S. Korean Students End Sit-in at U.S. Library in Seoul

Students voluntarily ended a three-day sit-in at the United States Information Service headquarters here today with a final gesture of condemnation of South Korean President Chun Doo Hwan and American support for him.

As police cordoned off the middle of a six-lane street in the heart of the downtown area, more than 70 students, wearing headbands and walking arm-in-arm, filed out of the building, stopped on the sidewalk in front of hundreds of photographers and television cameras and, with clenched fists raised, shouted in unison, “Down with Chun!”

They also distributed copies of an appeal demanding that Chun be held responsible for the deaths of at least 189 Koreans in a 10-day insurrection in Kwanju that followed Chun’s May 17, 1980, seizure of power. The appeal also demanded that the United States apologize for its role in approving use of South Korean troops to suppress the insurrection in the provincial capital city.

The students were then led, or in some cases pulled, to waiting police buses and whisked away to hospitals for medical check-ups before being placed under arrest.

Although a few shoving incidents occurred, the occupation of the second floor of the USIS building ended without violence.

The elaborately planned exit took only six minutes, and immediately USIS staff members were seen tearing down the Korean language signs the students had pasted to a row of windows across the front of the building.

The students agreed to give themselves up Saturday night after Rep. Park Chan Jong of the opposition New Korea Democratic Party met with their leader, Ham Un Kyong, a senior at prestigious Seoul National University.

Park appealed to the students to end their sit-in before 84 North Korean Red Cross delegates arrive in Seoul on Monday for the first full-fledged talks in 12 years on reuniting separated family members. Park warned that the North Koreans might use the sit-in for propaganda purposes.

The charges of American responsibility for the Kwangju incident stem from the fact that the American four-star general who heads the U.N. Command here exercises control over the South Korean armed forces. The U.S. command was not involved in sending South Korean paratroopers to Kwangju at the beginning of what was originally a demonstration, but did approve sending in other Korean troops after the protests turned into an insurrection.

U.S. Ambassador Richard L. Walker sent the students a letter Saturday in which he promised to meet a representative of the students “after you have returned to your homes and campuses.”

The students replied with a letter expressing regret that they had to resort to “improper means” to express their concern over the Kwangju incident.