S. Korea demolishes houses for U.S. base expansion

Hundreds of workers on Wednesday carried out demolition work at a site designated for expanded U.S. military facilities south of Seoul, police said.

They removed all of the 90 houses in four villages from which people were evicted. But 40 houses were excluded from the demolition work because the remaining occupants and protesters were still inside them.

About 400 demolition workers and 10 excavators were mobilized, while 15,000 riot police barricaded the roads leading to the villages to prevent civic and student activists from gaining access to the contested areas, police said.

"We are satisfied that the work went smoothly. We are planning to demolish the rest of the houses occupied by local residents and activists," a Defense Ministry official said, asking to remain anonymous.

According to police, dozens of protesters chanted "Stop forced eviction! Negotiate U.S. base relocation again!" at the top of empty houses near Peace Park in Daechuri, one of the villages where the project to expand U.S. bases will occur.

Earlier this year, military engineers erected a 29-kilometer-long wire fence near Camp Humphreys, 70 kilometers south of Seoul, to halt farming and ensure eviction.

The Pyeongtaek City government designated 2.85 million pyeong (one pyeong equals 3.3 square meters) as a restricted area for military facility protection at the request of the Defense Ministry. The land has been earmarked to enable Camp Humphreys to triple in size by 2008 and become the U.S. military's chief installation in South Korea.

The U.S. military plans to relocate its Yongsan Garrison in downtown Seoul and the 2nd Infantry Division near the border with North Korea to Pyeongtaek.

But some farmers and organized protesters have defied government orders to leave the site and attempted to block government efforts to evict them.

The Humphreys expansion is part of the U.S. global troop realignment plan to transform its fixed military bases into more mobile, streamlined forces.

About 30,000 U.S. troops are stationed in South Korea, a legacy of the 1950-53 Korean War. The two Koreas are still technically in a state of war since the Korean War ended with an armistice, not a peace treaty.

Pyeongtaek, Sept. 13 (Yonhap News)