World
Freed South Korean Salt Farm Slaves Struggle to Move On
FOSTER KLUG, Associated Press
KIM TONG-HYUNG, Associated Press
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — One freed South Korean salt-farm slave appeared in court Wednesday to confront his former boss. Another, sick of life in a homeless shelter, has been considering his one-time owner’s request that he come back.
They are among dozens of disabled men liberated in the past year from salt farms on remote islands in southwestern South Korea where a months-long investigation by The Associated Press found that slavery still thrives. The men, in many cases, have mixed feelings about their freedom. Several say they would rather return to the farms, however brutal, than live in grim homeless shelters.
Here are a few of their stories:
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THE ESCAPEE
Kim Seong-baek’s dramatic escape from slavery prompted outrage last year, but despite a massive government investigation and short-lived public anger, officials haven’t kept their promises to build a center for freed slaves and help them get jobs.
Kim, who was rescued after Seoul police staged an undercover mission on Sinui Island, testified Wednesday as his former boss and a job agent appeared in a Seoul court to appeal their prison sentences. Kim spoke about being lured to a salt farm from a Seoul train station in 2012, staring at one point at his boss and the agent.
Kim, who occasionally works construction in Seoul, has no desire to go back; he says even looking at salt disgusts him. He still struggles with nightmares, with constant pain from the beatings he endured as a slave and with feelings of unchecked rage at his former boss.
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FREE BUT ‘TRAPPED’
Life as a salt-farm slave was so bad for Kim Jong-seok that he sometimes fantasized about killing the owner who beat him daily. Freedom, he says, has been worse.
In the year since police emancipated the severely mentally disabled man from the remote island farm where he had worked for eight years, Kim has lived in a homeless shelter, where he has been preyed upon and robbed by other residents. He has no friends, no job training prospects or counseling, and feels confined and deeply bored.
“I want to go back,” Kim, 41, said during a recent interview in the shelter near Mokpo, the southwestern mainland port that is the gateway to dozens of salt islands.
“I feel trapped here,” he said.
Kim says he’s considering an offer by his ex-owner, who is being investigated for abuse but hasn’t been arrested. The farmer recently visited the shelter and asked if Kim would work for him again for about $90 a month.
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20 YEARS A SLAVE
Han Sang-deok was freed by police last year after 20 years working without pay on a Sinui island salt farm.
“I just worked. I was there on my own. I went to work, I slept. Like that,” the 64-year-old mentally disabled man said in an interview at a cafe in Mokpo.
Han moved back in with his family, who had gone years thinking he was dead. He pauses for a long time when asked about his future plans. He finally says, “I don’t know what I should do.”
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ANGRY AND LOST
Lee Hyang-gyun was freed from slavery in 2006, but he still finds himself consumed by anger and resentment.
He was 15 when two men grabbed him at a train station in a port town in southern South Korea and sold him to a rice farmer on an island near Sinui. For the next 18 years he was slave, working 15 hours a day, beaten at times, and living in a hut with no heat.
“My mind and body were aching,” Lee, 41, said in an interview.
Lee expressed no desire to return to the farms, but he feels lost and neglected. He said no one will hire him because he is mentally disabled. He lives off a small government pension.
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STEPPING TOWARD NEW LIFE
Heo Tae-yeong may be one of the lucky ones. He has a guardian who orchestrated his move from a Mokpo area homeless shelter to a residential facility for the mentally disabled in Gwangju.
Heo, who cannot read or count, worries that he will struggle in a new environment, but is excited about the idea of learning job skills in Gwangju. He hopes to one day work in a factory.
When asked what he’ll do with the money he earns, Heo takes a long drag off his cigarette.
He doesn’t know. “I’ve never had any money.”
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Foster Klug is AP’s Seoul chief of bureau. Follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/apklug
Copyright 2015 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Barbara Lee
Congresswoman Barbara Lee Issues Statement on Deaths of Humanitarian Aid Volunteers in Gaza
On April 2, a day after an Israeli airstrike erroneously killed seven employees of World Central Kitchen (WCK), a humanitarian organization delivering aid in the Gaza Strip, a statement was release by Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA-12). “This is a devastating and avoidable tragedy. My prayers go to the families and loved ones of the selfless members of the World Central Kitchen team whose lives were lost,” said Lee.
By California Black Media
On April 2, a day after an Israeli airstrike erroneously killed seven employees of World Central Kitchen (WCK), a humanitarian organization delivering aid in the Gaza Strip, a statement was release by Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA-12).
“This is a devastating and avoidable tragedy. My prayers go to the families and loved ones of the selfless members of the World Central Kitchen team whose lives were lost,” said Lee.
The same day, it was confirmed by the organization that the humanitarian aid volunteers were killed in a strike carried out by Israel Defense Forces (IDF). Prior to the incident, members of the team had been travelling in two armored vehicles marked with the WCF logo and they had been coordinating their movements with the IDF. The group had successfully delivered 10 tons of humanitarian food in a deconflicted zone when its convoy was struck.
“This is not only an attack against WCK. This is an attack on humanitarian organizations showing up in the direst situations where food is being used as a weapon of war. This is unforgivable,” said Erin Gore, chief executive officer of World Central Kitchen.
The seven victims included a U.S. citizen as well as others from Australia, Poland, the United Kingdom, Canada, and Palestine.
Lee has been a vocal advocate for a ceasefire in Gaza and has supported actions by President Joe Biden to airdrop humanitarian aid in the area.
“Far too many civilians have lost their lives as a result of Benjamin Netanyahu’s reprehensible military offensive. The U.S. must join with our allies and demand an immediate, permanent ceasefire – it’s long overdue,” Lee said.
Bay Area
Nigerian Bank Chief Killed in Helicopter Crash on Way to Superbowl XVIII
According to the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Dept., the crash occurred near Nipton, on the edge of the Mojave Desert Preserve. The poor weather conditions — rain, wind and snow showers—may have contributed to the accident, although the investigation is not complete. All six aboard were killed. Herbert Wigwe, 57, founded Access Bank in 1989, and it became the country’s largest competitor, Diamond Bank in 2018.
By Post Staff
The co-founder of one of Nigeria’s largest banks died with his wife, son and three others when the helicopter transporting them from Palm Springs, Ca., to Boulder City, Nev. to attend the fifty-eighth SuperBowl at the stadium outside Las Vegas crashed on Feb. 9.
According to the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Dept., the crash occurred near Nipton, on the edge of the Mojave Desert Preserve. The poor weather conditions — rain, wind and snow showers—may have contributed to the accident, although the investigation is not complete. All six aboard were killed
Herbert Wigwe, 57, founded Access Bank in 1989, and it became the country’s largest competitor, Diamond Bank in 2018.
More recently, Wigwe was planning to open a banking service in Asia this year after making successful expansions to other parts of Africa, including South Africa, Kenya, and Botswana.
Nigerian President Bola Tinubu described Wigwe’s death as an ‘overwhelming tragedy.”
Oakland resident and Nigerian immigrant Kayode Gbadebo agrees with Tinubu. He met Wigwe in Nigeria but crossed paths with him in London in 2006. Wigwe, he said, “took risks.”
He was young and people thought he couldn’t do what he intended, which was not so much about money but community.
“He was more like Jesus in washing the feet of the poor– Wigwe was culturizing community,” Gbadebo said.
“There will never be another like him. This is a deep, deep loss” and he hopes everyone will eventually “be comforted.”
He was also disappointed that a replacement has already been named even before Wigwe is buried. “It is not reasonable. You don’t want a vacuum, but it’s” not fair to the family, Gbadebo observed.
Wigwe had also been working to solve the migration issues from African countries, believing that “investing in higher education was key to controlling mass migration, which “is destabilising countries across the world,” BBC News reported.
“We need to take a holistic approach to address global migration, starting with our traditional framework for international development,” Wigwe wrote.
To that end, according to BBC News, Wigwe was preparing to open Wigwe University in Niger, where he was from.
“The best place to limit migration is not in the middle of the Mediterranean or the English Channel or the Rio Grande. It is in the home countries that so many migrants are so desperate to leave,” he wrote, saying his university was an opportunity for him “to give back to society.”
Besides Wigwe and his wife, Chizoba Nwuba Wigwe, and one son, two crew members and Bimbo Ogunbanjo, former group chairman of the Nigerian Exchange Group Plc, were also killed in the crash.
According to Wikipedia, three other children survive Wigwe.
In his statement reported in People magazine, Tinubu described Wigwe as “a distinguished banker, humanitarian, and entrepreneur.”
“I pray for the peaceful repose of the departed and ask God Almighty to comfort the multitude of Nigerians who are grieving and the families of the deceased at this deeply agonizing moment,” the president said.
He added, “Their passing is an overwhelming tragedy that is shocking beyond comprehension.”
Besides feeling the tremendous loss, Gbadebo fears the disorder and greed that will follow. “It’s a mess,” he said.
People magazine, BBC News and Wikipedia were the sources for this report.
Activism
No Valid Reason for Failing to Condemn Hamas’ Act of Terrorism
On Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terrorists crossed the Israel-Gaza border and indiscriminately slaughtered Israeli civilians in their homes. They killed nearly 300 young people at a music festival and took at least 200 hostages including 30 children. The atrocities they committed included massacres of families, abduction of the elderly and children, burning of babies and rapes of women.
By Joe W. Bowers Jr.
California Black Media
OPINION
On Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terrorists crossed the Israel-Gaza border and indiscriminately slaughtered Israeli civilians in their homes.
They killed nearly 300 young people at a music festival and took at least 200 hostages including 30 children. The atrocities they committed included massacres of families, abduction of the elderly and children, burning of babies and rapes of women.
The horrific surprise attack deserves universal and unequivocal condemnation. President Joe Biden called what Hamas did “an act of sheer evil” and pledged to defend the lives of Israelis and Jewish Americans.
He said, “Let there be no doubt. The United States has Israel’s back. We’ll make sure the Jewish and democratic state of Israel can defend itself today, tomorrow, as we always have.”
Hamas killed approximately 1,400 people including 32 Americans. Citizens from 40 different countries including the United Kingdom, France, Mexico, and Thailand were killed or reported missing.
Hamas fighters breached Israel’s border defenses on the final day of Sukkot while soldiers were away due to the holiday and launched attacks on 22 towns outside the Gaza Strip. This security lapse has been described as a catastrophic failure of Israel’s intelligence agencies..
Hamas is an extremist Islamist militant organization that has governed the Gaza Strip since 2007. It is recognized as an Iranian-backed terrorist group by the U.S. and the European Union and has a long history of violence against Jews and Palestinians, the latter of whom they often use as human shields.
While there have been plenty of groups who have unequivocally condemned the massacres, there are a number who haven’t, including organizations such as the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), Black Alliance for Peace, Red Nation, and independent Black Lives Matter (BLM) chapters (excluding the national Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation).
The DSA San Francisco chapter put out a statement on Oct. 9 that said, “Socialists support the Palestinian people’s, and all people’s, right to resist and fight for their own liberation. This weekend’s events are no different.”
Student organizations at a number of universities and colleges in California signed a solidarity statement titled “Resistance Uprising in Gaza” from Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP). The statement attributes the violence of the Hamas attack to what it refers to as Israeli apartheid and occupation.
The SJP statement written by Bears for Palestine at UC Berkeley says, “We support the resistance, we support the liberation movement, and we indisputably support the Uprising.” Essentially, these students are indirectly associating themselves with Hamas’ barbaric acts under the guise of “resistance.”
Signing the statement were 51 student organizations including those from Stanford, UC Berkeley, UCLA, UC Davis, UC San Diego, CSU Sacramento, and USC.
A statement signed by 34 Harvard student organizations said, “We, the undersigned student organizations, hold the Israeli regime entirely responsible for all unfolding violence.”
Many university leaders, where these students are enrolled, have been guilty of failing to unequivocally condemn Hamas and for inadequately addressing their students’ expressed support for Hamas.
Several Stanford faculty members, including three Nobel laureates, condemned Stanford’s administrators’ weak response to acts of terrorism and the expression of pro-Hamas sentiments by students on campus.
Israel unilaterally withdrew from Gaza in 2005. It dismantled 21 Israeli settlements in the territory and handed them over to the Palestinian Authority.
The assault by Hamas on Oct. 7 was not an ordinary clash with Israel. Hamas’ actions resulted in the deadliest single day for Jews since the Holocaust.
While there are valid reasons for protesting Israel’s treatment of Palestinians and a real reckoning with the Israeli government on its policies is long overdue, nothing justifies Hamas’ attack.
Israelis who were killed largely had nothing to do with the conditions of Palestinians in Gaza. Some of the victims weren’t even Israeli — they were just tourists.
The students blaming Israel for the atrocities committed by Hamas have faced criticism. Some groups have withdrawn their endorsements because of the backlash aimed at them. Others have doubled down on their activism. SJP held a “National Day of Resistance” on several campuses.
Several CEOs have asked Harvard to disclose a list of members from the organizations assigning responsibility to Israel to insure they do not hire any of their members. A Berkeley law professor has also urged firms not to hire his students who have publicly blamed Israel for the war.
This California Black Media report was supported in whole or in part by funding provided by the State of California, administered by the California State Library.
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