700 in Koreatown Rally in Support of Homeland Reforms

Echoing the demands of student demonstrators in the streets of South Korea, about 700 Korean-Americans converged Sunday on a park in central Los Angeles to press for democratic reforms and an end to martial law in their homeland.

Wearing belts of green, the color that symbolizes peace to Koreans, marchers gathered near dusk in a soccer field at Ardmore Recreation Center, in the center of Koreatown, hoisting aloft banners that read, “Down with Dictatorship!” “No tear gas!” and “Democracy in Korea!”

After the demonstration, the protesters staged an impromptu march around Koreatown.

Leaders Kneel in Street

Police Lt. David Kalish said the demonstrators promised to stay on sidewalks, because they had no permit for such a march. On returning to the center for a candlelight vigil, however, they apparently attempted to go back onto the street through the park’s Olympic Boulevard exit. When a police line formed to prevent this, several Korean leaders knelt in the street between the demonstrators and the police.

Kalish said others in the crowd began “pushing and shoving” officers, and at that point he called for 100 officers who had been held nearby as an emergency reserve and used them to clear the area.

“We were caught off-guard,” Kalish said. “We were promised it would be a peaceful demonstration. We weren’t expecting this.”

No Arrests Made

No injuries were reported, however, and Kalish said there were no arrests.

Ki Myung Lee, President of the Korean Federation of Los Angeles, said the police misunderstood the situation, however.

He explained that he and other leaders knelt in the roadway in an effort to calm the situation.

“If I stand up, the people behind could push me into the police line, so we sat down. That is the Korean way,” he said.

The demonstrators appeared to span all age groups, bolstering the contention of anti-government Korean leaders in Los Angeles that support for student demonstrators has grown among all segments of this city’s Korean community.

“We are here because we want to show support to the people demonstrating in Korea,” said Eunice Lee, 23, who drove from Long Beach with her 57-year-old father, Doo-Hwa Lee. For both, it was their first protest march.

“We realize we can’t do much, but we wanted to be here as a sort of symbolic act,” she added.

Dr. Joe Kim of Arcadia said it was his first such demonstration, too.

“There are middle-class people in Korea joining the movement,” he said, “and the same thing is happening here.”

The local rally was preceded by anti-government rallies attended by about 1,000 in New York on Sunday and about 200 in San Francisco on Saturday.

The Los Angeles march, organizers said, was to show unity with students who have clashed with riot police in the streets of Seoul and other Korean cities in protest against the government headed by President Chun Doo Hwan.

“This is the best message we can give to the Chun regime,” said Lee Shin Bom, a South Korean exile, who spent six years in prison and spoke at Sunday’s rally. “It may not get into the government-controlled newspapers there, but the word will get out that we in America are supporting democratic change.”

Anti-government leaders in Los Angeles’ Koreatown, a dense commercial strip centered around Western Avenue and Olympic Boulevard, said that the turnout for the march showed the growth of support here for new elections in South Korea.

“It is not only students anymore,” said Woo Chul Lee, a vice president of the Korean Federation of Los Angeles Inc. “We are getting calls of support from many different parts of the Korean community.”

The federation, which claims to represent the interests of many middle-class Koreans in Los Angeles, was supportive of the South Korean government until last year, when it broke with the Chun regime over its slowness to promote electoral reforms. Korean leaders have estimated that more than 400,000 Korean-Americans and immigrants live in Los Angeles, the largest U.S. concentration.

There have been new signs since student demonstrations began in Seoul, the capital, 12 days ago, that Koreans in Los Angeles who had previously supported the Chun government, or kept silent, are now publicly voicing their opposition to events in their homeland.

Helping With Finances

In Young Yi, a reporter at Los Angeles’ Korea Daily News, said that for the first time, readers sent contributions to the paper to help pay the costs of Sunday’s rally.

“In the past, no one would ever think of doing that,” Yi said.

In recent weeks, a group of retired South Korean army and navy officers living in the United States have spoken out publicly in favor of new elections in Korea. Suk Bong Lee, a retired major general, showed up at the rally wearing a light blue suit festooned with gold-plated medals from his 15 years in the Korean military.

“We do not want to see any more politicization of the armed forces in Korea,” Lee said. “We are very sad about it. Once there was a democratic army, but that has been destroyed by President Chun and his helpers.”

Lee said he and the other retired military men had kept silent about events in their homeland until this month, hoping that Chun would bring about electoral reforms.

“We had to give up,” Lee said. “It is obvious to us that he will not bring democracy to our country.”