Public
anger grows over Iraq killing By
Ahn Mi-Young
SEOUL - Although the government
announced that its decision to deploy 3,000 troops to
Iraq is unlikely to be swayed by the beheading of a
South Korean hostage, mounting public protests, however,
could force it to cancel the deployment.
In a
scene similar to that of US engineer Paul Johnson before
he was beheaded by an al-Qaeda cell in Saudi Arabia on
Friday, images of the South Korean with his captors were
also broadcast on television.
Johnson was
kidnapped in an escalating campaign of violence against
Westerners that aims to drive foreign workers from the
Saudi kingdom.
In a video broadcast Sunday on
Arabic-language television network alJazeera, Kim Sun-il
cried in English, "Korean soldiers, please get out of
here. I don't want to die. I don't want to die. I know
that your life is important, but my life is important."
Kim worked for a South Korean supplier to the
American military and was abducted on June 17 while
making a delivery in the Iraqi city of Fallujah.
His captors from Jamaat al-Tawhid and Jihad
(Monotheism and Jihad), the militant group led by Abu
Musab al-Zarqawi in Iraq, threatened to behead him if
Seoul did not cancel its plans by Tuesday to send troops
to Iraq. The deadline passed and the beheaded body of
the 33-year-old translator was found on the road between
Baghdad and Fallujah.
But South Korea's
President Roh Moo-hyun was adamant and said he will send
more troops to Iraq despite the beheading.
"The
South Korean plan to send troops to Iraq is not to
engage in hostilities against Iraqis or other Arab
people but to help reconstruction and restoration in
Iraq," Roh said in brief, nationally televised speech
Wednesday morning after news of the killing stunned the
country.
On Monday some 700 Koreans took to the
capital's streets in a candlelight vigil, urging Kim's
release and calling on the government to cancel the
troop dispatch. More protests are planned this week.
A coalition of 365 civil organizations announced
it would hold massive protests and candlelight vigils
this weekend in central Seoul to force the government to
reconsider its decision to send 3,000 troops to Iraq's
Arbil area in early August.
The coalition also
wants the South Korean president to order the pull back
of 660 medics and engineers already in Iraq.
"We
are shocked by the government's senseless response to
the threat. At a time when we must spare every word to
keep Kim alive, the government was helping to put him at
an even greater risk," Chung Dae-yon from the group
Contingency People's Action, told IPS.
"If Kim
is killed, his death would be seen as a murder by
President Roh Moo-hyun's government," said Chung before
the news of the beheading.
Opinion polls Monday
by the major Internet portal Daum showed more than 70%
of the 15,351 respondents opposed sending troops to
post-war Iraq after hearing news of the abduction. The
polls are expected to be higher after the president's
comment following Kim's killing.
Like their
neighbor Japan, South Koreans, too, feel they are now
targeted because of their government's support for the
US's so-called "war on terror" after the tragic events
of September 11, 2001.
In Tokyo, public
skepticism seems to be growing daily over the deployment
of Japanese troops to Iraq as violence there surges, in
some cases involving Japanese.
Public support
for Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's
government this month fell 14 percentage points to 40%
because of unease over Tokyo's plans for at least 600
Self- Defense Forces to join a United Nations
multinational force in Iraq, the Asahi newspaper said
Tuesday citing its own survey.
"We, the South
Korean people are standing at a door towards hell - a
door that the US administration of President George Bush
has opened," said the statement of the 365 civil
organizations.
Added the statement: "We know the
Iraqi people are suffering under the occupation of US
soldiers who abuse human rights there. That's why we are
trying to halt the government from sending troops
there."
But at the heart of the matter is South
Korea's relationship with the US. Seoul is very keen to
strengthen its relationship with the US, thereby winning
more support from Washington for a peaceful end to a
long-running dispute over North Korea's nuclear weapons
development.
"And so Seoul is very much aware
that its relationship with Washington is crucial at the
moment," a security analyst told IPS. "And if Washington
needs its help with Iraq, then Seoul is willing to help
it out, if indeed Washington then helps Seoul with North
Korea," said the analyst.
When the deployment of
the 3,000 troops is complete, South Korea will be
biggest coalition partner in Iraq after the US and
Britain.
While politicians are united in seeking
measures to save Kim, they are divided on whether the
government should reconsider the dispatch plan. A total
of 32 lawmakers - 18 from the ruling Uri Party, 10 from
the Democratic Labor Party and four from the Grand
National Party - signed a draft resolution requesting
suspension of the troop deployment.
"South Korea
is the only nation in the world that wants to dispatch
such large numbers of troops to a war that is generally
seen as without a cause," said Kim Won-woong, a Uri
Party lawmaker.
"Being the largest foreign troop
in Iraq to help the US and Britain would put South
Korean soldiers and the people at home at grave danger
from attacks by militant groups," the lawmaker told IPS.
"If the US and South Korea are true friends, then one of
them should be able to say 'no', if they have to."
