Seoul Students Battle Police for Second Day

Riot police battled again Friday with thousands of students protesting the government’s ban on debate on how South Korea chooses its president.

Witnesses said at least 20 students at six Seoul universities were injured, most of them hit by tear gas canisters fired by police.

Some of the students threw firebombs and many hurled stones at the police.

There were no immediate reports of arrests in the second consecutive day of student-police clashes, which erupted after students rallied in advance of Sunday’s anniversary of a major student uprising on April 19, 1960.

The 120,000-member national police force was placed on maximum alert.

About 2,600 students, some of them brandishing torches, rallied at Korea University, the witnesses said. About 1,500 tried for nearly two hours to break through police ranks.

Clashes at Other Schools

By mid-afternoon, similar clashes had been reported at Yonsei, Dangkuk, Seoul National, Hongik and Dongkuk universities. Students ranging in number from 300 to 600 clashed with police, but most of the protests were confined to the campuses, student sources said.

Witnesses said demonstrators chanted, “Down with the military dictatorship planning to prolong its rule” and “Drive out the United States, which supports military dictatorship.”

President Chun Doo Hwan, a former army general, announced Monday that he was halting debate on changing the constitution until next year--after the current electoral college system picks his successor and after the 1988 Seoul Olympics.

Chun came to power in a 1980 military takeover and was elected to a seven-year presidential term in 1981 by the electoral college he established.

Year of Heated Debate

Chun’s ban came after more than a year of heated debate on the presidential election system before the president’s term ends in February, 1988. He has said he will step down then in what would be South Korea’s first peaceful transfer of power.

With no agreement, and the opposition split by infighting, Chun said there is no time to make constitutional changes before the end of his term.

The opposition charges that the present electoral college system ensures that the next president will be from Chun’s rightist party. The opposition demands a direct popular vote to elect the president.

Earlier, Seoul newspapers reported that more than 20,000 police went to 22 universities and colleges in the capital to prevent potential demonstrations. Police searched 53 schools across the country overnight and seized firebombs, leaflets and placards for the third consecutive night, news reports said.