Major protests cost Korea dear

Protests related to five major state development projects have cost the nation some 134 billion won ($138 million) in taxpayers` money, according to a report released yesterday.

The Dankook Center for Dispute Resolution estimated the social costs incurred by civic unrest against the expansion of the U.S. military base in Pyeongtaek, construction of a nuclear storage site in Buan, a land reclamation project in Saemangeum, and two tunnel projects through Mounts Bukhan and Cheonseong.

The research, led by Dankook University professors Lee Sung-woo and Seo Moon-suk, calculated labor losses from protests, police expenditure for the maintenance of social order, and wasted time due to traffic disruption.

Protests against the government plan to expand a U.S. Army base in Pyeongtaek, Gyeonggi Province, was estimated to have cost a total of 53.7 billion won including 10 billion won in lost labor. Disruptions to traffic and police expenses cost over 43 billion won, it said.

The protests began in 2004 and continued until September last year with some 74,210 protesters and 187,800 riot police involved.

The study also found demonstrations to protest the government`s push to build a nuclear waste facility in Buan, North Jeolla Province, cost the nation 53.2 billion won with over 31.9 billion won in labor loss costs.

Traffic disruption and police expenses reached over 21 billion. A total of 229,158 people rallied against the construction plan over a period of seven months from July 2003 and 49,900 policemen were dispatched to prevent disturbances.

"A lot of money was lost due to traffic problems and social turmoil in the anti-Pyeongtaek base protests because they were mostly held in central city areas," the DCDR said. "On the other hand, labor losses accounted for the largest portion of the Buan protest expenses because a large number of Buan residents stayed away from work to participate in the demonstrations."

Rallies against the controversial Saemanguem dike project cost 15.9 billion won with 7 billion won in labor losses and 8.9 billion related to traffic and police costs. The anti-Saemangeum protests continued for six years from 2000 until the court decided in favor of continuing the controversial project. Since 1991, over 1.9 trillion won has been spent on this project to reclaim land in North Jeolla Province.

The protests against building tunnels through Mount Bukhan in Seoul and Mount Cheonseong in South Gyeongsang Province cost 5.7 billion and 5.5 billion won, respectively.

Because the anti-tunnel construction campaigns were usually held in provincial areas with participants mostly being environmental activists, the costs were relatively small, the report said.

The researchers came up with the cost by adding production losses caused by absent workers, traffic disturbance expenses and costs to the authorities for maintaining social order. However, the DCDR did not include expenses arising from the delay of government projects.

The production losses were calculated by multiplying the number of protesters to the urban worker households` average income of 139,505 won. Social order maintenance expenses were reckoned by adding the cost per police officer involved. In 2005, the National Police Agency had estimated that it cost about 71,700 won per officer to prevent violence and maintain order at a demonstration.

The traffic disruption expenses were based on the Korea Transportation Studies Institute`s estimate in 2000 that about 230 million won was lost due to traffic problems per rally.

"Because a lot of the research on the social expense of protests were either exaggerated or understated, we felt that a more objective estimate was needed," the research center said. "But because we excluded the expense coming from the delay of projects, actual costs could be more."

(hayney@heraldm.com)



By Shin Hae-in