S. Korea Government Blamed for Rumors of Kim’s Death

South Korea’s major opposition party charged Tuesday that the government of President Chun Doo Hwan is to blame for the false reports of North Korean President Kim Il Sung’s death because it hastily made official announcements based on rumors.

The New Korea Democratic Party attacked the government’s handling of the matter during budget deliberations in the National Assembly, demanding that the entire Cabinet resign to take responsibility for causing confusion and public fear.

“We demand that the entire Cabinet step down immediately,” said Rep. Kim Hyun Kyu, floor leader of the party. “The government can in no way evade responsibility for degrading national prestige and creating confusion for the people.

“The government announcement was not a conclusion made not by one man, the defense minister, but the entire Cabinet after an emergency meeting,” he said.

“We think it is dangerous to entrust our survival and national security to such an incapable government,” said another opposition aide, spokesman Hong Sa Duk.

According to announcements Sunday and Monday in Seoul, the South Korean capital, loudspeakers on the North Korean side of the demilitarized zone separating the two hostile states said that Kim, longtime leader of the Communist north, had been assassinated. Other reports emanating from Seoul spoke of Kim, 74, as the victim of a power struggle among North Korean factions.

However, on Tuesday morning, according to reports both from Peking and from West European diplomats in Pyongyang, Kim personally greeted the visiting Mongolian chief of state, Jambyn Batmonh, on his arrival at Pyongyang airport.

The opposition criticism in Seoul was quickly rebutted by South Korean officials, who insisted that a failed coup attempt in North Korea may have accounted for the reports of Kim’s death or overthrow.

Whatever happened in North Korea was not made any clearer in Washington, where State Department spokesman Charles Redman said, “We aren’t in a position to confirm any of these reports” that Kim is dead. However, he added, “we have no reason to doubt that he is alive and well.”

But Prof. Harold C. Hinton, a veteran East Asia expert at George Washington University, said the incident should not be dismissed as simply a false report.

Instead, he speculated, it was a direct result of Kim’s recent trip to Moscow, at which Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev advised him against any aggression against South Korea. This reportedly alienated Kim to his military chief, Defense Minister O Chin U.