Massive rally opposes North

Thousands of South Korean citizens opposed to communist North Korea rallied yesterday in front of City Hall, waving the Korean and American flags to celebrate the March 1st Independence Movement Day.
The largely conservative crowd, estimated at 30,000 and made up of 140 civic groups such as Christian Council of Korea and Korea Freedom League chanted, “Down with nuclear weapons, Down with Kim Jong-il” in the streets and burned North Korean flags.
Called the “National rally to purge pro-North leftist power and corruption,” those at the gathering declared they would oppose the election of pro-North Korea politicians in the upcoming general elections next month.
The Association for the Pacific War Victims held a rally commemorating the independence movement against Japanese colonialists in 1919 by demanding the Japanese apologize for the past wrongdoings. A spokeman for the group said: “Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi must stop making reckless remarks concerning Tokto and must not pay respects to the Yasukuni Shrine.”
Tokto is a tiny group of islands that have been the subject of a territorial dispute between Korea and Japan for many years. Yasukuni is a memorial that honors Japan’s war dead, including convicted war criminals.
The group also burned an effigy of Koizumi to protest against the Japanese government’s lack of remorse for the brutal occupation of Korea between1919 and 1945.
About 300 members of pro-North “liberal” groups such as Solidarity for Unification and Council for National Reconciliation and Cooperation staged a rally in Tapgol Park in Jongno yesterday afternoon called the “March 1 Rally for Peace and Unification.” The group adopted a declaration that included points such as to uphold the June 15 Joint Declaration by North and South Korea, to fight against Japan’s distortion of history as well as its militarism, and to seek national independence and peace. The group said that, in order to prevent war on the Korean Peninsula, both Koreas must work towards unity.
Also, crowds of 600 young people from 12 cities gathered near Jongno as part of a flash mob gathering to wave the Korean flag and chant, “Long live the Republic of Korea!”

by Bae No-pil, Choi Jie-ho