The latest in Korean fast food.
Posted on 03/14/2005 10:00:34 AM PST by Sax
SEOUL (Reuters) - Two Koreans used weed clippers and a knife to lop off fingers on Monday outside the Japanese embassy in Seoul to protest at Tokyo's claims on a group of desolate islands that South Korea (news - web sites) insists is its territory.
Reuters Photo
Park Kyung-ja, a 67-year-old woman, and Cho Seung-kyu, 40, each chopped off a finger during a rally at the embassy gates.
The long-simmering dispute over the islands, called Tokto in Korea and Takeshima in Japan, flared as Tokyo and Seoul were celebrating the 40th anniversary of diplomatic ties.
Park and Cho struggled with police in riot gear guarding the embassy as they severed their digits. Police said the pair were then rushed away for medical treatment.
The two were part of a group of 16 people that burned Japanese flags and shouted slogans accusing Japan of acting as Korea's colonial overlord. Japan ruled the Korean Peninsula from 1910 to 1945.
"Japan must stop the attempt to invade Tokto," demanded Hong Jung-shik, who leads an anti-Japan organization based in Seoul.
Japanese Ambassador Toshiyuki Takano was in Tokyo on Monday to discuss the sudden deterioration of bilateral ties.
The dispute dates back 60 years to the end of World war two, when a defeated Japan withdrew from the peninsula. The volcanic islands, uninhabited except for a South Korean garrison, sit astride rich fishing grounds.
South Korean government officials have said that the territorial dispute could harm the neighbors' warming ties.
"No country in the world conducts quiet diplomacy when it comes to territorial rights," ruling Uri Party member Kim Won-wung said on South Korea's KBS radio.
The dispute over the rocky outcrops in the Sea of Japan, which South Korea refers to as the East Sea, flared in late February when Takano restated Tokyo's position that the islands were "historically and legally" part of Japan.
The islands lie midway between Japan and South Korea, about 220 km (140 miles) from the eastern Korean port of Samchok and the same distance from Matsue in western Japan.
What a couple of idiots.
hold my kim chee
Cutting off your nose to spite your face alert!
Noses, faces, Lorena Babbit. No thanks.
I'd like to point out that I think this is stupid...
The antics of the mentally unstable will not add legitimacy to one's cause.
Can I have there rings?
FMCDH(BITS)
I've heard of "giving 'em the finger"...but this is ridiculous.
I'll bet that when they were kids, they held their breath to get what they wanted.
It's possible that this was done in reference to the Japanese Yakuza practice of severing the pinkie for misdeeds.
Its going to start to feel a lot better after it stops hurting! (Thats what I always say to myself as I hop around right after I stub my toe.)
Japanese are rofltao.
They should send the digits to North Korea. Could feed an entire village for a week.
Did the fingers have purple ink on them?
"....Many Koreans will probably see this as a noble act and blame Japan.....
Here in the US, it'll be Bush's fault!
"Could feed an entire village for a week"
LOL, good one
Now they can't even count to 10 anymore ...
The latest in Korean fast food.
Pull my finger
I'll never understand this.
You can only engage in this sort of protest so many times (I think ten is the precise count... unless you go to toes.).
The two island in the middle..
WOuldn't that be "FingerCut"?
Idiots. Cutting off a finger when a good turd is a renewable protest gesture.
Yup. that'll work. If we chop off our fingers, they have to listen to us.
who is Oka, and what did they do to offend?
He attends a political rally and a student riot and makes the usual outrageous observations regarding both.
I'm beginning to wonder if these people are actually human! Maybe they're all from a different planet originally. How else could someone do that stuff to themselves??? Self-immolation, cutting off body parts, starving themselves to death, blowing themselve up, etc. I mean, don't they feel PAIN???? HOW can they do it?? If I so much as stub my TOE, I go nuts. Geeeeez! Are they really human???? One has to wonder.
S. Korean left-wing government has been shooting themselves in the foot by thoughtlessly alienating U.S.. Players around Korean Peninsula perceives a developing power vacuum. It was S. Korean intention to fill the vacuum left by U.S., if U.S. backs off. On the contrary, it is now Japan and China which are moving to do it, pushing aside S. Korea.
Dimwits in S. Korean lefty government mistakenly believe that they can automatically fill the vacuum. The truth is that, unless you have sufficient power, somebody else will fill it instead.
China makes movements to further boost its influence into N. Korean territory, while Japan now made explicit territorial claims to the island they contested for so long. Japanese Ambassador to S. Korea did so officially. Japan would squeeze in other ways. They have some wish list for a while, especially ultra-rightwing faction. They will do what was previously considered blatant and provocative. This will unfortunately include more blatant cover-up of their wartime atrocities and militarist period. Unless the situation in E. Asia, especially N. Korean nuclear crisis, would improve fast, it won't be long before Japan will do the final act, dropping Article 9 of Constitution. And Japanese military will project itself all over E. Asia.
Creating a vacuum is not good unless you are capable of filling it. The reality-challenged lefty mentality of spoiled brats in S. Korea could become a costly luxury.
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