(Video source: Voice of People)

The residents expressed feeling betrayed by the Moon Jae-in administration and said little has changed since he replaced former President Park Geun-hye. The Seongju Stop THAAD Struggle Committee released the following statement on September 7:

Today the Moon Jae-in administration went above the law to illegally execute an “emergency action” by exercising dictatorial power.

Currently, the Blue House’s national security team is made up of personnel who are pro-U.S. and supporters of global capitalism. As long as these people continue to make up the government, the Moon administration will continue to betray [South Korean] citizens.

The unilateral decision to move forward with the THAAD deployment directly contradicts Moon Jae-in’s promise to ensure a decision based on a democratic process in the National Assembly based and a full-scale environmental impact assessment.

In the weeks leading up to September 7, the Moon administration had ordered a small-scale environmental impact assessment in place of a more thorough process. The assessment requires the government to conduct a survey of the residents, but the residents had refused to participate in the survey in protest of the government’s decision to forego a full-scale environmental impact assessment.

The residents of Seongju vow to continue their fight to reverse the THAAD deployment. The village leader of Soseong-ri announced:

We — Seongju, Gimcheon residents and Won Buddhists — will not be discouraged even though the four THAAD launchers made their way into the deployment site. The THAAD is a weapon of war. We will continue the fight for peace knowing that it could take five or even ten years.

By ZoominKorea staff