Seoul, Citing N. Korea Rumors, Tries to Halt Opposition Rally

A week after announcing mistakenly that North Korean President Kim Il Sung had been shot to death, the government of President Chun Doo Hwan is now using the incident to try to persuade the opposition New Korea Democratic Party to cancel a scheduled rally that could attract a million people Saturday in Seoul.

No evidence has yet been offered publicly that North Korean propaganda loudspeakers in the demilitarized zone separating North and South Korea did, in fact, make the broadcasts that the South Korean Defense Ministry reported that its troops heard. The South Koreans said the broadcasts reported Kim’s death.

Yet on Monday, leaders of the ruling Democratic Justice Party, the National Police and the government all cited what they called North Korea’s disinformation scheme as a “new threat to national security” in asking the major opposition party to cancel plans for its rally, which has been called to demand direct presidential elections here.

Prime Minister Lho Shin Yong, who is scheduled to meet today with Lee Min Woo, president of the opposition party, was expected to reiterate his statement of last Saturday, declaring that the North Korean disinformation scheme has “heightened tensions on the Korean Peninsula.”

“The foremost task for the nation now is to maintain social and political stability,” Lho said.

Lho told the National Assembly last Wednesday that the government had concluded the North Koreans broadcast false reports of Kim’s death to trick Chun’s government into discrediting itself at home and abroad by announcing the information. South Korea’s announcement was shown to be false a day later when Kim greeted Mongolia’s Communist leader at the airport in Pyongyang, the North Korean capital.

Police officials, speaking to Korean reporters, cited the reported broadcasts by North Korean propaganda loudspeakers as the reason why they plan to block the rally.

“We will never allow the opposition to hold the rally because it is coming at a time when national security is being threatened by North Korea’s psychological warfare,” one police official was quoted as saying.

Kang Min Chang, National Police director, was to send a letter to the opposition party today informing it that any rally would be considered a violation of the law governing assemblies and demonstrations.

Lee Han Dong, the ruling party’s National Assembly floor leader, also asked his counterpart to call off the rally “in view of North Korea’s disinformation scheme.”

Although opposition leaders have pledged that they will take special care to avoid touching off violence with the rally, government leaders said they fear that a gathering of one million people, expected by the organizers, would get out of control.

Kim Young Sam, adviser to the New Korea Democratic Party and one of its chief motivating forces, said in an interview Monday that the party would go ahead with the rally.

He charged that the government had failed to prove that North Korean propaganda loudspeakers had, in fact, made the false broadcasts, but he added that the main opposition party now is more interested in pressing forward its Saturday rally plans than in getting to the bottom of the alleged disinformation plot.

Last week, the New Korea Democratic Party accused the government of revealing its “incompetence, lack of principles, and irresponsibility” by announcing Kim Il Sung’s death and demanded the resignation of Chun’s entire Cabinet.

Although the Defense Ministry said it has photographs and video tapes showing North Korean flags flying at half staff, it has refused to make them public. The Ministry of Culture and Information claimed that tape recordings of the broadcasts could not be made public because, as intelligence information, they were confidential, but the Defense Ministry finally acknowledged that it has no recordings.