South Korea’s president today defended the proposed deployment of a USA anti-missile system as an act of self-defence against North Korea, as hundreds of residents shaved their heads in protest at the plan.
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Despite S. Korean President Park Geun-hye’s repetitious assurances that the THAAD was nothing more than a defense system in response to North Korea’s belligerent missile launchings, the protestors strongly believe that the deployment of THAAD will escalate tension on the peninsula by starting a new arms race, which may put S. Korea’s peace and security in peril.
Seoul and Washington announced last month that they will deploy the THAAD system in southern South Korea by the end of next year to better deal with North Korean threats.
Under the 1910-1945 Japanese colonial rule, Korean people suffered from numerous atrocities such as forced recruitment of Korean women as sex slaves for Japanese military brothels and compulsory labor for Japan’s munitions factories.
Stressing that “true liberation” would involve reunification of the peninsula, Park said that could only happen by removing the fear of nuclear weapons, missiles and war.
The North Korean agent also asked one of the two South Koreans to look into the possibility of distributing counterfeit dollars, South Korean prosecutors said. The protest will coincide with the country’s “National Liberation Day”.
The North’s nuclear test in January resulted in a substantial strengthening of United Nations sanctions, but a defiant Pyongyang doubled down with a series of ballistic missile tests also banned by United Nations resolutions.
Seongju residents chant slogans during a protest against the government’s decision to place a U.S. Terminal High Altitude Area Defence (THAAD) anti-missile defence unit in their town, in Seongju, South Korea, August 15, 2016. The move was not only condemned by Pyongyang but also Beijing which views the deployment as a United States move against its own national security interests and a threat to regional stability.
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Seongju residents, many of them farmers cultivating a melon variety that has brought the county domestic fame, sat in somber silence as they had their heads shaved while a protest leader led a crowd in chants of “No THAAD!”
