By Jun Ji-hye
The Navy resumed construction of a naval base on Jeju Island, Monday, two days after the military forced a group of sit-in protesters off the construction site.
"The Navy hopes there will be no more illegal action to interfere with construction," Jang Min-jeong, a press officer of the construction team, told reporters. "We ask for cooperation from the island residents."
However, a resolution with local residents seems some way off because they have cited potential environmental damage to the area designated as a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve as well as mental stress they will have to endure.
In particular, the villagers are opposed to constructing apartment buildings in Gangjeong Village to accommodate officers who will work at the base.
"A considerable number of residents have expressed their opposition three times so far, but the Navy just focused on those who supported the construction," Cho Kyung-chul, the head of the village, told reporters.
He noted that 96 percent of local people voted against the construction in 2013, arguing that building the military residences in the village was decided on without the agreement of the residents.
Since October last year when the Navy began erecting the buildings at the village, civic groups, environmental activists and some residents have staged protests from a makeshift tent pitched at the entrance to the construction site. The plan is to build five four-story apartment buildings that would house essential members of navy operations and their families, timed with the completion of the naval base in December.
The Ministry of National Defense mobilized about 1,000 personnel including Navy officials and police officers, Saturday, to remove protesters' vehicles, along with the tent erected to interfere with the construction work.
During the 14-hour administrative action, which saw a fierce clash between police officers and the protesters, 24 people were arrested and four were injured.
Finalized in 2007 when the late President Roh Moo-hyun was in power, the Navy has been constructing the base on the resort island that will hold up to 20 warships simultaneously, along with two 150,000 ton cruise ships.
The construction has also received attention from global scholars and activists.
Linguist and philosopher Noam Chomsky on Friday sent a letter to President Park Geun-hye, calling for a stand for humanitarian principles and halting the government's plan to use force to drive out the protesters.
In his news analysis released in a website of Truthout, a nonprofit news organization in the United States, in October 2011, Chomsky pointed out that besides environmental matters, the naval base on Jeju Island, which lies south of the Korean Peninsula between China and Japan, could lead to a confrontation between the U.S. and China.
"For the United States, the base's purpose is to project force toward China and to provide a forward operating installation in the event of a military conflict," he wrote.
The emeritus professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology also wrote that the protest taking place on the island amounts to a critical struggle against a potentially devastating war in Asia, and against the deeply rooted institutional structures that are driving the world ever further toward more conflict.
Follow Jun Ji-hye on Twitter @TheKopJihye
The Navy resumed construction of a naval base on Jeju Island, Monday, two days after the military forced a group of sit-in protesters off the construction site.
"The Navy hopes there will be no more illegal action to interfere with construction," Jang Min-jeong, a press officer of the construction team, told reporters. "We ask for cooperation from the island residents."
However, a resolution with local residents seems some way off because they have cited potential environmental damage to the area designated as a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve as well as mental stress they will have to endure.
In particular, the villagers are opposed to constructing apartment buildings in Gangjeong Village to accommodate officers who will work at the base.
"A considerable number of residents have expressed their opposition three times so far, but the Navy just focused on those who supported the construction," Cho Kyung-chul, the head of the village, told reporters.
He noted that 96 percent of local people voted against the construction in 2013, arguing that building the military residences in the village was decided on without the agreement of the residents.
Since October last year when the Navy began erecting the buildings at the village, civic groups, environmental activists and some residents have staged protests from a makeshift tent pitched at the entrance to the construction site. The plan is to build five four-story apartment buildings that would house essential members of navy operations and their families, timed with the completion of the naval base in December.
The Ministry of National Defense mobilized about 1,000 personnel including Navy officials and police officers, Saturday, to remove protesters' vehicles, along with the tent erected to interfere with the construction work.
During the 14-hour administrative action, which saw a fierce clash between police officers and the protesters, 24 people were arrested and four were injured.
Finalized in 2007 when the late President Roh Moo-hyun was in power, the Navy has been constructing the base on the resort island that will hold up to 20 warships simultaneously, along with two 150,000 ton cruise ships.
The construction has also received attention from global scholars and activists.
Linguist and philosopher Noam Chomsky on Friday sent a letter to President Park Geun-hye, calling for a stand for humanitarian principles and halting the government's plan to use force to drive out the protesters.
In his news analysis released in a website of Truthout, a nonprofit news organization in the United States, in October 2011, Chomsky pointed out that besides environmental matters, the naval base on Jeju Island, which lies south of the Korean Peninsula between China and Japan, could lead to a confrontation between the U.S. and China.
"For the United States, the base's purpose is to project force toward China and to provide a forward operating installation in the event of a military conflict," he wrote.
The emeritus professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology also wrote that the protest taking place on the island amounts to a critical struggle against a potentially devastating war in Asia, and against the deeply rooted institutional structures that are driving the world ever further toward more conflict.
Follow Jun Ji-hye on Twitter @TheKopJihye
