Despite gov’t action, protests against US beef continue
The Hankyoreh | 4 June 2008
Despite gov’t action, protests against U.S. beef continue
Tens of thousands of citizens expected for three-day protest at week’s end
The Lee Myung-bak government has announced that it has asked the United States to stop exporting to Korea beef slaughtered after thirty months of age, but the waves of candles demanding a withdrawal of the decision to resume imports and completely renegotiate the beef deal have not yet died down.
The “People’s Countermeasure Council against Full Resumption of Imports of U.S. Beef Endangered with Mad Cow Disease,” an umbrella organization of civic groups and cyber activists issued a statement Tuesday, June 3, saying that the government’s recent announcement “only momentarily postpones the timing for when American beef at risk of having mad cow disease starts coming at the Korean people without any controls.”
“The gist of the government’s announcement is that it is only halting imports of beef over thirty months old for a limited time,” the statement read. “It needs to decide for sure that it will fully and permanently prohibit the importation of such beef, and demand that the U.S. accept this.”
Park Won-seok, head of People’s Countermeasure Council’s situation room, said, “The people’s resistance will not stop, and it will strongly confront the government’s deceptive move."
The organization also announced it plans to hold an event June 5-7 under the title “Day of National Joint Action,” during which there will be a “72-hour, all day and all night protest” with tens of thousands of citizens participating. The group also announced that its planned large-scale candlelight parade, which around a million people are expected to attend, is going to be held on June 10 as scheduled, on the anniversary of the June Struggle of 1987, an important watershed moment in Korea’s democracy movement.
Meanwhile, Lawyers for a Democratic Society (Minbyun), said Tuesday that 103,771 people have joined its collective action suit calling for a Constitutional Court review of the legitimacy of the Agriculture Ministry’s decision on American beef and a temporary injunction against the same.
