Save Jeju Island from destruction!

Save Jeju Island! Don’t bomb Gureombi!
U.S. troops out of Korea now!
Statement of the Asia Pacific Anti-US Bases Network
on the impending bombing of the Gureombi, Jeju Island
November 17, 2011
 
 
Uphold national sovereignty and patrimony of South Korea!
Save Jeju Island! Uproot U.S. military troops from Jeju and South Korea now!
 
These are our calls in the Asia Pacific Anti-US Bases Network as we express strong solidarity with the people of Jeju Island in particular and of South Korea in general as they call for the immediate halt to the impending blasting of Gureombi, the volcanic rock along the coastline of Gangjeong Village.
 
This planned blasting of Gureombi is part and parcel of the continued development of a U.S. military naval base in Jeju. It does not only mean the destruction of the beautiful nature that South Korea proudly preserves but a direct affront to the collective right of the South Korean people to their sovereignty.
 
The continued presence of the U.S. military forces in South Korea poses a huge problem. It translates into direct military intervention in the national affairs of South Korea. It poses a grave threat to the rights and lives of the people in Jeju Island in particular and South Korea in general. We already have witnessed the violent dispersals of people’s protests and arrests of even local officials like the village mayor in Jeju.
 
By flexing its military muscle throughout Asia Pacific, it brings South Korea to the war of aggression that the U.S. has notoriously launched in the past.
 
As the people of South Korea steadfastly stand their ground on immediately and unconditionally uprooting the U.S. military forces from their country, the South Korean government remains stubbornly deaf to their calls and instead continues to capitulate to their U.S. imperialist masters. Nothing but a manifestation of puppetry!
 
As proven in recent history, the U.S. military industrial complex has never been beneficial to any country or people. We have seen the destruction they have brought down on the people of Iraq, Palestine and Afghanistan. We have seen the rape of women and children, the many crimes and human rights violations they have committed in the Philippines, Japan and South Korea.
 
The establishment of the U.S. military naval base in South Korea is a means of U.S. imperialism to salvage itself from the economic quagmire by launching wars of aggression and intervention. Now that the political strife in the Middle East and North Africa has subsided, the peoples of South Korea and Asia are in impending doom should U.S. imperialism launch wars against North Korea and even China. 
 
Their war complex only benefits U.S. imperialism, not the peoples of the world.
 
Immediately, the governor of Jeju Island should heed his people’s demand and wield the political will to stop the destructive blast of Gureombi. In the long run, the construction of the U.S. military naval base should be immediately and unconditionally halted and have all the U.S. military forces there and everywhere else in South Korea withdrawn back to the United States.
 
The South Korean government should be ashamed of itself for continually playing the obedient dog to its imperialist master and instead heed its people’s demands to uphold and protect its national sovereignty, patrimony and integrity.
 
The growing international movement against the continued U.S. military presence in South Korea and anywhere else in the world is a strong expression of the people’s collective struggle and solidarity against U.S. imperialism.
 
No bombing in Gureombi!
U.S. troops out of Korea now!
Down with imperialism!

Justice Minister of South Korea urged by APMM: "We would like to call on the Ministry of Justice to heed our urgent demand to immediately and unconditionally stop the crackdown on all migrant workers."

November 11, 2011

Hon. KWON JAE JIN
Minister
Ministry of Justice, Republic of Korea
Building #5, Gwacheon Government Complex,
Jungang-dong1, Gwacheon-si, Kyunggi-do
Republic of Korea
Tel : 82-2-503-7023
E-mail : webmaster@moj.go.kr
Thru the Office of the Inspector General

Dear Minister Kwon Jae Jin:

Warm greetings from Hong Kong!

We in the Asia Pacific Mission for Migrants, a Hong Kong-based regional migrant center, would like to express strongly our concern on the continued crackdown by the South Korean government on undocumented migrants. We have received information from our network in Korea, in particular the Alliance of Filipino Migrant Workers’Associations in Korea, that several migrant workers have already been arrested and detained by immigration police.

Already, more than a thousand migrants have been arrested since January this year.
Based on previous reports of maltreatment during the series of crackdowns in recent years and the lack of mechanisms to ensure that the human rights of migrants are protected, we are concerned that the migrants will once again be subject to abuse and maltreatment.

In this regard, we would like to call on the Ministry of Justice to heed our urgent demand to immediately and unconditionally stop the crackdown on all migrant workers. The blanket arrest, detention and deportation of migrant workers based on their visa status is in itself a violation of the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families.

The crackdown does not resolve the issue of the rise in undocumented migrants in South Korea. Instead, it only aggravates the problem of migration with the human rights and dignity of migrant workers being compromised or violated by authorities who should be protecting them.

In the same vein, we implore your good office in ensuring that the rights of migrant workers who have already been arrested and detained be protected and upheld at all times. We strongly wish that they be given the right to access justice and have their legal counsel, access and avail of health services especially for those in urgent need of medical attention, be visited by their families, friends and other supportive peers, and be treated humanely, among many others.

We fervently hope that the Ministry of Justice would heed these urgent demands as more and more migrant workers are likely to be subject to grave violations and further repression. We look forward to your immediate and positive response to this request.

Thank you very much.

Respectfully yours,

Ramon Bultron
Managing Director

“Being undocumented is never reason to be stripped of one’s fundamental human rights,” --Migrante International.

November 11, 2011

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE



Reference: Garry Martinez, Chairperson, 0939-3914418



OFWs in S. Korea condemn intensified crackdowns



Global alliance of overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) and families Migrante International supports the Filipino community and migrant communities of other nationalities in South Korea in their fight against intensified crackdowns on undocumented migrant workers.



The crackdown is a result of the South Korean government’s labor policy, the Employment Permit System (EPS). According to Garry Martinez, Migrante International chairperson, the EPS has been proven flawed and anti-migrant and should be scrapped.



The Philippine and Korean government signed an agreement on the EPS in 2006. Since then, some 500,000 workers from the Philippines, Vietnam, Thailand, Mongolia and Indonesia have been brought to South Korea under its mandate. The EPS basically allows Korean employers who have failed to hire local workers to legally employ migrant workers.



However, Martinez said, the EPS has failed to ensure benefits and protect the rights of migrant workers. “Instead, since its implementation seven years ago, cases of labor and human rights violations against OFWs and other migrant workers continue to run rampant,” said Martinez.



One of the objectives of the EPS was supposedly to increase transparency of sending and receiving workers, and consequently protect migrant workers’ rights and prevent discrimination.



“However, there seems to be no monitoring system and companies and employers violate migrant workers’ rights without being held accountable. More Korean employers have been hiring undocumented migrants to be able to evade compliance on minimum wages, benefits and leaves. As a result, undocumented workers are being targeted by the Korean government’s violent and intensified crackdowns,” he said.



Martinez, himself an undocumented OFW in South Korea for 12 years before he was deported to the Philippines, added, “The present global economic crisis has unleashed so-called ‘protectionist measures’ characterized by crackdown operations and harsher immigration policies that bear down on irregular or undocumented workers, at the expense of their human rights.”



He said, “Undocumented migrants, who inevitably provide the solution to labor shortages or the clamor for cheap labor in host countries, are marginalized and exploited. They are less able to assert their claims and are more vulnerable to abuses because of their ‘illegitimacy’.”

“Being undocumented is never reason to be stripped of one’s fundamental human rights,” Martinez said.



According to records of Migrante International, the number of undocumented Filipino workers deployed in different countries has reached approximately 900,000 in 2007. “This number has continued to increase over the years, especially in light of continued unemployment and landlessness here in the Philippines. The growing number of undocumented OFWs worldwide is indicative of the ongoing crisis of forced migration and systemic economic crisis in the country.”



Martinez called on the Korean and Philippine governments to ensure the protection of undocumented OFWs in South Korea and to work for their legalization. “Our call is for regularization, not criminalization. Human rights, regardless of status, should not be violated. Undocumented migrants worldwide contribute greatly to the economies of their host nations and to the domestic economy as well in terms of their remittances.” ###




----





STATEMENT ON CRACKDOWN, BUDGET CUTS FOR SOCIAL SERVICES TO OFWS

AND EXTRA-JUDICIAL KILLINGS

Katipunan ng mga Samahang Migranteng Manggagawa sa Korea (KASAMMA-KO)

06 November 2011



The Katipunan ng mga Samahang Migranteng Mangagagawa sa Korea (KASAMMA-KO) together with other Filipino migrant organizations and Korean migrant workers centers vehemently condemn the intensified crackdown on migrant workers. The very act of cracking down of migrant workers on basis of their visa status is a violation of the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families which was entered into force in July 2003. Its primary objective is to protect migrant workers and their families, a particularly vulnerable population, from exploitation and the violation of their human rights.



The Korean government through the Bureau of Immigration is committing grave human rights violations. This is the very reason why we strongly oppose the crackdown. The crackdown should be stopped immediately. The government of President Lee Myung-Bak should stop the crackdown on migrant workers. He should not let his unpopularity worsen with this obsolete strategy to labor outsourcing.



The Employment Permit System (EPS) is proven as a defective labor arrangement. It should be scrapped. All employed migrant workers should be processed for legalization. The migrant workers employment in dirty, difficult and dangerous (3D) jobs in the Korean small and medium scale factories have made significant contributions to the growth of the South Korean economy. They have the right for unhampered employment in the country, for the local workers would not even take on the 3D jobs they have. STOP CRACKDOWN!



More than 9 million OFWs are working in many countries around the world and they comprising over 10% of the population depend for their livelihood and the better future of their families in working overseas. Since the 1970s up to this time, the succeeding Philippine governments including the present Aquino government has not averted the massive deployment of OFWs. There have been too many OFWs who have died, disabled, ill, abused, jailed, stranded or in distressed situations who need the assistance of the Philippine Embassies or Consular offices, and this means adequate budget to aid and support OFWs.



The Aquino government cut the DFA’s budget from P12.69 billion this year to P10.98 billion in 2012. DFA Secretary Alberto Romulo admitted that this would paralyze the operations of Philippine embassies and consulates around the world. It would also mean reduced assistance to Filipinos in distress overseas. NO CUTS IN 2012 BUDGET FOR OFWS!



OPLAN Bayanihan that have been a make believe social welfare program of the Aquino government is actually a counterinsurgency program that does not provide financial assistance to the poorest of the poor but its budget is used for extra-judicial killings and feed to bureaucratic red tapes. We denounce the continuance of extra-judicial killings or political killings in the Philippines under President Benigno Aquino III, in which one of the recent victims is Fr. Fausto Tentorio, PIME, a missionary to the Manobo tribe and the Lumads in Arakan Valley in North Cotabato.



As Filipino migrant workers, expatriates and missionaries in South Korea, we mourn demand justice for all the victims of extra-judicial killings who even up to this time their cases have not been given justice. The pervasiveness of human rights violations in our country under Oplan Bayanihan has been wrecking insurmountable damages on the lives of community leaders and those who have offered their lives, like Fr. Tentorio, so that the marginalized Filipinos will experience abundant life. STOP EXTRA-JUDICIAL KILLINGS NOW!





POL PAR

Chairperson

KASAMMA-KO