South Korean civil groups rally against joint military exercise with United State

South Korean civil groups rally against joint military exercise with United State

Seoul : South Korean peace groups held a protest rally on Monday against the country’s joint military exercise with the United States, which they said had boosted confrontation and the war crisis on and around the Korean Peninsula.

The protesters from the Solidarity for Peace and Reunification of Korea (SPARK) civil groups gathered near the presidential office in central Seoul, where the defence ministry is also headquartered, to call for peace on the peninsula, reported a news agency.

Lifting banners and placards displaying slogans of “Stop the exercise that intensifies nuclear confrontation and encourages war crisis” and “Stop building the South Korea-US-Japan alliance”. The protesters shouted, “Against against against participating in the South Korea-US military exercise.”

“Nuclear confrontation and war crisis could end up in a nuclear war, which will bring about the extinction of our people and, if it is expanded, bring about nuclear devastation in northeast Asia,” one of the participants of the rally said. “Even now, the authorities of South Korea and the United States should immediately stop the joint military exercise,” he added.

“We are here to warn you that this (military exercise) will not bring peace, but war. Peace cannot be brought about by the South Korea-US-Japan war alliance, nuclear alliance and pre-emptive strike exercise,” said another protester.

The Ulchi Freedom Shield (UFS) exercise, an annually staged summertime military exercise, featuring field manoeuvres, a computer-simulated command post exercise and civil defence drills, kicked off earlier in the day and is scheduled to continue until August 29.

South Korea has claimed that the UFS exercise is defensive in nature, but North Korea has denounced the exercise as a dress rehearsal for a northward invasion.

During the 11-day exercise, the combined forces plan to expand field training and live-fire drills across multiple domains to strengthen interoperability and showcase their combined capabilities, South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said in a statement.

JCS noted that the combined forces would further strengthen capability and posture to deter and defend against weapons of mass destruction.

Another group of activists rallied against the UFS exercise near the presidential office, clamouring for the end of the war exercise and the launch of a dialogue between the two Koreas.

“The strengthened interoperability between the forces of South Korea and the United States is nothing more than a deepened subordination of South Korean forces to the US strategic mobilisation,” Korea Peace Appeal, an organiser of the rally, said in a statement.

“The establishment in Asia of the US-led multilateral military cooperation mechanism is worrisome as it leads to intensifying regional conflicts and escalating war crises,” the organiser added.