In Remembrance of the April 16 Sewol Ferry Disaster
— We will change the world through politics that remembers.
April 16, 2025, marks the 11th year since the Sewol Ferry tragedy.
We vividly remember the day when people across the country could not turn away from their screens, anxiously awaiting word of rescue. We recall the countless moments we stood in the streets, vowing again and again, "We will not forget Sewol."
Late last year, the Korea Maritime Safety Tribunal, the state body responsible for investigating and ruling on maritime accidents, concluded for the first time that there is no evidence supporting claims that an external force caused the Sewol Ferry tragedy. The tribunal instead confirmed that its sinking resulted from internal causes: abnormal rudder operation, reduced stability due to structural modifications and expansion of the vessel and cargo overloading, and the failure to properly secure the cargo.
None of these causes were unavoidable. Yet the Sewol set sail, revealing the fault lines of Korean society. Eleven years later, we are forced to ask how much has truly changed as this society prepares to board its next vessel. When both the government and corporations continue to treat cost-cutting as more urgent than human life, it becomes clear that this is not merely a failure of oversight, but a reproduction of systemic negligence and distorted values.
The pattern of prioritizing cost-cutting over the lives and safety of citizens has not ended with Sewol. It has continued through a relentless series of preventable tragedies:
- the deadly fire at a logistics warehouse in Icheon,
- the collapse of an apartment exterior wall at Hwajeong I-Park in Gwangju,
- the crowd crush disaster in Seoul’s Itaewon district,
- the Osong underpass flood that drowned commuters during a storm,
- the explosion and fire at the Aricell battery factory in Hwaseong,
- the mid-air incident involving Jeju Air Flight 2216,
- and most recently, the massive wildfires that swept through South Korea’s Yeongnam region.
In every case, the state’s response has been marked not by accountability, but by denial and evasion.
The prioritization of corporate profit over public life and safety is not an isolated failure. It is a systemic pattern that repeats itself in the climate crisis, in unsafe labor conditions, and across the many faces of structural inequality. This is not just neglect. It is political. Conservative forces and bureaucratic institutions have worked deliberately to erase memory, to bury Sewol, to silence the truth of countless other tragedies, and to render invisible the lives that were lost.
But it has never been the politics of forgetting that moves the world. It has been the actions of citizens who remember. The wave of yellow ribbons in memory of Sewol helped bring down Park Geun-hye. And the people who refused to obey the order to “stay still” stood up against the unconstitutional declaration of emergency martial law and prevented its enforcement. Through collective resistance, they ultimately held Yoon Suk-yeol accountable.
In December 2023, nine organizations of disaster victims came together to form the Coalition of Disaster Victims. Their reason for uniting was simple yet powerful: “We hope no one else suffers as long or as deeply as we have.” Green Party Korea stands in full solidarity with that deeply held hope. We are committed to building a world free from preventable disasters, where life and safety are prioritized over cost-cutting and profit for the few.
As we honor the 304 lives lost in the Sewol Ferry tragedy, Green Party Korea reaffirms its commitment to a politics that refuses to forget. We renew our determination to build a society where life and safety are not negotiable, but fundamental.
April 16, 2025
Green Party Korea
In Remembrance of the April 16 Sewol Ferry Disaster
— We will change the world through politics that remembers.
April 16, 2025, marks the 11th year since the Sewol Ferry tragedy.
We vividly remember the day when people across the country could not turn away from their screens, anxiously awaiting word of rescue. We recall the countless moments we stood in the streets, vowing again and again, "We will not forget Sewol."
Late last year, the Korea Maritime Safety Tribunal, the state body responsible for investigating and ruling on maritime accidents, concluded for the first time that there is no evidence supporting claims that an external force caused the Sewol Ferry tragedy. The tribunal instead confirmed that its sinking resulted from internal causes: abnormal rudder operation, reduced stability due to structural modifications and expansion of the vessel and cargo overloading, and the failure to properly secure the cargo.
None of these causes were unavoidable. Yet the Sewol set sail, revealing the fault lines of Korean society. Eleven years later, we are forced to ask how much has truly changed as this society prepares to board its next vessel. When both the government and corporations continue to treat cost-cutting as more urgent than human life, it becomes clear that this is not merely a failure of oversight, but a reproduction of systemic negligence and distorted values.
The pattern of prioritizing cost-cutting over the lives and safety of citizens has not ended with Sewol. It has continued through a relentless series of preventable tragedies:
In every case, the state’s response has been marked not by accountability, but by denial and evasion.
The prioritization of corporate profit over public life and safety is not an isolated failure. It is a systemic pattern that repeats itself in the climate crisis, in unsafe labor conditions, and across the many faces of structural inequality. This is not just neglect. It is political. Conservative forces and bureaucratic institutions have worked deliberately to erase memory, to bury Sewol, to silence the truth of countless other tragedies, and to render invisible the lives that were lost.
But it has never been the politics of forgetting that moves the world. It has been the actions of citizens who remember. The wave of yellow ribbons in memory of Sewol helped bring down Park Geun-hye. And the people who refused to obey the order to “stay still” stood up against the unconstitutional declaration of emergency martial law and prevented its enforcement. Through collective resistance, they ultimately held Yoon Suk-yeol accountable.
In December 2023, nine organizations of disaster victims came together to form the Coalition of Disaster Victims. Their reason for uniting was simple yet powerful: “We hope no one else suffers as long or as deeply as we have.” Green Party Korea stands in full solidarity with that deeply held hope. We are committed to building a world free from preventable disasters, where life and safety are prioritized over cost-cutting and profit for the few.
As we honor the 304 lives lost in the Sewol Ferry tragedy, Green Party Korea reaffirms its commitment to a politics that refuses to forget. We renew our determination to build a society where life and safety are not negotiable, but fundamental.
April 16, 2025
Green Party Korea