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A group of children held signs asking for peace, July 3, in a park around Gwanghwamun, Central Seoul.
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Pyeongtaek residents refusing eviction would face legal action
The Office for Government Policy Coordination said yesterday it would file a lawsuit against residents still refusing to move house in certain areas of Pyeongtaek, Gyeonggi Province, by the end of this month. The residents’ land is to be used to expand an exisiting U.S. military base there, part of a large-scale U.S. troop consolidation and reduction in South Korea to be completed by 2008. Kim Chun-seok, an official from the office, said the move would be to "smoothly push ahead the relocation project." The lawsuit would affect about 110 households still resisting eviction notices from the government. Kim’s remarks were made at a press conference on the issue. Kim said that while official channels of dialogue had been cut off June 20 after a third round of negotiations with a civic group opposed to the move, the Committee to Deter the Expansion of the Pyeongtaek U.S. Base, his office would do its best to resume dialogue. But, he said, "a lawsuit is inevitable in order to proceed with the relocation of the base as scheduled."This means that, barring an agreement reached with the residents in the next few weeks, the goverment will use legal procedures to force them out, a move likely to create further conflict with civic groups and the residents in question. The government and the committee held three sets of negotiations to address the residents’ grievances between June 2-20, but the official dialogue channel between the two sides was shut down by the government when the committee demanded the unconditional release of Kim Ji-tae, one of its leaders who had been arrested for organizing demonstrations against the relocation project. The government said it would begin construction work in October, after completing necessary procedures such as a geological survey and environmental assessment. Kim said that, considering it will take about three months from filing a lawsuit to reaching a sentence, "we should file an eviction suit in the middle of this month in order to start the construction work in October," suggesting legal moves would be taken earlier than the end of the month.
