A 7-foot bulletproof wall going up around the summit site in Seoul is seen as repressive. Other measures are extensive, including 60,000 security forces to help handle the hundreds of activist groups that have applied to stage protests.
SEOUL, South Korea - November 11, 2010 - The barricade rose under cover of darkness, a mile-long wall of tough polyurethane and bulletproof glass that transformed the nation's largest mall and convention center into a South Korean version of Fort Apache.
As workers scurried overnight Wednesday to apply the finishing touches, the 7-foot-high security fence surrounding the site of Seoul's G-20 economic summit resembled something more apt to be seen in repressive North Korea than in one of the planet's newer democracies.
"We'll have it up by dawn," said a worker wearing a yellow hard hat.
The wall encircling the Coex Convention and Exhibition Center in the capital's fashionable Gangnam district is designed to offer peace of mind to foreign dignitaries converging here for two days of meetings that start Thursday, security officials say.
Similar barriers were set up at economic summits in London, Toronto and Pittsburgh to protect international leaders in the face of frequently violent demonstrations.
Nevertheless, criticism of the barrier is growing. Some call it the Korean peninsula's newest DMZ, a formidable fence separating the capitalist strategists from those staging the raging rallies outside.
Others liken the wall to a medieval moat or the barriers surrounding Baghdad's Green Zone.
In a dig at President Lee Myung-bak, newspapers have nicknamed the fence "Myung-bak's Wall No. 2," a reference to an earlier fortification of shipping containers used to block protesters during 2008 protests of U.S. beef imports.
"It just sends the wrong message," said Jang Sung-min, a former national legislator. "It reminds me of our country's dark days of military dictatorship. It just doesn't fit today's South Korea."
Security workers said they waited until 10 p.m. to erect the structure to reduce the inconvenience to adjacent residents and businesses. Critics counter that officials sought to keep it hidden amid all the feel-good pre-summit hoopla.
"It's a barrier to keep South Korea outside the conference," said Seoul G-20 spokeswoman Sohn Jie-ae. "It's not something security people want to talk about - a necessary evil."