Just 10 years ago, on January 20, 2009, a tower burned on the rooftop of a Yongsan building. It was a hellish incident that has yet to heal. About 30 residents held a sit-in protest on the top of the building asking for a proper compensation after a decision to develop the area.
Five men from 50 to 70 years of age and one of the riot police officers died in the fire and many others were injured. The lawyer mentions the two legal issues at the trial. The first, when the riot police entered the building and came face to face with the squatters all admitted they did not see any of the squatters using Molotov cocktails. But at the trial, the prosecutors closed their eyes to this evidence, all the blame was given to the squatters.
Were the actions of the riot police justified? This was the second issue. It was later acknowledged that after they mobilized over two hundred riot police they fabricated the incident as city terror on the internet. In the beginning, all was quiet and questions where asked about the activity of the police. The evidence from an investigation mentioned that excessive force was used by the police. This was suppressed and hidden all the way to the final judgment.
The money that the companies made for the redevelopment of Yongsan was big money. Those who were displaced were the ones who developed the commercial area for decades and increased the value of the real estate and when the compensation came it was about 23 thousand dollars on the average for each householder or business. It was half of the price of the initial investment and a joke when it came to finding a place to begin again in an adjacent area.
The lawyer asks the prosecutor, the lawyers and all those in a similar circumstance: would they not have gone to the tower to demand their rights? Six people died in the tower. Those who survived were given prison terms of four or five years. Those who enforced the suppression were promoted. Last year, president Moon Jae-in's administration did pardon all those who were imprisoned.
Here is another case where the vested interests control what is done in society and with no surprises. We also do see small gains as in this case—after Yongsan, a revised decree on the demolition of a building—the residents cannot be forcefully evicted in wintertime, at night or during bad weather.
The writer ends with an allusion to how many make money with their real estate holdings very easily without effort and those with little often lose overnight what they have worked for a lifetime to earn. And concludes by asking who are responsible for the hell that 'little people' have to experience in life as in the Yongsan incident?
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