PSPD in English Civil-Political 2009-01-19   2960

Park Wonseok, Human right defender was arrested and continued the candle protest in the prison

Park Wonseok, Human right defender was arrested and continued the candle protest in the prison

Park Wonseok was admitted into a university in 1988. He had tried for the the democracy of society and school. In the process of struggling, he endured the hardships of prison-life. After graduation, he participated in the PSPD(People’s Solidarity for Participatory Democracy) as a founding member. For 14years, he has watched over the corruption of power and strive for an altrenative movements from a civic point of view.

In May 2008, he took a headquarter in The people’s Coalition against the mad cow disease and wanted at the end of June. From the fifth day of the July 2008, he demonstrated in the tent at Jogaesa for 114 days. After escape, he traveled in disguise. But, He was arrested at the council and continued the candle protest in the prison.



STATEMENT FROM Park Wonseok

Firstly, I want to express my deep, sincere thanks both to comrades, friends, and family members attending this court and to the Korean people who have given moral support.


The prosecutor’s office and the police defined the candle movement as an illegal protest and indicted me and my comrades for instigating it. I cannot accept this wrongful accusation against us, which purports to condemn the democratic event in which millions of people have participated as a violent protest. I have resolutely denied making statement and exercised my right of silence during the investigation.    Not because I had something to hide but because I intended to show my position of protest to oppression against the candle and this unjust prosecution. However, I consider that today’s court is the place we can argue for the truth of the candle.



When the first candle protest began on the second day of May, mainly attended and designed by middle-and high-school girl students, it seemed just a passing incident. But it lasted more than 100 days and have developed into such a significant,  epoch-making event, equaling June in 87. The candle protest is estimated as presenting a new model of political participation in that at the center of it were not the political party or  but common, unorganized citizens such as netizens, housewives and adolescents. What made so many people leave aside their everyday life and livelihood, and brought them to streets and square? These questions about their motives will be the first step to the whole understanding of this event.


The agreement on import of U.S. beef being made between both government, ignoring the danger of Mad Cow Disease of U.S. beef. The danger has been the object of caution, both inside in U.S. and overseas for the past several years. For example, the Korea-U.S. agreement made in March 2006 stipulated that only the import of beef without bone under 30 months are allowed, reflecting our government’s consideration for the danger of U.S. beef. The neighboring asian countries applied more strict standard. For example, Japan allows only 20 month younger beef. Despite these wide-spread caution to the danger of U.S. beef, Korean government signed the new agreement, accepting almost every requests which U.S. government and U.S. cattle industry continued to make right before Korea-U.S. summit meeting.


This agreement was made completely behind the closed door, without any procedure of domestic discussion or effort to persuade the people. The import of U.S. beef older than 30 months was made possible. Also, SRM parts such as spine, bone, brain, and intestine was allowed if they are from the cattle younger than 30 months. Besides these, the new agreement doesn’t allow Korean government to suspend the import  even in case that the mad cow disease take place and transfers authority to cancel    slaughter-house license to American government. This is total abandon of  quarantine sovereignty. It was natural that criticisms against this shameful, hasty agreement spread wide. But the government only repeated the same answer that the agreement was a unavoidable choice for national interest and U.S. beef was safe.


However, the government failed to present clearly what is so called “national interest” and to convince people. Still, they unhesitatingly planned to implement the agreement, dismissing people’s anxiety of unsafe food as an ungrounded fabrication.
At that moment, the candle movement began, arguing against the import of U.S. beef and for re-negotiations about the agreement. This shows how seriously people took seriously threat to their health. Also, how much disappointed they were to the government, which was opening their own people to danger in favor of hazy national interest instead of defending people’s health and safety.
Government’s responses to the candle shows their typical anti-democratic, self-righteous attitude, which aggravated the situation. Whenever their policy such as the grand canal became controversial, they unilaterally enforced their policies which majority of people opposed, even silencing criticisms by force. Indeed, what enraged people more than the agreement itself in this case was president’s irresponsible words, “If you don’t want, don’t buy the American beef” and government’s action to put in major dailies with precious taxes advertisement arguing for the safety of U.S. beef.



From the first, the government denounced the opposing opinions as fabrications without scientific evidences or persuasive argument and threatened to accuse those who lead the protest. They even tried to prevent students’ participation by strengthening teachers’ surveillance and naturally induced people’s derision.  President apologies to the people turned out just strategic move. On the one hand, the government pretend to comply with public sentiment with additional negotiation, which was revealed as being empty and, on the other hand, suppressed protesters on the street by violence.



Korean people felt deep despair over their government’s behavior. They were seeing  the re-incarnation of the previous authoritative government which suppressed people’s desire for democracy by force. They rightly felt this situation as crisis of Korean democracy, which they collectively endeavored for the past 20 years. Who could not resist in this situation?


It is a right for people in whom sovereignty lies to present their opinions in policy-making process or to vote for it. Therefore, it is a rightful exercise of their right collectively to express their opposing opinions against the government, which tried to implement the policy which is potentially dangerous to health and safety of the people.       



It is very clear who is responsible for this situation? The government. They ignored public opinions, suppressed the rightful expression of the people by physical force, and, therefore, aggravated the conflict.


Who lead the candle? Against the theory that it was planned by the anti-american leftist.


Next, I will show my opinion about the theory that the candle movement was made by the pre-determined agitation and planning of the anti-U.S. leftists. In the middle of the candle movement, the theory that the movement has certain group behind the curtain was continuously raised by the government and the conservative daily newspapers such as Cho-Sun and Jungang. They claimed that the protest was lead by the certain anti-U.S. groups such as The coalition against mad cow disease and the Solidarity of Progressives.


The accusation of us by the prosecutor’s office is predicated on that we, the activists from the Coalition conspired to lead the movement into the violent direction. But this claim is an ungrounded one, invented to attribute enormous popular resistance to propaganda by small group of activists. It, I believe, is objectively confirmed that the candle movement was started and expanded by citizen’s voluntary participation. Many researchers share my view and shows that it is a new democratic phenomenon through their scholarly writings.


In short, the presence of the hidden mastermind is merely an invented fiction. So, confronted with police’s investigation, many citizens themselves have stoop up as conspirators. Simply, the actual composition of the candle protesters shows that their theory is a fiction. For example, there were 7300 high-and middle school students and common citizens (more than 70%) among ten thousands people who participated in the first protest on May 2.


The next day protest attracted 8,000 participants, most of whom were common citizens unrelated to activists’ group, trade union, or students’ organizations. To quote in detail, there were 5,200 non-college students and 1,400 common citizen including housewives. Although the protest on May 31 is thought as being typically violent by the police and prosecutor’s office, it is also mainly composed of common citizens.


In the biggest protest on June 10, more than 60% of the participants were common citizens. All the figures I quoted here are from the documents which the police presented to the court as evidences. According to this police’s document, which incorrectly reduces the number of the participants, the candle movement is revealed as having happened by citizen’s voluntary participation for their health and safety.


What is the role of the Coalition?


The next subject is the role of the Coalition. The people’s Coalition against the mad cow disease was organized on May 6 in the emergent meeting of various activists’ groups, which realized the significance and urgency of the issue after the first protest on May 2. The Coalition announced the four requests including “the cancel of the agreement on the import of U.S. beef and thorough re-negotiation” on the first meeting. Also, the Coalition decided to support the protest and to make the headquarters for it.


Those decisions were simply derived from practical considerations of the activists’ groups. They thought that, rather than individual citizens, they are more ready to be responsible for various costs needed for continuing the movement. After this intervention, the core character of the movement lasted, which is voluntary popular participation.


Many groups composing the Coalition are devoted to progressive causes such as vigilance and criticism against the power. Also, some of them have raised the issue of the safety of U.S. beef. So, it is natural for them to make decision to support the candle movement.



The role of the headquarters was no more than supporting the movement to make public opinions expressed more effectively even though the members of the headquarters were in charge of practical preparations for the protest. My role as  chief of the headquarters was also limited to supporting it. If the Coalition and I am still guilty, the guilt is to stand for the people against the power.



The candle protest was illegal and violent?


The prosecutors claimed that the candle protest was an unlicensed, illegal one. Also they argued that the protesters illegally occupied the street and exercised violence. To support their claim, they intentionally omitted the fact that there were many artistic performances in the protests. The overall shape of candle protests was rather like festival composed of performances and free speech. The political slogan was only part of it. So, it is a very arbitrary judgment to focus on one aspect of it and see it only as a political protest.



In regard to the issue of unlicensed, illegal protest by night, I mention only one thing: we are waiting for the supreme court’s decision regarding the unconstitutionality of the article 10 in the protest law forbidding protest without license by night. Even though we were already convinced of its unconstitutionality, we several times applied for license to prevent unnecessary controversy. But the police denied our application with not much convincing reasons. The responsibility for making the protest illegal clearly lies in the police.



According to the claim by the police and prosecutor’s office, the coalition lead the illegal protest from May 24 and caused violence by letting physical confrontation between the police and protesters. But the protesters on that day wanted to express clearly their positions against government’s unilateral behavior of announcing the notification despite their repeated request for re-negotiation. The violence on that day was caused accidentally by these desperate sentiments of the protesters.



On that day, I make known to every participants procession on the street started by some of the citizens and persuaded them to join it. Prosecutors interpreted this action as agitating an illegal street protest. But I followed my responsibility as chief of the headquarters who should make change of situations known to every participant. And my action was based on a very sound judgment that my announcement was necessary for safety of the already started procession.



Since then, the opinion spread that the procession on the street should be continued as s effective means to pressure the government to accept our request of substantial re-negotiation. Until then, the protesters tried to convey their opinions to the government, employing every means within law only to be ignored. The street procession was one remaining mean. The Coalition coordinated volunteers and cars to lead street procession in order and consistently confessed principle of non-violence.



The evidence for the violence done in the procession presented by the police were   such as iron pipes used by a small number of protesters and ropes used to drag out police buses. Even though they were a very small group, some protesters certainly used them. However, compared to the organized violence and ruthless suppression by the police, this is not a very significant element of the protest, rather incidentally done by protester’s rage against police brutality.



The Coalition appealed to protesters not to let even this kind of violence, which could be employed for conservative media’s fabrication of the protest as violent one. Many articles in rather neutral or progressive media evidence truth of my statement. It is rather the police that caused and systematically exercised violence. Evidences for this are numerous: unconditional arrests, ruthless oppression, and the massive container barricade (we call Myungbak-wall).


The police brutality already became an issue and Amnesty, one of the internationally influential human-right organizations, sent a researcher to investigate police brutality during the candle protest. It issued the report confirming cases of human=right violations and recommended correction to the Korean government.



The national council for human-right also issued the report that there were many cases of police brutality and human right violation and advised to dismiss Chief of the police and others responsible for them. The following cases are typical:


In the protest on June 1, many protesters were seriously harmed by clubs and shield swayed by the police forces. Their arrest plan was ruthless, blocking the retreat of the protesters. A female music student was savagely kicked on the head that day. On June 29, the police forces stepped on a group of people lying on the street to form human barricade against the police’s ruthless arrest.


So far, there have been more than 2000 injured people and 1500 cases of arrest. Many charges against police brutality were made, but any of them were not investigated thoroughly.



What is the significance, lesson of the candle? And what is the future task it dictates.


The candle left many lessons and future-task to our society even though it failed to stop import of U.S. beef and to realize re-negotiation of the agreement. The candle once again confirmed the plain truth that any political power ignoring the people cannot succeed. Even though Lee administration succeeded to blow out the candle by physical force, this administration irrecoverably fallen out of public confidence. The public survey showed that the rate of confidence for it stayed around 20%. How could this administration successfully function, which hit and stay at the bottom    already at the start-line of 5 years’ term.



The candle movement palpably revealed weakness of our representational democracy. It is a wide-spread sentiment that any existing political party could not represent public opinions, let alone the government. Now, the people strongly want to be the subject of politics, rejecting the present politics running their own league. The government and other political parties are faced with a challenging task to conceive new politics to integrate the people’s newly awakened sense of democracy into it.              


For example, it is very important to incorporate the principle of multilateral communication the participants of the movement established into policy-making process. In this information age, it is impossible for certain groups in power to monopolize information and knowledge. If Lee administration stick to unilateral behaviour to the people, the result will be manifest: total failure without support of the people.


The candle put a brake on ravenous protif drive and neo-liberalism, and give a strong warning to what can be called market-dictatorship. Mad cow disease was a tragedy caused by human greed. The candle started as efforts to defend safety and health of their own family and developed through street protests into a collective awakening that human values are more important than profit. Therefore, the issue the candle raised expanded to the importance of public good such as education, electricity, and media, etc. The movement clearly shows that the future of korea lies not in the society which put logic of profit and marke before everything but community in which every members endeavors to strenghen more equal democracy.



However, Lee administration is still ignoring these lesson and common task the movement presented. Their behavior still remains to be authoritative one. They are now trying to strengthen their command on media and, also, to pass the unjust laws intended to suppres basic rights of citizen. The value of democracy and human rights are systematically
being violated.


Their economic policies also shows their anti-democratic nature. When world-wide financial crisis is damaging korean economy, the focus of economic policies shoud be on economic security of the common people. However, the economic policy of this administration mainly benefitted rich people. The policy of reduced taxes were definitely for them.


On the other hand, this administration damaged economic base of the people of low income by lowering minimum wage and extending possible employment period of non-regular workers. Whom do their so-called “economy-boosting” policies aim to be beneficial to?


Now, the candle could be re-kindled anytime. And when it is, the candle will not be against several policies, but lead to total resistance to this adminstration. President Lee and the government should consider what the candle told.



The honorable judges and attending peoples!


The candle was the people’s self-defensive action against the danger caused by the government and the people’s exercise of popular soveriegnty against unjust political power.
The protesters were admirably peaceful in general during the whole period of the movement. The movement evidenced the mature democratic culture the people developed.
Therefore, the prosecutor office’s charge should be dismissed. What I said so far, I hope, is enough to prove that the charge is based on shallow legal logic and meager evidence.

Thanks for listening long time!

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