Stanford Students Rise Up as Japan's Kishida, S Korea's Yoon Speak on Campus Pt II

On November 17th, a demonstration supported by a coalition consisting of dozens of student and community organizations protested outside the Hoover Institution on the campus of Stanford University.

They anchored their protest in a grieving ceremony, honoring victims of US imperialism including “comfort women”, sex slaves who were forced into service of Japanese soldiers during that country’s occupation of Korea. Dohee Lee, whose dance style is rooted in Korean shamanism, ritually transformed the mourning into defiant anger at Yoon and Kishida. President Yoon recently rolled back the demands of justice for "comfort women" in order to sign a new military agreement with Japan and the US.

Demonstrators called for a world free of imperialism for all people. They emphasized the need for an end to the genocide in Palestine, brutal oppression of labor rights by ROK leaders, and the huge US military presence in the Philippines and throughout the Pacific. They marched through the campus stopping at key locations for speeches encircling the Hoover Institution, a partisan think tank that primarily supports conservative administrations and policy positions. As the speaker event was held on the last day of APEC, students also denounced that economic cooperation summit.

After three hours, as the Yoon/Kishida event was ending, protesters waited vigilantly outside the speaking event, hounding the Yoon and Kishida APEC envoys with loud chants, drumming and raised fists. The envoys tried to move the cars to hide the heads of state from the demonstration.

Organizers stated: “Our coalition echoes the existing calls for divestment from defense corporations that our student allies have made. Where imperialists and their compradors go, our protests will follow. We will be back!”