hyeon . This group consisted of 138 other civic groups. The actions from the resistance movement brought attention to other supporters from around the country. 6,000 protesters took part in a candlelight vigil in Seoul in support for cancelling the expansion to the military base as well as for the police to free 16 activist from jail. 3,500 protesters from labor groups and college students organized demonstrations in Pyeongtaek. 18,000 police officers were dispatched to put up roadblocks in Daechu-ri and outlaw the students' protest. Students attempted to go through the roadblocks with little success. They decided to sit down right on the police line. Some of the residents from Daechu-ri joined the students from the other side of the roadblock.[5]

May 16, 70 households remained resistant to the US military base expansion. In June, the head farmer of Daechu-ri village Kim Jae Ti was arrested while heading to a village meeting between Daechu-ri and Doduri. Father Mun Jeong-hyoen and other protesters in Daechuri held a hunger strike for the release of Kim. On July 4, 50 individual from the Pan-national Committee to Deter the Expansion spent five days walking 91 miles from Presidential office of Cheong Wa Dae in Seoul all the way to Daechu-ri. While the marchers continued to Daechu-ri, demonstration were forming around the office of the Defence Ministry and detention houses in Pyeongtaek with the hopes of the release imprisoned protesters.

Conclusion to the Conflict

Pro-expansion protests were also witnessed during this time but at a much smaller scale. The main arguments of the pro-expansion protests were that the protestors that were occupying the Daechu-ri Elementary School were not local farmers but were from an organized anti-US civic group from outside of Pyeongtaek. They estimated that fewer than 10% of the individuals that were protesting the expansion of Camp Humphreys were farmers that were being evicted.

In September, demolish crews, private security forces, and 22,000 riot police prepared to knock down all the buildings in Daechu-ri. Protesters took action by putting themselves in between the houses and the bulldozers. Some individuals stood on top of their roofs to save their homes. 60 homes were reduced to rubble while the protesters managed to save 13 homes. In October, half of the 92 remaining households in Doduri agreed to money every month for ten year, and farmland away from the expansion zone. The last 50 households in Daechu-ri were evacuated from the area. The remaining 61 households began to discuss with the government about specific compensation in early January, 2007. In February, the final households agreed to compensation and resettlement by the end of March.[6]

The number of individual whom took part in the resistance amounted to about 74,200 protesters and resisters during the campaign. Police involved in the conflict with protesters were as many as 187,800 during the eviction process. The expected completion date for the expansion process was said to finish by 2017. As planned, Yongsan Garrison, in Seoul, and the Second Infantry Division will be moved to Camp Humphreys by 2019.

Education

The city's sole international school is Pyeongtaek International Christian School (평택크리스천외국인학교).[7]

Notes

  1. ^ U.S. Move Is Spurring Evictions In S. Korea (Washington Post article)
  2. ^ Massive Force Mobilized to Evict U.S. Base Protestors (Chosun Ilbo article (English))
  3. ^ Activists Are Only Using the People of Pyeontaek (Chosun Ilbo English Editorial) article
  4. ^ More Violence Looms in Planned Rally at U.S. Base Site
  5. ^ U.S. base expansion in Korea sparks protests (Socialism and Liberation) article

See also

References

  1. ↑ http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/6389553.stm Eviction village: A farmers tale
  2. ↑ Changes to Wartime OPCON: Challenges for the ROK, Chosun
  3. ↑ https://interasia.wordpress.com/2006/04/06/strong-objection-to-the-extension-of-the-us-base-in-pyeongtaek/ Strong Objection to the Extension of the U.S. Base in Pyeongtaek!
  4. ↑ http://twokoreas.blogspot.ca/2006/03/restless-pyeongtaek.html Beyond The Minjung: Movements, Politics, and Social Space on the Korean Peninsula
  5. ↑ https://nvdatabase.swarthmore.edu/content/south-koreans-protest-land-seizure-united-states-military-base-expansion-2005-2007 South Koreans protest land seizure for United States military base expansion, 2005-2007
  6. ↑ https://nvdatabase.swarthmore.edu/content/south-koreans-protest-land-seizure-united-states-military-base-expansion-2005-2007 South Koreans protest land seizure for United States military base expansion, 2005-2007
  7. ↑ "Pyeongtaek International Christian School." International School Information (Government of South Korea). Retrieved on March 30, 2016.

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Coordinates: 36°59′32″N 127°06′46″E / 36.992236°N 127.112821°E / 36.992236; 127.112821

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