Letter to President of Korea

Letter to the President of South korea

source: Help4Dogs

Dear president/minister

First of all let me congratulate you with the 2-1 victory on Italy today in the Football World Championship. The team coached by Guus Hiddink is doing great, which fills us Dutch people with joy as well. Unfortunately, there is another matter shadowing all joy and hapiness and filling me with a lot of concern I feel I ought to write you about.

Mijn dank gaat uit naar Dhr. K.Tesselaar!!

A few months ago I watched a rather disturbing TV & documentary concerning the consumption of dog-meat and fur-related products in your country. The programme caused a lot of confusion and anger in my country because of the savage cruel methods of animal slaughtering being displayed. The film contained pieces of footage showing dogs being hung on a rope in a tree and then being hammered with metal pipes repeatedly causing their backs to break, dogs also being skinned alive using knives and blowtorches, cut into pieces while still alive or, for the smaller ones, being hammered to death while they were confined in a cotton bag. I saw electrocutions being carried out on a stunningly inadequate and incomprehensive manner as well, causing the poor victim a lot of pain and agony. Like all other animals I saw, it was screaming and yelping from pain and terror. It's quite obvious that this is not the way of killing an animal in a sensible humane way, if it has to be for food which is generally approved. On the contrary, all regular barbaric procedures are clearly designed to to inflict maximum pain and suffering to the animal for an extent as long as possible, literrally breaking it bit by bit, until it finally perishes or looses conciousness from severe pain.

Being quite distressed from this sight, I have spent a number of hours doing research on the Internet to verify matters, hoping that it would ease my mind a bit. I was amazed by the large number of URL's concerning hostility against animals in South Korea, all telling the same displeasing story. Any random search engine on the WWW can point out thousands of sites on the Internet to be found, dedicated to animal abuse related matters in South-Korea only. As I haven&'t done any searching in French, Spanish, Japanese or other convenient languages, I must regard this to be considered as just the top of a huge iceberg. It will take several months to read all about it. The pictures on those sites made perfectly clear that the initial TV & documentary wasn't about an odd backyard incident being magnified and broadcasted. Over 2 millions of dogs are brutalized systematically as described above each year. This means, that today when you read this letter, some 5.400 dogs are being tortured on purpose until death follows from pain and distress. But that is not all, about the same number of cats are boiled alive in pressure cookers until they are entirely liquified for cat soup. Before that, the head of the cat is hammered in order to crush the skull, so it won't resist too much when scalded all over it's body by the boiling water it will try to escape. Pictures of countless cages filled with cats all showing blood staines on the head make me to believe this terrible story is true as well! That's adding up to over 10.000 poor creatures suffering terribly in your country EVERY DAY, willingly on purpose! I have seen dozens of recently taken pictures (in the years 2000/2001) of Kyongdong Market in Seoul, Moran Market in Sungnam and Chilsung Market in Taegu, underlining the utmost worst of my fears and expectations. Pictures showed hundreds of dogs being crammed in piled cages, thus giving reason to believe that the quantitive figures of animals involved in this evil industry shown are to be considered accurate. It also impossibly can be overlooked that the abuse and systematic torture of animals in Korean markets is everydays harsh routine.

It's not only the dog or cat suffering a bad headache, in fact now I'm having a quite bad one too after having seen all this. There is no justification at all for torturing poor creatures having done nobody any harm. These kitchen habits are defenitely bad P.R. to Korea, in fact I can only compare this with the most savage episodes of the Dark Ages or the activities of extremely sadistic, outragious war criminals. I learnt as well that in Korea there is a 1984 Act banning commercial activities concerning dog-meat, and about it's 1991 successor placing a penalty on any abuse or unneccessary disturbing of animals in general. What I learnt too, is that even the very most blatant and severe violations of these both Acts are turned a blind eye by the authorities, so that by refusing to maintain your own laws for many years now, you are to blame for millions of cats and dogs to be killed in a very most inhumane way too.

The dogmeat-traders claim they serve an old Korean tradition. Actually, there is no tradition to be served at all. Just a few decades ago the eating of dogmeat was a backyard vice being carried out by a handful of men, obsessed with health matters. I can understand that in the harshest times of war, badly impoverised people finally get to such a level of desperation that they decide to eat the dog, for there is absolutely nothing else that can be eaten. But dogmeat wasn't an established dish even in those difficult days. Furthermore, none of the ancient traditions subscribes any torturing of animals in order to improve taste or aphrodysiac qualities of the flesh. Above that, more than a quarter of the dogs I saw on pictures are reported as stolen pedigree companion animals. I have no reason at all to doubt any of this, as the dog traders claim they only raise ugly, big yellowish dogs for food, it puzzles me having seen a Jack Russell terrier, a purebread Pointer and quite a number of small skinny white dogs wearing regular neck collars typically home kept pets do, being butchered. Can you tell me about any old tradition encouraging grand theft? I don't think so. The terrible torture and cruel slaughtering methods are an outcrying violation stampeding against even the most elementary and basic principles of civilisation. It leads me to no other conclusion, than that the people who I saw at work on over a hundred of sites are just traditional outlaws, displaying by far the utmost worst sorts of behavior one can possibly imagine on a large scale. I am appalled and totally disgusted.

Underneath this letter you will find a poem I found on one of the many sites I visited. I am afraid I must consider it faithfully mirroring the horrible fate awaiting millions of innocent creatures in Korea having done nobody any harm. Each time your country is mentioned, no matter where, when or in which connection whatsoever, I cannot help being remembered to this savage story turning me sad, feeling very very sorry for the poor little white dog. I see the white dog being hit with the brick over and over again, while it screams of fear and terror. And I don't think you should allow this to go on any longer. Theoretically, Korea's anomal wellfare Acts appear sound and fine, safeguarding all animals from unneccessary struggle. But if laws aren't maintained properly, there's no protection coming from it at all. Therefore I must urge you to enforce the Korean Animal Wellfare Acts in a more comprehensive manner on a short term, in order to put the current barbaric Korean situation to an end.

Yours sincerely,

Tesselaar

THE KOREAN LEADER AND HIS WHITE DOG
- n. le`der-ONE WHO LEADS OR COMMANDS.
by: LjBeane1@aol.com
From Animals in Print
...the white dog.
...the white dog hanging,
...the white dog hanging from a tree.
...strangling.
...strangled by a man,
...strangled by a man he knew as his LEADER.
...the man,
...the man, the LEADER of the dog,
...strangles him slowly.
...he loosens his hold of the rope,
...the rope that secures the noose around the neck of the white dog.
...the white dog,
...the white dog hanging from the tree,
...gasps for air.
...the white dog hanging from the tree, gasping for air, grabs for a branch!
...the white dog fails.
... the white dog is hanging from the tree.
...the LEADER of the dog secures the rope,
...the LEADER of the dog secures the rope and walks toward the white dog.
...the white dog is hanging from the tree.
...the white dog grabs again for a branch!
...the leader of the dog, the white dog hanging from the tree,
...picks up a brick
...the Leader of the white dog picks up a brick and slams it into the white dog's head!
...the white dog screams!
...pain, terror, confusion, PAIN, TERROR, CONFUSION!!
...these are the reactions of the white dog,
...the white dog hanging from the tree.
...the white dog hanging from the tree no longer has a left eye!
...the white dog hanging from the tree has a fractured skull and missing teeth!
...the brick with its
newly acquired bloody eye,
...the brick watches.
...watches the white dog hanging from the tree.
...the leader
...the leader of the dog tightens the noose,
...tightens the noose on the white dog with no left eye, fractured skull and missing
...teeth.
...the white dog hanging from the tree is strangling,
...ears of the dog hear only rushing heartbeats.
...inside the fractured skull of the white dog hanging from the tree, pressure builds.
...the white dog hanging from the tree needs air!
...the leader of the white dog loosens the noose,
...loosens the noose that is around the neck of the white dog.
...the white dog hanging from the tree.
...the white dog hanging from the tree, struggles, for a branch, for his breath.
...the leader of the white dog,
...the leader repeatedly kicks and beats the white dog,
...the white dog hanging from the tree
... the leader kicks the white dog with no left eye, fractured skull and missing teeth
...the white dog feels tendons snap, muscles tear and bones break.
...the brick watches with it's dried eye,
... watches the white dog hanging from the tree,
...the leader of the dog again tightens the noose,
... the leader tightens the noose that is around the neck of the white dog.
...the white dog
...the white dog???? THE WHITE DOG???????? WHITE!! ---WHITE!!--
THE DOG WAS WHITE...HANGING FROM THE TREE.
HE WAS A WHITE DOG HANGING FROM A TREE!!!
.....................................................................
...The white dog has died
...The leader feels much joy.
...Tomorrow when the leader smiles you will see the white dog
...You will see the white dog, there, between his leader's teeth
THE LEADER -n, le`der- one who leads or commands.