Korea: Two Deaths, Street Protests & Hunger Strike Result in Access Plans
By Mike Ervin (mervin4241@aol.com)
Kyung Seok Park doesn't look like a man not far removed from a 38- day protest hunger strike. He sits straight and strong and proud in his manual wheelchair and he has a satisfied smile. His shoulder length black hair with streaks of gray, tied back in a pony tail, has a healthy sheen.
From August 12 to September 19, 2002, Park slept on the floor of the National Committee for Human Rights in Seoul, South Korea, and consumed nothing but sugar water. "I probably lost 20 kilograms," he says "I had a big belly but now it's gone."
20 month campaign
It was the culmination of a 20- month campaign by a nameless group of Korean disability rights activists to pressure the Seoul government to commit to make all public transit in the city accessible. It's all documented on a dramatic and eerily familiar video tape Park brought with him when he visited the U.S. last fall. The street protests are quite reminiscent of the 1980s public transit protests in the United States, but with an even greater intensity. When the campaign began in January 2001, there were no accessible public buses in Seoul. Wheelchair access to train stations was provided by an array of makeshift, shoddy and very dangerous elevators and lifts.
Park, 42, was not a street-fighter type of activist. In the years since becoming a paraplegic after a 1983 hang gliding accident, he felt the sharpest stings of discrimination when he couldn't find work. He said: "I was very angry with the reality that even somebody with vocational training couldn't get a job."
In 1994, he began teaching at the Nodl Popular School, a school for kids with disabilities who have been shut out of the regular education system. He is now principal.
Fatal incident sparks new style of action
What sparked the new style of action was when a disabled man and his wife were killed when the elevator they were using to get to the Oido subway station plummeted seven meters after its cable snapped.
The video begins shortly after the Oido accident. A subway train is stopped at a station, its horn blasting. The train can't move because Park and several people are literally down on the tracks chanting for full and safe access and pumping their fists in the air. Some have gotten out of their chairs and lie with their heads on the rails.
An irate pedestrian accuses them of holding him hostage. "Sonuvabitch!" he spits.
An hour or so later, back up on the platform, the protesters and television cameras are gathered around Park. "This is the very right we deserve as human beings!" he shouts. "But the government sees it only as a headache! People just ignore it or take pity on us, throwing us pennies! We've been silenced too long! You can't kill us anymore!"
Street demonstration
A few weeks later during a street demonstration, they run several feet of chain through a long line of wheelchairs. The city police approach with riot shields. "Take it out," says the commander. The police move in forcefully and grab the non-disabled protesters first, pulling hard on clothes and limbs. But these protesters fight back. They tackle and shove. They ram the shields with their chairs. A man jumps from his chair and latches onto the leg of a policeman, who pulls him along the sidewalk.
But perhaps the most perilous scene simply shows a man in a wheelchair ascending about 50 steep stairs leading to the train station using a flimsy stair lift. As the lift chugs up slowly, it seems as if at any minute it could stall or collapse. Fortunately the passenger is a small man with tiny, twisted legs who weighs about 50 pounds. The platform doesn't look like it could take much more weight. After he makes it to the top the man says, "Sometimes it suddenly stops and I'm scared."
A universal script for bureaucrats?
Park's experience negotiating with bureaucrats during the campaign shows that they speak from the same script all over the world. The Seoul mayor's aide says, "The mayor is deeply concerned about the disabled people." But, he says the demonstrators would get further if they weren't so radical and instead sought change "bit by bit." The aide for the Prime Minister says they need to proceed "step by step." He says they need to talk to the minister of health and welfare.
An exasperated Park says, "We went to the minister of health and welfare and he said go to the minister of construction and transportation. So we went to the minister of construction and transportation and he said go to the minister health and welfare."
The Prime Minister's aide says, "It isn't the right time for us to get involved."
Another fatal incident prompts hunger strike
Then, in May 2002, another man was killed in a lift accident at another station. That's what brought on the fast. There were 21 participants in the beginning who vowed not to eat or leave the building until the municipal government not only met their demands for accessible transit by also publicly apologized for the deaths.
Many dropped out by the fourth day. Some were taken away in ambulances. Park was the only one left in the end. "At first I was so hungry I thought I was crazy." But the cravings wore off after a few days. He stayed in the building day and night. He went home only to shower. He kept up with his job as best as he could using a laptop and cell phone.
But by day 38 he was lying on a pallet outside on the sidewalk, holding a plastic bag full of ice to his forehead.
Seoul city government agrees to changes
Later that day, the city government agreed to install proper elevators in all train stations by 2004. They also agreed to purchase enough low-floor public busses with ramps to make the entire fleet accessible within 10 years.
Even though there was (and still has been) no acceptable apology, Park called off the hunger strike. He was rushed to the hospital where he spent a week before returning to work. In order to ease his digestive system back to normal, he ate only oatmeal for 40 days. "And I stopped smoking. So that's another achievement."
Park knows the next challenge is to seize the momentum and to use what they've learned about organizing and winning to build a national movement. "I believe living in the community with independence is our right. Without the transit we can't do it. In America there has been more than 30 years of independent living. But in Korea it's just starting. If we don't fight we'll never get out of the house."
|
