Forcible base-related displacement of local populations continued into the 2000s

Evidence

The displacement has not stopped. In 2006, in South Korea, the U.S. military wanted to expand Camp Humphreys, which already occupied two square miles, as part of the consolidation of U.S forces south of Seoul. At the behest of the military, the South Korean government used eminent domain to seize 2,851 acres of farmers’ land from Daechuri village and other areas near the city of Pyongtaek. When the farmers resisted, the government sent police and soldiers to enforce the evictions. Riot police went into Daechuri with bulldozers and backhoes, beating protesters, destroying a local school, and tearing up farmers’ rice fields and irrigation systems. When many still refused to leave, the government surrounded the village with police, soldiers, and barbed wire. In April 2007, the last villagers finally were forced to go. “I can’t stop shedding tears,” one older resident said. “My heart is totally broken.” — David Vine, Base Nation_ How U.S. Military Bases…, 215

Categorization

Category: Factual Claims

• XREF: Directly contradicts the common framing that displacement was a mid-century, decolonization-era phenomenon; connects to the chapter’s ‘displacements are the norm’ thesis.

Related

• South Korea forcibly evicted farmers for a U.S. base expansion in 2006. (similarity 0.89)
• South Korea violently evicted villagers to expand a U.S. base in 2006-2007. (similarity 0.88)

Broader Connections

• The drought let Siyad force sedentarization and detribalization on displaced nomads #expands (0.70)
• European colonial careers routinely displaced families across vast distances #corroborates (0.60) — Ann Laura Stoler, Along the Archival Grain_ Epistemic…, 1475