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Protesters undeterred by Lee's partial ban on U.S. beef imports
By Kim Hyun
SEOUL, June 4 (Yonhap) -- Civic protests against the government's controversial beef import deal with the U.S. showed little signs of abating on Wednesday, despite President Lee's Myung-bak's decision to impose an age limit on U.S. beef imports to address public fears over mad cow disease.
The student union of Seoul National University announced a plan to stage a one-day class boycott Thursday to protest the government's policy on U.S. beef, saying the boycott was overwhelmingly approved by the students in a vote conducted over the past week.
"The passage of the class boycott reflected students' demand for a complete renegotiation of the beef agreement with the U.S.," the union said in a statement.
Students at four universities in the southeastern city of Busan also boycotted classes on Wednesday to demonstrate their opposition to the beef deal.
The class boycotts mark a new trend in the beef protests, which have been attended by groups of friends, families and company colleagues. Various activist groups started emerging recently, such as the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions, an umbrella labor union whose 500 members waved their organization flags alongside individual protesters in the candlelight vigil Tuesday.
"Because we didn't want to cause misunderstanding that the labor organization is 'masterminding' the protest, our members have come voluntarily. But now that it has become evident that there's no mastermind, we came here today as an organization," a member of the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions said in the vigil at the plaza in front of Seoul City Hall.
A civic coalition of 1,700 activist groups, the People's Association Against Mad Cow Disease, said it will organize a rally for 72 hours straight starting Thursday.
The protests will soon expand into a court battle. Lawyers for a Democratic Society, a progressive organization, said it will submit a petition, signed by more than 100,000 citizens, later Wednesday asking the Constitutional Court to examine whether the full resumption of U.S. beef imports is constitutional.
In April, Seoul agreed with Washington to fully lift a U.S. beef import ban that was imposed in late 2003 after the outbreak of mad cow disease in the U.S.
Bowing to massive public criticism, the Korean government has delayed the implementation of the agreement three times. And Agriculture Minister Chung Woon-chun announced Tuesday that Seoul has asked Washington not to export meat from cattle older than 30 months.
Critics dubbed the move, however, "a stopgap measure" and called on the government to allow only boneless beef from cattle under 20 months old.
The developments came at a sensitive time in Korea, ahead of next week's sixth anniversary of the deaths of two middle school girls who were hit by a U.S. armored vehicle in 2002. After the accident, Koreans held massive protests with candles, leading U.S. President George W. Bush to express regret. Candlelight vigils have since become a popular method of peaceful protest in the country.
hkim@yna.co.kr
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