[March 15th] CULTURAL FESTIVAL WITH FAMILY FOR SUPPORTING STRUGGLE ONWARD

In front of Daewoo Motor's rental apartments in Kajeong-dong, at 7 in the
evening, March 15, cultural festival ¡°WE WANT TO COME BACK TO WORK¡± was
held by Family Counterplan Committee to stop mass layoffs and keep their
right to live. This festival was intended to show ongoing struggle (by Family
Counterplan Committee) to the other families in the apartments, and to
encourage them to join the struggle and to cheer them up. Through the
festival, the Committee members could feel they strongly united and they
strengthened their resolve for struggle onward.

A large placard hanging on the wall of the apartment saying, ¡°WE WANT TO
COME BACK TO WORK.¡± And there were also a lot of placard on the apartmnet
balconies, saying "We oppose layoffs. No layoffs."

During the festival, which began with Kilnori(a parade) by Pungmulpae(Korean
traditional percussion instrument music band), participants felt more
connected to each other with singing and dancing together and the festival
got more exciting with the shows by Daewoo Motor's singing group and comrade
Park Jun. The festival became more meaningful by a story of a wife whose
husband, as a member of Daewoo Motor's Trade Union, survived the layoff. She
said, now her husband is working under surveillance by the management and the
riot police. She also said, "although they can not see much of each other and
there is some gap between those who got laid off and not. They are all one
and should stick together and go on struggle to solve this urgent situation.

The festival continued with film-running about the struggles by workers and
families against Daewoo Motor. It made the participants solemn and tearful.
In the scene where riot police appeared, one little kid shouted out ¡°Bad
men!¡± and in the scene where the riot police were violently taking
demonstrators, people got infuriated. They then shouted ¡°AWAY WITH YOU¡± to
policemen in civilian clothes hanging around the festival site and the scared
policemen went away. Looking at the scene in which police were taking
workers, one kid asked his father, ¡°Dad, haven't you been taken by the
police to the police station?¡±. His father answered, "Why not? Already two
times!". Everyone was in tears at the scenes in which a gray-haired old
mother, grabbing the minister of Labor, exclaimed ¡°No LAYOFF", and one
father, being caught by the riot police, cried out when he got separated from
his son by the police. At the scene that the police violently hit a woman
with a baby on her back, the viewers were incensed and shouted, ¡±YOU (the
police) SON OF BITCH!", "YOU Sucker!" 

The festival closed with everybody singing "Like a rock", "Strike song" with
candles in their hands in exploding fireworks. When the people were marching
in a circle with the candles in their hands, families's tearful voices in
their letters for solidarity became spread to the sky of Kajeong-dong. The
letters were about desperate and sad reality of the families but the
participants didn't remain just sad. They cheered up each other and
strengthened their resolve for struggle onward...