[Editorial] Jeju naval base

The Jeju district court issued an injunction Monday to stop obstructions by radical activists and residents against the construction work for a naval base at Gangjeong on the southern coast of Jeju Island. However, the court ruling did not totally prohibit opposition activities around the construction site in the name of the freedom of expression.

The Navy and its contractors will now try to resume work for the 1 trillion won (about $1 billion) project that had been suspended for months as members of civic groups and disgruntled residents physically obstructed workmen and equipment from entering the designated site. Yet, we wonder what effect the writ papers will have on the protesters, who have already defied military and civilian police authorities in repeated clashes.

A subcommittee of the National Assembly Budget Committee started its own inquiry into the naval base problem on Monday and is scheduled to make an on-the-spot investigation at Gangjeong next week. Ruling and opposition party members have some differences in opinion about the use of the naval base but neither side is opposed to the project itself, which started during the previous Roh Moo-hyun administration.

The nation’s dissident groups have chosen the labor strife at Yeongdo Shipyard in Busan and the naval base project on Gangjeong coast as the two major targets of their anti-establishment struggles. Just as they operated “Peace Buses” in Yeongdo and Seoul streets, the activists are planning to fly a “Peace Airplane” from Gimpo to the Jeju coasts on Sept. 3 in a dramatic show of their solidarity with what they call “oppressed island residents.”

Anticipating a police raid at any time following the court ruling, the objectors are gathering at the Gangjeong coast in preparation for a big showdown with government and military authorities. Law and order has lost its meaning at the Gangjeong coast, where diehard residents move about with iron chains binding their bodies in a gruesome symbolism of their plight.

Agitators from the outside are recalling the bloody suppression of civilian resistance by constables and anti-communist militiamen from the mainland ― called the “4.3 incident” ― shortly before the establishment of the Republic of Korea government in 1948. We are just appalled at the extreme tactics of the dissidents who are chanting “peace” but are actually inviting violence in pursuit of their dubious causes, using the island residents as hostage.