Parties Politicizing Clash Deaths
By Michael Ha
Staff Reporter
A fiery political crisis may be engulfing the Lee Myung-bak administration ― just as the government is trying to gain public support for implementing its economic stimulus initiatives.
With about three months to go before the National Assembly by-elections, the main opposition Democratic Party (DP) is trying to take advantage of the visits by party lawmakers to electoral districts during the Lunar New Year holiday to intensify offensives against the government.
The governing Grand National Party (GNP) says a thorough inquiry should be carried out before any punitive measures are directed at administration officials.
The DP held an emergency meeting Thursday to discuss recent developments and appropriate responses to Tuesday's fatal clash between tenant protesters and riot police.
According to news accounts, the meeting turned into a forum for denouncing the Lee administration. DP leaders vowed to find out what had caused the tragedy and who should be held responsible.
They urged the Lee administration to thoroughly investigate the incident and reprimand all officials responsible for the deaths.
DP officials argued that the SWAT team began to move in only a few hours after some 40 civilians began their protest inside a soon-to-be-demolished five-story building. They stated that it appears likely that the primary cause behind the lethal clash is the excessive force used by police.
``The governing Grand National Party and the Lee administration are trying to blame tenant protesters for the tragedy…which most likely occurred because of an excessive police crackdown. This is a tragedy that stems from President Lee's authoritarian style of public security control," DP Chairman Chung Sye-kyun said.
Government officials, according to opposition DP leaders, are now trying to shift the blame and highlight the illegality of the protest ― and how the tenants resorted to violence, including hurling Molotov cocktails at riot police.
Meanwhile, GNP leaders say a thorough inquiry is a prerequisite to any possible punitive measures for administration officials, despite dissenting voices even within the party.
Former GNP Chairwoman Park Geun-hye said that she ``can't understand why the police moved in so quickly to crack down on the protest," according to an aide. Some other GNP members say that despite the tragedy, violent protesters are at least partly to blame for the deaths.
The National Human Rights Commission is also reportedly weighing in on the issue. One commission official said on condition of anonymity that ``we are looking into whether police violated the human rights of protesters during the clash."
Five tenant protesters and one policeman were killed and more than 20 people were injured during the lethal incendiary clash.
Some 40 protesters had been occupying the rooftop of a soon-to-be-demolished five-story building in Yongsan, Seoul, in an area designated as a redevelopment zone.
Reports say the tenants, including business owners in the neighborhood, were seeking better government compensation to relocate following their forced eviction from the redevelopment area.
Police said protesters, holed up on the rooftop of the five-story building, were throwing Molotov cocktails, bricks and golf balls at riot police officers to abate a possible raid.
A group of policemen in a shipping container being lowered onto the building's rooftop by giant crane forced protesters to fight back, according to reports.
Fire likely spiraled out of control on the rooftop when containers of paint thinners were accidentally ignited by Molotov cocktails hurled by tenants, creating a deadly inferno that claimed six lives, reports speculated. The fire took firefighters an hour to bring under control.