Earlier this year, the Sewol ferry sank off Korea’s southern coast with 304 passengers drowned, mainly school children. An article by Jae-Jung Suh draws attention to an abdication of responsibility by the Korean Government and many others. He says ‘The whole tragedy serves as a reminder of how neoliberal deregulation and privatisation puts people’s safety and life at risk through a process of state collusion with business interests and how a powerful national security state may fail to protect its own people from internal dangers it helps create.’
Jae-Jung Suh has been Head of Korean Studies at John Hopkins University in Washington for over a decade.
The link to his important and disturbing report can be found below. John Menadue
http://www.japanfocus.org/-
John Menadue is the publisher, founder and Editor in Chief of Pearls and Irritations. He was formerly Secretary of Prime Minister and Cabinet, Ambassador to Japan, Secretary of Immigration and CEO of Qantas.