S. Korea Protests a Sign of ‘Dynamic Society,’ Ruling Party Leader Says

Roh Tae Woo, the presumed next president of South Korea, today accused opposition politicians of “competing in the game of destruction” and said the South Korean people will reject the strategy.

In a morning press conference, Roh tempered his criticism by calling confrontational politics and demonstrations that stretched into a third day “signs that Korean society is growing and developing. They are indications not of a stagnant society but of a dynamic society undergoing rapid change.

“What we are experiencing now are growing pains which will make us more mature,” declared the chairman of the ruling Democratic Justice Party.

Handpicked Nominee

Roh, 54, President’s Chun Doo Hwan’s handpicked nominee for next winter’s presidential elections, told reporters that “while the government party is holding a national convention, trying to make a precedent in its constitutional history by achieving a peaceful transfer of power, the opposition is competing in the game of destruction with firebomb- and rock-throwing radical students on the streets.”

He said “a great majority” of students are pursuing their studies, and the majority of South Koreans, “turning their backs against these radicals, enjoy affluence and are busy planning their future.”

Questioned on the ruling party’s political plans, Roh declared that Chun’s April 13 decision to cancel further talks with the opposition on constitutional revision until after the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul was inevitable and irreversible. Chun made the decision, Roh said, “seeing that all this process of debate would continue without resolution.”

The ruling party, he said, is going ahead with its own political schedule.

Roh insisted that the present law governing selection of an electoral college to choose the next president “is not unfair.”

But, he added, “I will not say the present formula is 100% perfect.” If the opposition proposes revisions, “We will discuss (the proposals) with them,” he said.

The tear gas and rock battles between protesters and riot police that disrupted downtown Seoul on Wednesday and Thursday were regrettable, Roh told the press conference.

“The whiff of tear gas has been brought into this conference room” (apparently on the clothing of news photographers), he noted, as ruling party members behind him wiped their eyes. But he predicted that the protests will subside without majority support, and he foresaw no disturbances of the Olympics.

“I believe this is the last incident,” he said of an international soccer game that was called off Wednesday in the southern port city of Masan when tear gas swept the stadium.

Roh, who handled questions from the foreign press directly and smoothly, praised Chun--”He saved the country”--and said that as president himself, he would hear out any opposition formula for change.

“As someone said, I have big ears,” he joked of his reputation as a listener.

Opposition leader Kim Young Sam said his Reunification Democratic Party will boycott the presidential election, and the party called for new tactics against the Chun regime.

“It is time for us to adopt a more definite line of struggle to obstruct the current regime’s scheme to perpetuate its rule rather than to maintain a passive stance,” the opposition party’s statement declared Thursday, the day after tens of thousands of demonstrators clashed with police here and in 20 other South Korean cities.

At least 768 people were injured and another 3,854 were detained in Wednesday’s demonstrations.

The opposition party is part of the recently formed National Coalition for a Democratic Constitution, which had called for rallies around the country Wednesday to protest the police torture death of a student in January and Chun’s cancellation of talks on constitutional revision in April.

Opposition leaders have been demanding a direct vote by the people in presidential elections, instead of the electoral college system that they contend is weighted in the government’s favor.

The government banned the main rally at an Anglican church here, but thousands of student and anti-government demonstrators poured into downtown areas Wednesday, clashing repeatedly with riot police.

Protesters retreated in the face of barrages of tear-gas grenades, then returned throwing rocks and gasoline bombs. At one point, demonstrators and police brawled in the lobby of a luxury hotel.

The conflict in the streets subsided Wednesday night but continued through Thursday at the Catholic Myongdong Cathedral, near the hotel district, where a large group of protesters holed up. They threw rocks and firebombs at riot police and dodged tear gas grenades, and the standoff continued this morning.

The students had barricaded themselves in the compound with tables, chairs, steel sheets and wood. The police blocked off reinforcements recruited from university campuses.

The standoff, however, shut down most businesses in the Myongdong section, a major center of small shops and nightspots, and completely blocked access to the Seoul Royal Hotel, a major tourist hotel. When 50 merchants protested the disruption of their businesses by the massive police presence, they, too, were tear-gassed. The businessmen chanted, “Down with the dictatorship” until they were dispersed.

Priests’ Plea Ignored

At one point, a group of priests came out of the cathedral grounds and demanded that police withdraw. Their plea was ignored.

A spokesman for the ruling party called the demonstrations “an attempt to instigate a violent uprising to destroy the nation’s order” and urged the opposition party “to cut its ties with violent forces and return to the political arena of compromise.”

A Western diplomat, who asked not to be named, called Wednesday’s confrontation between the government and its critics “a draw in which both sides lost.”

He said that the ruling Democratic Justice Party, in what was to have been its “hour of glory”--the anointment of a successor for President Chun--suffered bad publicity at home and abroad.

Honking in Sympathy

Manifestations of sympathy for the demonstrators, such as drivers who responded to opposition calls to honk their horns, and cheering and applause by passers-by on the streets, underscored the widespread lack of support for the Chun government, the diplomat said.

“But that’s nothing new. The point is to what degree ordinary people are moved to act upon their (anti-government) sentiment. That did not change,” the diplomat said.

“No signs of (Philippine-style) ‘people power’ emerged,” the official said. “I don’t see things moved to a new level of unrest.”

“Barring any unforeseen, galvanizing event,” said a second diplomat, who also asked not to be named, “the students won’t be able to prevent Roh from taking over next February. But they can make (the transfer of power) costly and messy.”