The Rising of the Goons

[Update 3, 5/14: Via the Chosun Ilbo:

Some 4,000 members of the Pan-national Committee to Deter the Expansion of U.S. Bases held a massive protest at the site for the new U.S. Forces Korea headquarters in Pyeongtaek on Sunday. Feared large-scale violence, however, was averted as protestors refrained from using lethal tools like steel pipes or bamboo sticks while police stopped short of full-scale suppression. The coalition comprises members of the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions, the Korean Federation of University Student Councils or Hanchongryon and the Democratic Labor Party.

There was still violence, and there were still arrests. I’m not privy to the red guards’ strategy sessions, but they tend to back off when they can see a backlash forming.

Some 196 companies of riot police numbering 20,000 were mobilized to stop the protests, in which 36 protestors were taken into custody for throwing stones at police. Five people were taken to nearby hospitals after smaller clashes between police and protestors.

]

[Update 2, 5/13: The fun is starting with protests in downtown Seoul:

About 4,000 protestors including activists, workers and student radicals occupied Chongno Street near the American embassy in central Seoul, holding candles as they chanted songs, shouted slogans and waved banners. Thousands of riot police, backed by fire trucks with water cannons, stood guard over the protest Saturday fearing a repeat of last week’s fighting in Pyongtaek. Police buses were parked closely together to block all roads to the high-walled US embassy some 100 meters (yards) away. The protesters carried banners calling for the withdrawal of US troops and an end to the ongoing talks to conclude a free trade agreement with the United States. . . .

The Pyongtaek protests will happen Sunday, Korea time.]

[Update 5/13: The U.S. Embassy has put out a warning because of the potential for anti-American violence this weekend. If you’re in Seoul, this might be a good weekend for X-box, or for reading blogs. If you go out, please be careful.]

The Korea Sojourner’s video editing skills are starting to impress me.* He has some great video, which he usually gets from the red guards’ own Web sites, which he has compiled into this well-done montage of the last round of protests. He intersperses clips of protestors driving back the police with sticks and sharpened poles with others recounting the sacrifices of Americans so that Korea could have (and perhaps throw away) a free and prosperous society. What’s really telling is the degree to which these people revel in their hate and violence, showing the world how they fight the police with weapons.

==============

Expect more violence within hours. As many as 10,000 of the red guards are already moving toward a roughly equal (!) number of police.

==============

Fresh polls show Uri trailing badly in the runup to the May 31st elections. Voters appear not to care about mudslinging or scandal-mongering. I can’t prove a connection, but I’m guessing that the Roh administration’s vascillating response to the violence — violence that is deeply unpopular with Korean voters — is hurting his party.

================

* Although I don’t always understand his choice of background music — I mean, I got the “I got sunshine,” but why play all of “My Girl?”