Many arrested in S. Korea protests

Press, 12 June 1987, Page 6

Many arrested in S. Korea protests

NZPA-Reuter Seoul The police are interrogating 3831 people arrested in huge anti-Gov-emment protests on Wednesday in Seoul and many other South Korean cities, a police spokesman said. He said at least 200 people were expected to face charges of breaching public security. More than 700 police were injured in clashes with tens of thousands of people calling for democracy, while several police vehicles and offices were burnt. Outside Seoul’s Catholic Cathedral, a hard core of 700 students were still confronting several hundred riot police 12 hours after most of the disturbances died down. It was one of the worst nights of violence the capital had seen since President Chun, then the military strongman, consolidated his hold on power in 1980. The day of protest, called by the main opposition party and various Christian and dissident groups, was followed in some 20 cities across the country.

It marred what was supposed to be a showcase occasion for the Government, a convention of

the ruling party which triumphally chose a close aide of Mr Chun, Mr Roh Tae Woo, as its candidate for December’s Presidential election.

The Opposition says the system chosen for the Presidential election, a vote by a 5000-strong electoral college, is aimed at guaranteeing a perpetuation of one-party rule.

A leading dissident, Mr Kim Dae Jung, who bas been under house arrest in Seoul for over two months, said:— “Since Wednesday, the Chun regime has launched an uncompromising war on the people by choosing its Presidential candidate against the will of the whole people, and by its immense attack on a peaceful citizens’ rally. “Now they stand in a blind alley in which they have to choose between the total trampling of the people’s will for democracy by violence and the abandonment of their unjust ambitions ...”

Both Mr Kim and his political ally, Kim Young Sam, the leader of the main opposition Reunification Democratic Party, hailed Wednesday’s rallies as a success, saying they showed the possibility of achieving democracy by unswerving struggle.

As the authorities yesterday surveyed the damage, the police casualties, the burned-out police boxes and buses, and the signs that passers-by sympathised with the protesters, the national police chief, Mr Kwon Bok Kyung, issued a stern warning.

Mr Kwon said the demonstrations had threatened social stability and pledged still sterner police action against any future violent protests. The Opposition, which demands direct constituency voting for the people to choose “their Government with their own hands,” calls the indirect polling system a scheme to “prolong military dictatorship.”

A spokesman for Mr Kim Dae Jung said the former Presidential candidate, aged 61, began a symbolic 24-hour hunger strike on Wednesday night in protest at police suppression of the day of action. His wife joined him in the fast.

Protest organisers on Wednesday had asked citizens to show their support for the anti-Govern-ment drive by sounding their car horns at 6 p.m.

Despite widespread reports that taxi firms and bus companies removed

the horns from their vehicles, the central boulevard in Seoul erupted into a cacophony of sound on the stroke of six which went on for 20 minutes. Witnesses said police hurled tear gas grenades at cars. -

Later in the evening, witnesses saw motorists stop their cars on an overpass overlooking a confrontation between students and riot police and shout support for the demonstrators.

Yesterday, shopkeepers near the Catholic Cathedral sent food to the students under siege there.

The students, protesting at United States support for the Chun Government, burned effigies of Presir dent Reagan, President Chun and Mr Roh Tae Woo.

Anti-United States sentiment did not play a big part in Wednesday’s protests, which were concentrated on demands for free elections and an end to police brutality. Nevertheless, radio and television stations serving the 41,000 American troops based in South Korea broadcast repeated warnings to servicemen not to approach rally sites and not to involve themselves in any way in domestic politics.