Strong police guard for Tokyo visit

Press, 7 September 1984, Page 6

Strong police guard for Tokyo visit

NZPA-Reuter Tokyo President Chun Doo Hwan, of South Korea, arrived in Japan yesterday surrounded by intensive security and declared that old enmities should drift away “on the raft of history”. A 23,000-strong police guard blanketed Tokyo to protect the President who narrowly escaped death in a Rangoon bomb attack nearly a year ago, the last time he left home. To confuse. would-be assailants, two South Korean airliners arrived at about the same time at Tokyo’s Haneda airport. Until Mr Chun stepped out of the second one onlookers did not know which plane he was aboard. After a brief welcome led by Japan’s Foreign Minister, Mr Shintaro Abe, Mr Chun stepped into his limousine to drive to Tokyo’s Akasaka guest house where he will stay for the three-day State visit, the first made to Japan by a South Korean leader. There were no public speeches or playing of national anthems. But in a statement distributed to the news media, Mr Chun talked of the old hostilities he hoped to dispel while in Japan. Burying the animosities that stilL linger from Japan’s 35-year colonisation

of Korea up to 1945 is a prime objective of Mr Chun’s visit.

His arrival statement referred to “some unfortunate ruptures in relations between our two nations in the recent past.” It added: “I came to Japan with a view to helping create and maintain a new relationship. Once the unfortunate past between our two nations has drifted away on .the raft of history the relationship between our two countries will be near and close.”

Mr Chun also urged Japan “to take good care of the 700,000 Korean residents in Japan.” . He has said he hopes to persuade Japanese leaders to improve conditions for the Koreans, who were drafted as forced labour in World War II and are now demanding improved civil rights. More than half of them profess loyalty to Communist North Korea and are bitterly opposed to Mr Chun. Their large numbers were one of the reasons for the security shield which, at a cost of more than SUS 3 million, was the most expensive seen in Japan. Swarms of helicopters as well as a plane kept vigil over Tokyo as Mr Chun and his 23-member entourage, including his wife and six Cabinet Ministers, travelled to the State guest house.