Seoul Regime Nominee Accepts; Clashes Erupt : Police, Protesters Fight With Rocks, Firebombs, Tear Gas; Candidate Roh Pledges Basic Rights

Thousands of demonstrators clashed with police for nearly five hours here Wednesday as Roh Tae Woo, President Chun Doo Hwan’s handpicked successor, accepted the ruling party’s presidential nomination by pledging to “better guarantee the basic rights of citizens.”

Roh, 54, a schoolboy friend and a military classmate of Chun, also promised to “vitalize the press,” set up elected local governing bodies, and “achieve constitutional reform by consensus” with the opposition.

His nomination by the Democratic Justice Party was tantamount to a designation as South Korea’s next president.

It was the third time in the last eight months that Chun put the nation’s entire 120,000-member police force on alert in a move to suppress protests. Nearly 60,000 were actually deployed in Seoul and 20 other cities in which disturbances were reported.

Police Around Cathedral

Police, who stood guard early today around the Myongdong Catholic Cathedral where 2,000 students had barricaded themselves throughout the night, made no immediate announcement about the size of the demonstrations or the number of people arrested.

The government-controlled Korea Herald estimated that the demonstrators numbered in the “tens of thousands.”

The conciliatory tone of Roh’s acceptance speech at the ruling party’s convention was offset by a warning from Chun that protests “will be dealt with resolutely, no matter what sacrifice may be necessary.”

“We must not tolerate illegal activities, violence and demagoguery,” declared the former general who, with Roh’s help, staged a mutiny to seize control of the army in December, 1979, and a coup that gave him control of the country in May, 1980.

Speaking off the record last fall, Chun was reported to have told a group of South Korean reporters that he places more importance on maintaining domestic stability than on holding the Olympic Games, scheduled to take place in this capital Sept. 17-Oct. 2, 1988, seven months after he steps down.

Witnesses Event

After an initial decision to stay away from Wednesday’s convention, U.S. Ambassador James R. Lilley joined other foreign envoys on the stage at Chamsil Gymnasium in the Olympic complex to witness what for South Korea was a historic event.

“This is the first time in our 40-year constitutional history that the government party has chosen a presidential nominee while the incumbent president was still in office,” Chun said. “This simple fact alone constitutes a firm cornerstone in the establishment of new democratic traditions.”

The regimes of all previous heads of government during that period were ended variously by coups, a student uprising and an assassination.

Thomas P. H. Dunlop, acting deputy chief of mission at the American Embassy, had told reporters Tuesday that Lilley would not attend the Democratic Justice convention. But an embassy spokesman said Lilley later decided to accept the invitation because his attendance “would set no precedent.”

American ambassadors and other embassy officials have attended ruling party conventions in the past, the spokesman said.

By contrast, the Australian ambassador stayed away.

Lilley did not attend the founding convention May 1 of the new, hard-line opposition party, the Reunification Democratic Party, despite official American policy to play no favorites in South Korean politics.

Kim Foresees Crisis

Kim Young Sam, president of the Reunification Democrats, told supporters at a Wednesday morning rally that the country is heading for a crisis.

“The present government, which uses violence to hold on to power and tries to prolong power by passing the presidency in the form of a royal succession, is doomed to destruction by the people,” he said.

National police director Kwon Bok Kyung said today that 708 police officers were injured in the clashes Wednesday, 25 of them seriously, the Associated Press reported. Kwon said 24 civilians were injured, but dissident sources said the number was much higher.

He said 16 government buildings and 23 officials vehicles were damaged or destroyed.

Kwon said 2,392 people were arrested in Seoul and 1,439 elsewhere. South Korean newspapers reported early today that about 1,000 people were detained in downtown Seoul alone. Earlier, police had said that at least 3,000 people were detained in security raids throughout the country Tuesday and that another 2,298 were picked up in the hours before dawn Wednesday in efforts to suppress Wednesday’s opposition rally.

Widespread damage caused by rocks and firebombs hurled by demonstrators was reported at police substations in scattered locations throughout the country and at one subway station in Seoul.

An international soccer meet was halted in Masan, 190 miles south of Seoul, when Egyptian players, engaged in a match with South Korea, complained about the effects of tear gas that police fired at 500 demonstrators outside the stadium.

Subway Train Halted

About 500 students commandeered a Seoul subway train, halting service on the line for 30 minutes.

Protesters organized by the National Coalition for a Democratic Constitution, an alliance of opposition politicians and religious and human rights activists, infiltrated the downtown area of Seoul in late afternoon. But they were unable to break through heavy police lines around an Anglican church where opposition leader Kim was scheduled to address the main rally of the day.

Kim himself was turned back at an entry road, and the rally was never held. But at 6 p.m., the hour it was supposed to start, the church’s bells were rung and passing motorists honked their horns in a protest noise barrage that lasted 25 minutes.

On the streets leading to a plaza near the church, combat police turned back young demonstrators with volleys of tear-gas grenades. Confrontations continued until nearly 10 p.m.

Demonstrators used rocks and, according to an eyewitness report, gasoline bombs to try to reach the plaza and the church. The smell of tear gas filled the downtown area, and many protesters were trundled away aboard police buses.

Student in Coma

On Tuesday, a student at Yonsei University was struck in the head and critically injured by by a police tear-gas grenade during a campus demonstration. A Yonsei University Hospital neurosurgeon said Wednesday that the victim, Lee Han Yol, 22, was in a coma.

Two students at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies also were critically injured by tear-gas canisters. Both underwent brain surgery.

Although the demonstrations caused no disruption of the midday Democratic Justice Party convention, guests at an evening reception for Roh in a downtown hotel caught whiffs of tear-gas fumes as they departed.

Roh, endorsed by Chun on June 2, won the votes of 7,260 of 7,378 delegates present at the festival-like party convention, where the nation’s top entertainers performed. No explanation was offered for 118 who did not vote for Roh, the only candidate.

In his acceptance speech, Roh condemned “inflammatory slogans and mass disturbances” and vowed to fight “leftist ideologies.” But he added, “I am ready and willing to conduct dialogue with anyone on any topic.

“I fully understand the fervent desire of the Korean people for democratic development, . . . an absolute dictate of the time,” he added, urging the opposition, which has vowed to boycott the indirect presidential election scheduled later this year, “to return to the main political arena.”

Opposes Direct Voting

Roh pledged that after the 1988 Olympic Games, he will reform Chun’s authoritarian constitution, under which Roh will assume power next Feb. 25. But he insisted that the planned reforms put a parliamentary system of government into effect, rather than direct presidential elections demanded by the opposition.

After the Olympics, he said, “I am confident that both the social atmosphere and the political thinking of the opposition will have changed so that constitutional amendments to introduce a parliamentary cabinet system will be realized without undue difficulty.”

Roh failed to offer any timetable for constitutional revision, nor did he spell out a detailed program for democratic reforms.

The nominee pledged to expand South Korea’s middle class, work for equity in income distribution, and “realize our dream of (becoming) an advanced industrial democracy.”

Makes Appeal to Youth

He called for a better balance “between the authority of the government and the checking ability of the people, between big business and small business, between urban and rural communities (and) . . . between those who have and those who have less.”

Roh also issued a special appeal to the nation’s youth, most of whom oppose military rule of the country.

“You should duly appreciate the achievements of the established generation whose members sacrificed their lives to defend the nation, endured hunger and hardship and have finally managed to build a solid basis for economic development. . . , he said. “We, the members of the established generation, must respect the pure sense of justice and the ideals of young people.

“I plead with you,” he added, “to end your intellectual wandering and join the grand endeavor to create a new era.”