Police carry out blitz raids on KCTU, KPTU and other union
offices. -
" In the early morning of 21 November, the
South Korean police began surprise search and seizure procedures on the offices
of the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU), the Korean Public Services
and Transport Workers’ Union (KPTU) and other main KCTU affiliates. The raids,
which follow on an earlier raid of the KPTU office on 6 November, were
extensive and all encompassing. Police seized not only all documents and materials
related to the People’s Mass Mobilisation held on 14 November, but also
documents related to the KPTU-TruckSol’s Safe Rates Rally held separately on
the same day. They also took files related to a 16 April Sewol memorial event
and May Day and other KCTU rallies. The scope of search and seizure makes it
clear that the government is seeking to crackdown not only the 14 November
People’s Mass Mobilisation, but on the entire movement for workers’ rights and
a just and safe society.
We are both outraged and horrified by this extreme repression of the
labour movement and democracy in general. Since the end of military
dictatorship the South Korea government has not until now ventured such an
all-encompassing attack on the KCTU and its affiliates in response to
legitimate protests. It appears as if the government feels it must turn to
violence given the widespread public opposition to its policies. This Park
Geun-hye’s direct and violent suppression demonstrates that the democracy that
Korean workers’ and common people have fought for over the course of several
decades is being turned back to the age of military dictatorship.
The farmer Nam-gi Baek, who collapsed after being hit head-on by a water
cannon on 14 November, now lies in a state of near-death. The government should
be investigating and seeking to correct the brutal and illegal actions that
have snatched Baek from his family. Instead, however, it is expanding its
violence and repression to target the entire labour movement. Where is the
sense in this? It seems as if the repetition of violence is the Park
government’s only law and principle.
The extreme repression we experienced today has made us gravely aware
that our struggle to defend workers’ fundamental rights is now a struggle to
defend democracy itself. The history that the Park Geun-hye government now
seeks to erase through its unilateral revision of text books is the people’s
history of overcoming dictatorship and advancing democracy through struggle.
Now, we workers will write that history once more. Together with the KCTU, the
whole working class and the common people of Korea we will fight back against
dictatorship for the restoration of democracy. "
KCTU-Korean Public Service and Transport Workers’ Union
Advice from Wol -san - International Dept Kptu kptu.intl@gmail.com
