[YEAR-END REVIEW]Lessons from candlelight vigils on U.S. beef

Korea officially began its love-and-hate relationship with American beef again when President Lee Myung-bak agreed to resume imports in April this year.

The government`s logic seemed to be plausible and even acceptable to some, since the president believed it was essential for the nation to open its market to U.S. beef if it was to ratify a crucial free trade accord with the world`s largest economy.

To Lee, it was a small sacrifice to make in exchange for much bigger and better rewards.

To millions of Koreans here, the president appeared to have compromised the health of his people to cooperate with "those Americans" in order for a trade agreement that has yet to be proven to be in the national interest.

That was because on April 18, Lee had agreed to unconditional imports of all cattle, regardless of age.

The decision triggered questions about the safety of consuming beef from cattle that are 30 months or older, and their internal organs, as they could be contaminated with mad cow disease.

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The April 18 agreement subsequently sparked more than two months of nationwide protests. An estimated 1 million candlestick-wielding demonstrators showed up to protest, according to police figures.

The most amazing part of the beef saga is, both political observers and government officials noted, was that the demonstrators ran such a wide gamut.

The assortment ranged from professional antigovernment activists and civic groups to ordinary citizens that included students and even a controversial group of stroller-pushing homemakers who stuck candles in paper cups to join the rallies.

The government eventually put dozens behind bars and fined hundreds more for illegal demonstrations.

Violence was rampant, with both the police and demonstrators lashing out with everything they had despite many of the protesters` banners urging peaceful rallies.

For several weeks on end, police buses were seen lined up near City Hall to barricade Cheong Wa Dae from angry protesters trying to reach the presidential office.

Then, the rallies started to take on a new color, or so the government claimed.

The authorities including the police accused professional activists and those with "unsound political leanings" to be abusing the rallies to sabotage Lee`s presidency.

It did appear that toward the end of June, ordinary citizens had more or less abandoned the rallies to return home and to their work.

Only the more serious activists were left, and they began to include other demands in their demonstrations.

Abandonment of the president`s controversial plans to build a cross-country canal network and privatize public companies was put on the official vigil agenda, causing a divide among the protesters.

After Seoul renegotiated for better beef import terms, most of the rallies died down.

The streets slowly emptied of people sporting flaming red signs calling for the resignation of a president who had barely been in office for two months. The number of demonstrators fell to around 1,000 or less, down significantly from a peak of 80,000.



Backlash deepened

on poor handling

President Lee might have had hands-on experience in navigating through intense corporate crises when he was CEO of Hyundai Engineering and Construction, but neither he nor his aides appeared ready to deal with the political crisis facing them.

His office struggled to address and correct the problem.

"If handled properly, the candlelight vigil could have ended in two weeks. But the hollow apologies the president offered, and the unnecessarily harsh police crackdowns ended up fanning, and not minimizing the public`s anger," said Hwang Sang-min, a psychology professor at Yonsei University.

On April 21, the president had advised the public to "refrain from buying too much U.S. beef" if it bothered them so much.

Rubbing salt into the wound, the president also said those who decided to buy the beef would gain access to cheap, quality beef thanks to the agreement he struck with Washington.

As many are quick to note, the problem was only partly about the actual health concerns.

Initially, there were some legitimate worries about the mad cow disease, as there had been an outbreak, mostly in Britain. But the numbers of infections were very low, and scientists have yet to decipher exactly what actually transmits the fatal disease.



So it was mainly the way the Lee government handled the crisis, and its reaction to the public backlash, experts said.

The media also contributed to fanning the uproar. One broadcaster was accused botching a crucial program about mad cow disease by using errant information that "misled" people to make a strong connection between U.S. cattle and the disease.

Lee eventually replaced three Cabinet ministers and most of his secretaries, including his chief of staff.

The reshuffle came from a man who staunchly believed in giving his aides and subordinates a second chance.

Lee himself had to publicly apologize twice for "irresponsibly" resuming imports of U.S. beef.

But some analysts said that the Roh Moo-hyun government initiated of the fiasco. They point out the former president had negotiated with Washington on the FTA and had already given in to two preliminary conditions.

Beef imports, they argue, were therefore a problem waiting to happen.

Additionally, many of the public had been simmering over the economic difficulties that began to surface toward the end of the Roh administration.



Lessons learned?

A recent survey released to mark the first anniversary of Lee`s election victory revealed that people are far from satisfied with Lee`s leadership.

According to the poll, conducted by the Korea Society Opinion Institute on 1,000 adults on Dec. 15, little more than 12 percent said the political process was improving under Lee.

Many showed resentment about the latest political feuds, since over 40 percent found no discernable difference compared to the situation under previous administrations.

The numbers will be disappointment for Lee, who might have believed that the worst was over with the end of the candlelight vigils.

Economic troubles seem set to stay for a while, but that is a global phenomenon.

This survey suggested that the president was appearing to be backpedaling on a promise he could have kept if he had applied his philosophy of pragmatism at the National Assembly.

The main opposition Democratic Party has recently requested an apology from Lee for the ruling Grand National Party`s decision to unilaterally vote on the budget bill and its motion to present a bill to ratify the free trade agreement with Washington.

So the pragmatic Lee administration, the first conservative government in a decade, may have learned that keeping in sync with public sentiment is essential in policymaking, political observers said.

As for the public, some continue to stand by the vigils, claiming them to have helped enforce tighter beef regulations, and even put in force the strengthened rules for promoting public health with stringent labeling rules.

Kwon Yong-cheol, professor of information security at the National Central Police Academy, said in a journal earlier this month that the candlelight vigil was far from a "riot caused by a few dissidents."

"It represented organized resistance by the social minority," he said. "It was a movement that, like the April 19 revolution, had people joining based on their own judgment," he said.

Critics, however, said the government`s toughened attitude showed demonstrators they could not get away with rallying whenever they want as they have done under the two progressive administrations.

In the meantime, the Lee administration has four more years to prove it has learned some lessons from the two-month beef crisis that threatened a presidency secured by a landslide.

By Kim Ji-hyun



(jemmie@heraldm.com)