Call to see Korean captive

Press, 13 October 1983, Page 10

Call to see Korean captive

NZPA-Reuter Seoul The South Korean Government has asked to meet a Korean captured by the police in Rangoon after the bombing in which four key South Korean Ministers and 16 other people were killed, said officials yesterday.

An official of Burma’s State Film Corporation, who was wounded in the explosion, died in hospital yesterday.

the Burmese Government has announced that the police had killed one Korean “terrorist,” had captured a second, and were seeking a third after the bomb blast. It did not say whether the captured Korean was from North or South Korea. President Chun Doo Hwan of South Korea has blamed North Korea for the explosion, which he said was an assassination attempt against him. In Seoul yesterday, thousands of people filed past the remains of the four Ministers and 12 other Koreans killed in the blast prior to today’s funeral which is expected to be

attended by more than a million people.

The bodies of the victims, who have been designated “national martyrs” by the Government, were brought from Burma on Tuesday aboard a special aircraft and taken to Seoul National University Hospital. Seoul newspapers yesterday carried reports of the Rangoon arrest prominently on front pages.

Hundreds of thousands of demonstrators have staged anti-North Korean protest rallies throughout South Korea, burning effigies of the North Korean leader, Kim II Sung.

Mr Chun visited the homes of those killed, who included the Deputy Prime Minister, Mr Suh Suk Joon, the Foreign Minister, Mr Lee Bum Suk, the Commerce Minister, Mr Kim Dong Whie, and the Energy Minister, Mr Suh Sang Chui.

He burned incense at the victims’ homes and then visited the national medical centre where 11 South Koreans injured in the explosion are receiving treatment. So far about 20,000

people, including a number of ambassadors, have visited a shrine set up in the national cemetery where the victims will be buried after the funeral ceremonies.

Tomorrow the South Korean Parliament will convene a special session to debate the Rangoon explosion. It is expected to adopt a resolution condemning North Korea for the blast. More than 20 countries have said they will send special delegations to the •funeral ceremonies, said officials.

They said that the Burmese Government had informed South Korea’s Rangoon Embassy that it would send a report on the result so far of its investigations into the blast. Officials said that if North Korea was found to be involved in the blast plot, the Seoul Government would consider what diplomatic measures it would ask the Burmese Government to take against North Korea, which has an embassy in Rangoon. These measures would in-

elude a request for the severing of relations between Burma and North Korea. The Seoul Government is also preparing what action it would take in international forums such as the United Nations, should North Korea be implicated in the blast.

American Intelligence officials believe that North Korean agents were behind the bombing, probably with help from Burmese insurgents, said a Defence Intelligence Agency source. Mr Chun has agreed to co-ordinate with the United States any retaliatory action over the Rangoon bombing, according to intelligence sources in Canberra, Australia. According to the sources the United States has made it plain to the Government in Seoul that military action is not to be regarded as an option.

Intelligence supplied to the Australian Government confirms that President Ronald Reagan will go ahead with a visit to Seoul between November 12 and 14.