For the third installment of an ongoing interview series with our transnational allies, NOlympics LA spoke to Anti Pyeonchang Olympics Alliance, a coalition based in Seoul who has opposed Pyeongchang 2018 and is concerned about the looming threat of another Olympic bid in 2032. Members of Anti Pyeonchang Olympics Alliance and NOlympics LA are meeting in Tokyo this July.
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NOlympics LA: Who are the members of your group? How did you meet and when did you start organizing?
Anti Pyeonchang Olympics Alliance: We are from several groups who had already been working together on minority rights, ecology/environment, and urban issues: East Asia Ecotopia, Listen To The City, Info Shop Cafe, etc. When the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics were announced in 2009, there was a consensus on the main problems of hosting the Olympic Games and the anticipated negative impacts in Korea, especially the widespread environmental destruction. In 2014, we began monitoring as deforestation escalated on Gariwang Mountain, a protected site for the past five hundred years. We formed a network to communicate between regions, including Gangwon Province where the Olympics were held, and raised awareness of Olympic issues. In particular, we have worked closely with the Green Party and Citizens’ Monitoring Team in Gangneung, one of the venues for the Pyeongchang Olympics.
What are the key points of your campaign? How would you describe the political tendencies of the group?
We emphasize five major problems with the Olympics:
1) Nationalistic fervor and obsession with victory.
2) Absence of democratic communication.
3) Abuse of public resources.
4) Private profit from habitat destruction.
5) Human rights, especially with regards to gender and minority rights.
Since its modern reincarnation, the Olympics have been rooted in eugenics and racism. The Olympics encourage nationalism and foster obsession with domination. They are remnants of a past era that should vanish. South Korea suffers from deep societal divides that arise from the conflict with North Korea and geopolitical strife between more powerful nations.
Furthermore, Gangwon Province, where the Pyeongchang Olympics were held, has long been neglected in terms of public policy and economy. Residents of the marginalized Gangwon Province have come out against the schemes of politicians, real estate investors, and a handful of large corporations to further their own interests over the needs of the people. We believe that the appropriate way to address the provincial and national problems requires transparency, good governance, and a long term vision for the future; the Olympics will only bea stumbling block in this process. In addition, we are concerned with how the Olympics reinforce gender binaries and hegemonic views of normality, as well as the endemic violence within the athletics training sector. Recently, athletes in ice skating have come forward with accusations of rape, constant abuse and other systemic problems of the training sector. More attention needs to be paid to these abuses in the athletics community.
What is your general understanding of development and theories of gentrification?
In the 1970s, Korea’s military dictatorship drove economic development with support from the private sector. Development shifted toward urban renewal in preparation for the 1986 Asian Games and the 1988 Seoul Olympics. Brutal violence accompanied redevelopment, with gangs of enforcers dispatched to evict residents who stood in the way of real estate profits. This emphasis on redevelopment continues to be a major driving force in Korean society.
Redevelopment has led to the following problems:
1) Inequality has deepened despite policies intended to increase housing supply; more multi-family rental apartments for investment purposes have been built, instead of owner occupied units.
2) Erasure of urban history.
3) Redevelopment procedures that are so opaque that it is almost impossible for landowners, tenants and ordinary citizens who oppose redevelopment to understand the development process.
4) Lack of tenant rights protections.
5) Unfair rules that mandate redevelopment if more that 75% of the members of the redevelopment area approve, even if the other residents object. This is not just an eminent domain process by the government. More than 77 compulsory compliance laws give private sector actors such as redevelopment business associations the right to mandate redevelopment.
6) Forced evictions conducted by hired security thugs, with many residents put out onto the streets at night and even in the winter.
7) Severe environmental destruction.
No Pyeongchang consists of people who have been resisting unsustainable large-scale development and engineering projects all over Korea, including the displacement of small businesses and working class people. We are a grassroots resistance group that has investigated and publicized issues such as unchecked redevelopment, gentrification, dam construction, naval base construction, and nuclear power plant construction. It is from this perspective that we have raised questions about Olympic violence and gentrification.
Did you/do you target politicians and developers? What tactics did you use?
Given the optimistic expectations for the 2018 Pyeongchang Olympics and the positive perception of the 1988 Seoul Olympics, our primary goal was for more people to understand the problems and be able to criticize the Olympics. We sought to explain lesser-known issues, address some of the prevailing myths, and identify the politicians, corporations and public entities who are responsible.
What are your feelings about policing and surveillance and how the Olympics exacerbate them?
In 2016, the Anti-Terror Law was enacted to give greater authority to the National Intelligence Service (NIS). NIS has abused power in the past by interfering in presidential elections, conducting surveillance of civilians, and manipulating evidence in espionage cases. The Pyeongchang Olympic Counter-Terrorism Safety Headquarters, which oversees the security for the Olympics, was a collaboration between the police, military, NIS, and the counter-terrorism center established under the Anti-Terror Law. During the Olympics, the media and especially the foreign press reported that Pyeongchang was a “safe and peaceful Olympics,” and that it was rare to see guns, in contrast to the Sochi and Rio Olympics. However, near the stadium and main facilities, you could easily see the militarized presence of army troops, armored vehicles, military helicopters, and gun-toting security personnel – between 20,000 to 60,000 people were deployed every day.
In April 2017, Korea implemented a passenger advance confirmation system for air travel with the security of the Olympics in mind. At first glance this may sound similar to the US Advance Passenger Information System (APIS), but unlike APIS, which transmits the passenger information at the time of check-in, Korea’s passenger advance confirmation system requires the passenger information to be sent to the Ministry of Justice at the time of ticket purchase. This system gives unprecedented administrative power to immigration. Criteria for approval area also are so vague that they can be politically misused or abused against refugees and immigrants.
How are the Olympics and the IOC perceived in Korea?
The dominant view in Korea is that the Olympic Games is a place of fair competition and the realization of human values such as peace and harmony; the IOC is considered to be a trustworthy international organization. 2018 also marked the 30th anniversary of the 1988 Seoul Olympics, with many celebrations were held throughout the year. Many people remember the Seoul Olympics as a symbol of democracy and economic growth, despite the top-down destructive development projects and the protests and repression that also accompanied the 1988 Olympics. At the end of the 1980s, after decades of resistance to the military dictatorship, Korea’s democracy movement was flourishing and laid the foundation for democratization. This influences the positive public perception of the Pyeongchang Olympics, reflected in Seoul’s proposal to host the 2032 Olympics.
Tell us about what the Olympics felt like. Was there a strong police presence? How accessible were the facilities? What are some examples of something that happened in Korea during the games that affected local communities that the international press failed to pick up on?
When we visited Pyeongchang during the Olympics, we realized that events were largely closed to the public and were far less accessible to the surrounding community than we had thought. Most major sites, including the main stadium where the opening ceremony and the closing ceremony were held, were closed off by physical security measures. Soldiers and police were stationed on top of high security fences. The use of live ammunition and the deployment of military equipment was to get immediate approval.
Interpretation for the opening ceremonies, the closing ceremony, and the live broadcasts was not provided. When disabled activists and No Pyeongchang members tried to go the Paralympics opening ceremonies, we found there was no Braille available for the visually impaired, and some of the entrances and exits lacked accessible ramps preventing wheelchair users from entering. Inside the opening ceremony, wheelchair seats were very scarce, some of which were occupied by media crew and reporters, making them inaccessible. Wheelchair users who had even contacted the venue in advance were forced to wait without explanation due to the lack of accessible vehicles. During the Paralympic Games, accessible “no-step” buses were temporarily brought from Seoul to ferry people between key sites. In Gangwon Province, very little transportation is accessible to people with disabilities. For wheelchair users, there are almost no transportation options at all with the exception of high-speed rail.
Starting in 2015, Gangwon Province had already cut its welfare budget in preparation for the 2018 Winter Olympics. We can not help but wonder what part of the budget for hosting the Olympics and Paralympics could have been invested to improve accessibility to public transport and public facilities in the area.
A substantial portion of the Olympic budget, worth about 14 trillion Korean won (about $11.9 billion in U.S. dollars), was spent on building the Olympic facilities and road construction. However, to this day, one thousand construction workers have still not received their wages, totaling 1.1 billion won (nearly $1 million in U.S. dollars). Unpaid despite collective action as well as legal and administrative appeals, the workers staged a hunger strike in front of the main Olympic plaza to raise awareness of the wage theft during the Pyeongchang Olympic Games. However, there was no response from neither the construction companies, nor Gangwon Province, nor Olympic officials. Furthermore, no one is taking responsibility to address the problem of non-payment of shuttle bus drivers and many small businesses that provided facilities and services during the Olympics, with several hundreds of millions (in Korean won) still yet to be paid.
The Olympics have caused some unique problems that are not well known even in Korea. Based on the Olympic Special Act, eleven regions in Gangwon Province that did not have anything to do with the actual Olympics, have been designated as Olympic “Special Zones.” This designation overrides protections for provincial parks and various preservation areas, giving development rights to large construction companies and speculative investors. The 2018 Olympics are over, but Olympics-fueled development will continue until 2032.
How do you think the public will remember the Pyeongchang Olympics? In America, many of the headlines focus on the idea that Pyeongchang made money and was, therefore, a success. What do you think about that narrative?
Korean media also reported that the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics were profitable. As it is pointed out that Gangwon Province’s chronic budget problems have worsened due to the Olympics, more emphasis has been placed on the long-term economic effects in Gangwon Province. However, the report from the local government does not mention that many of the Olympic facilities and businesses rely on central government spending. The IOC and the central government’s financial assessments are making an intentional mistake in omitting taxeson social overhead capital (SOC) based on the Olympics Special Act. All of these calculations ignore the cost of restoring damaged forests and nature, the spillover effects of the deteriorating finances of Gangwon Province and Gangwon Province Development Corporation, which are responsible for the ownership and management of the extensive facilities left after the Olympics.
But most people in Korea do not pay much attention to these negative economic impacts and instead remember the Pyeongchang Olympics as the “Peace Olympics.” Many Koreans believe the Olympics provided an opportunity to resolve longstanding inter-Korean conflicts. With the first inter-Korean summit meeting since 2007 and the first North Korea – U.S. summit both held shortly after the Olympics, expectations for an end to the decades of conflict have been heightened. These hopes have also influenced public perception that the Olympic Games were a success. We at No Pyeongchang also hope that a peace treaty can be made as soon as possible, with genuine peace bringing an end to the 66 years of ceasefire since the1953 armistice agreement. But we do not believe that a settlement based on the interests of the powerful or military superpowers can bring about lasting peace.
What impacts have U.S. military (and South Korean military) presence have on the Pyeongchang Olympics and how activists have addressed the Olympics, especially as the
DMZ is quite close? What connections, if any, are there between No Pyeongchang and the anti-base movements?
There are many troops stationed in northern Gangwon Province, near the DMZ. Many of the unpaid workers mobilized during the Olympics were soldiers serving in the area. Seoul, the capital of Korea, is actually closer to the DMZ than Pyeongchang; about one quarter of Korea’s population lives in greater Seoul metropolitan area. U.S. military bases in Korea are concentrated in the northern part of Gangwon Province and the Seoul metropolitan area. Problems arising from the conflict with North Korea and the presence of U.S. military bases continue to make difficulties in the lives of many Koreans.
Many members of the Pyeongchang Olympic Solidarity are involved in the anti-military base and peace movements. There is ongoing resistance against the Korean government’s deceptive actions (unlike its external propaganda) have that have arisen due to the complex political interests at work in the US – ROK alliance and the conflict with North Korea. Despite Pyeongchang being dubbed the “Peace Olympics,” in April 2017 with the Olympics rapidly approaching, the Korean government escalated military tensions in Northeast Asia. Korean military and police actively collaborated with the U.S. military to deploy the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) missile shield system in Sogong-ri, Seongju County, North Gyeongsang Province.
For over a decade, a grassroots movement has been opposing the construction of a naval base in the village of Gangjeong, located on Jeju Island at the southernmost tip of Korea. The Korean government claims the base is intended for civil aviation, which will be a tourist destination and a boost for regional development. However, evidence suggests that Gangjeong Naval Base will be used as a strategic port-of-call for US naval vessels. In October 2018, following the successive hosting of the Olympics, Paralympic Games, South-North Korea Summit and the U.S. North Korea Summit, the International Fleet Review was staged at the Gangjeong Naval Base, with the announced themes of “peace, harmony and mutual benefit.” American nuclear-powered submarines and nuclear-powered aircraft carriers entered Gangjeong Naval Base during the Fleet Review, confirming suspicions that the naval base hadb een designed to meet the standards for U.S. Navy vessels. This is a serious threat to peace in Korea and the Asia Pacific region. Furthermore, the Korean government once again revealed their deliberate deceptions and the wide gulf between their propaganda and their actions. We do not want the colonizer’s “peace” gained by having a stronger military advantage and the oppression of others. A true, meaningful peace can only be realized if we continue to create a more democratic and transparent society.
Tell us about your experience handing off the anti-Olympic torch to the activists in Tokyo recently.
No Pyeongchang activists visited Tokyo and delivered the anti-Olympics torch in November 2018. The Tokyo Olympics are a nationalist project that seeks to distract from the ongoing problems in Fukushima [due to the March 2011 tsunami and the nuclear reactor disaster]. It takes a lot of courage to oppose the Olympics in a conservative Japanese society. In Japan, opposition to the Olympics included people who also questioned Japan’s imperial dynasty as an institution. We also met activists who critiqued the Olympics from feminist perspectives. This visit was an important opportunity to contemplate the new form of neoliberal colonialism that reaches far beyond the Asian societies which went through the violence of World Wars I and II, and the colonizer and colonized relationship that has characterized the relations between the Japanese and Korean people.
In Tokyo, we held protests and marches at the Olympics disaster zones, where a park had been destroyed after evicting homeless residents, the stadium, the new building of the Japan Olympic Association, and commercial facilities for the Olympics that are being built. We met former residents of the Kasumigaoka Apartments who were forcibly displaced due the 2020 Olympics, some of whom had already been displaced before for the 1964 Tokyo Olympics. In a small park where homeless people had been displaced to after the closure of the park in which they had been living, we screened the documentary “Sanggye-dong Olympics” which depicts the forced demolitions of 1988 Seoul Olympics. We visited the Tsukiji market, which is being demolished for the construction of the Olympic road, and other Olympic sites under development project near Tokyo Bay. We also learned about the situation in Paris, which is undergoing massive redevelopment ahead of the 2024 Olympics.We want to continue talking with the activists in Japan about how to make cities for everyone, instead of cities that are being reorganized for the benefit of the few.
How do you think the anti-Olympic movement can grow and put more pressure on the IOC? Where is the IOC vulnerable? How can we as organizers collaborate better across cities?
While it is important to inform people about the fundamental problems with the Olympics and the IOC in order to stop the Olympic disaster, whether in host cities or projected host cities, we are in consensus on the importance of transitioning to an equitable society overall. We believe it is essential to expand grassroots networks in order to achieve open communication and democratic discussion. This can be seen from the fact that many of the cities bidding for the Olympics are in the control of a powerful elite, with weak democratic processes for decision-making.
At the same time, we need to expand the consensus that the opaque and unrepresentative IOC must not exploit and profit off our public resources any longer. To do this, we need to keep track of what really happens and what problems have been hidden behind the spectacle of the Olympics. If the IOC’s strongest allies are corrupt governments and unscrupulous corporations, the IOC’s strongest enemy is the reality of the Olympic disaster in the host society. That is why the IOC is doing its best to conceal the truth and falsely inflate the value of the Olympics.
Do you believe the IOC is reformable or does the Olympic system need to be completely dismantled?
We believe that the IOC is very unlikely to be reformed fundamentally. It is time to end the Olympics.
What is your vision for an alternative transnational sporting event?
The major Winter Olympic games are those that are unpopular in Korea. After the Pyeongchang Olympics, high-profile Korean athletes have spoken up about structural problems in the sporting world and the physical abuse they or their colleagues have experienced.Revealing these long buried problems is the first step forward in a long hard path to resolution. These issues are not unique to Korea. In order for international sporting events tofind their place as truly public events, national and local sporting associations must first eradicate abuse and inequality in their own organizations. In addition, international sporting events that are planned by, and take into consideration the host city’s needs will result in much more appropriate alternatives.
What is your vision for an alternative version of your city that is impervious to events and projects like the Olympics?
Those willing to sell out the future of our city for personal gain will continue to try to incapacitate the inspection system and the public watchdogs of public resources that have been achieved only after much collective struggle. In addition to the Seoul and Pyeongchang Olympics, Korea has repeatedly been the host for mega-events such as the Asian Games, the World Cup, Universiade, Motorsport Competition, and etc. These examples inspire local and regional governments to continue to try to attract events, as they angle for political benefit. While the private sector and politicians reap the benefits of these mega-events, nobody takes responsibility for the aftermath and the major impacts on everyone in the region. Gangwon Provincial Governor Choi was re-elected in June 2018, just a few months after the Pyeongchang Olympics. Many local governments are pushing to host a mega event because of the example of the Pyeongchang Olympics. If we insist that they take responsibility for the social disasters that result from mega-events, we can put the brakes on these irresponsible attempts to abuse public resources to gain political and financial capital.
It looks like there may be a joint Korean bid for 2032. What are your thoughts around organizing around that?
On February 15, 2019, the Minister of Culture and Sports of the Republic of Korea and the North Korean sports minister officially announced their intention to submit a joint bid to the IOC; this followed the earlier announcement by the Korean government of its intention to host the North-South Joint Olympic Games. Koreans yearn for the resolution of the conflict with North Korea. The division of Korea is a profound tragedy and has directly and indirectly causedmany social conflicts across Korean modern history. Naturally, there is a deep longing to bring the corrosive conflict to an end and move toward the future. However, we do not believe that a permanent peace can be achieved through events devised by the few to benefit their interests. After the conclusion of war and conflict, it is crucial to think about what kind of society we are creating for this new era of peace. If we do not strengthen the foundations for a transparent and fair society today, it is difficult to be optimistic about the future. That is why we believe the Olympics are a stumbling block to peace and our future, as the Olympics bypass democratic decision making processes and give the powerful and unchecked capital the opportunity to exploit public domains. The Panmunjom Declaration, adopted after the inter-Korean summit in 2018, includes several concrete plans to develop areas in North Korea. International investment capital is already interested in resource development in North Korea. We believe that these proposals should be carefully scrutinized in order to ensure the sustainability of natural habitats and future generations. Given the consistent negative effects of the Olympics and the IOC’s track record, we worry that the North-South Joint Olympics will become a tool for uncontrolled development and environmental degradation.
Please feel free to let us know if you’d like to discuss anything else or if you have questions for us!
We are concerned by the impacts of the Olympics in the region as a whole and not just in Korea. In particular, we are working to build solidarity with people in Beijing, the host city for the 2022 Winter Olympics. It is risky to engage in grassroots resistance and activism in China, but we think we will be able to find some opportunities. Please let us know if you are aware of any groups that are opposing the Beijing Winter Olympics or groups that are monitoring the current situation. We also want to strategize more about how to create solidarity in the face of such oppression, from outside and inside China.