by Our Foreign Desk
NEARLY a thousand residents of a South Korean farming town had their heads shaved yesterday in protest at the siting of US anti-ballistic missiles there.
Campaigners in Seongju, where the first battery of the terminal high-altitude area defence (Thaad) system will be deployed, say the its powerful radar will pose health and environmental hazards and argue that its presence will make them a target.
“We need to show our determination in order to stop Thaad,” the protesters chanted, as men and women, some in tears, had their heads shaved at a local park.
Previous protests against the installation included hunger strikes and letters to the government written in blood.
President Park Geun Hye tried to justify the deployment, which is seen as an act of aggression by not only North Korea but neighbouring China and Russia.
“The deployment of Thaad is an act of self-defence,” Ms Park said, adding that her priority as president was to “protect the lives of our people from the reckless provocations of the North.”
The president, daughter of former dictator Park Chung Hee, said “true liberation” would mean the reunification of the peninsula and warned Pyongyang over its recent spate of nuclear weapons tests.
“The more efforts it makes, the deeper the country’s isolation in the international community will be and the bigger its economic problems will be,” she said.
Tensions are expected to rise again when the South launches an annual joint military exercise with the US later this [email protected]