Youth Sets Self Afire at Seoul School Protest

A student set himself on fire and then plunged to his death from a fourth-floor window during a violent anti-government demonstration Tuesday at the Agriculture College at Seoul National University, a news agency and South Korean television reported.

The demonstration broke out after riot police moved onto the campus to disperse about 3,000 students listening to a leading dissident speak at a school festival.

The Yonhap News Agency said the speech, by the Rev. Moon Ik Hwan, a leading civil rights activist, was interrupted when about 1,000 police surrounded the area and the fighting began.

Police fired tear gas and about 600 students hurled rocks and other objects, the news agency said. Other sources say the number of student demonstrators was higher.

Student sources said fighting spread over wide areas of the campus of the state-run university that is considered South Korea’s most prestigious school.

The Yonhap agency and the Korean Broadcasting System said that during the melee, Lee Dong Soo, a 22-year-old freshman in the horticulture department, shouted “Out with U.S. imperialism and police!” and dived from the fourth floor window of a school building after dousing himself with a flammable liquid and igniting it.

Officials said he was dead on arrival at a hospital.

Message in Notebook

Yonhap said a notebook was found in his pocket in which he had written, “The masses are foolish, but never die. Only history will judge my agonizing struggle.”

There were no immediate reports of other casualties.

Over the last few months, there has been a series of violent protests directed against President Chun Doo Hwan and the Reagan Administration, which supports him.