Koreans’ Mood Seen Shifting to Back Protesters

Nationwide protests in this country Friday showed that President Chun Doo Hwan failed to undermine overwhelming opposition to his government when he made the conciliatory gesture of meeting with top opposition leader Kim Young Sam at midweek, Western diplomats said Saturday.

“There is a new mood,” one diplomat said, noting that at shops that remained open while Seoul police fought the protests with barrages of pepper gas, “Everybody was talking politics.”

Here in the capital, he added, “Public sentiment in favor of the demonstrators was 80% or 90%--overwhelming.”

Opposition Growing

The blanket of pepper gas, a virulent form of tear gas, that covered more than three square miles of the downtown center “has galvanized a lot of feeling against the government,” the diplomat said, asking that his name not be mentioned. “The feeling against tear gas remains very strong.”

Both of South Korea’s main opposition leaders agreed.

Kim, president of the Reunification Democratic Party, called the protests a success because they showed that “the regime cannot be maintained unless changes are made.”

His ally, Kim Dae Jung, free again Saturday after one day of house arrest, said, “In view of the exploding popular zeal for democratization, the government and the ruling party must accept a direct presidential election or a national referendum to determine the form of the next government before it’s too late.”

Public Sending Message

Even the ruling Democratic Justice Party acknowledged that the public was sending a message. “The people have expressed their desire for the nation’s political development,” its spokesman, Kim Jung Nan, said.

Leading opponents of Chun want talks resumed on revising the country’s authoritarian constitution. Chun on April 13 ordered those talks suspended until after the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul.

Estimates of the number of demonstrators in Seoul and across the nation varied widely Saturday. According to press reports, police put the nationwide figure at 58,000 while opposition spokesmen said there were hundreds of thousands.

According to police reports, 3,467 protesters were detained across the country Friday night, with 2,665 of them being released with warnings. The night before, police rounded up 1,817 suspected dissidents and placed them in preventive detention. Friday morning, they placed another 234 under one-day house arrest as the demonstrations approached.

Seoul’s streets were clear of demonstrators Saturday morning.

Workmen Clean Debris

Workmen cleaned up debris around the Seoul railway station and other Friday night hot spots, while municipal water trucks crisscrossed the city, washing away the residue of tear gas grenades.

Late Saturday afternoon, in districts such as Myongdong where clashes occurred, pedestrians still covered their noses with handkerchiefs to block the lingering sting of the gas.

Press reports said that scattered skirmishes between police and students were continuing in the southern city of Kwangju.

Saturday’s scheduled annual alumni soccer game between Korea and Yonsei universities was cancelled. According to press reports, authorities feared that some spectators in the Olympic Stadium crowd might try to turn what was billed as a good-will game into an anti-government rally.

Friday’s mass demonstrations, coming only two days after Chun met Kim Young Sam, a man he has always shunned, were regarded as a test of the opposition’s staying power and the government’s patience in dealing with street protests that have swept the country on and off since June 10.

Limited to One Term

The street protests were triggered by the naming of Chun’s handpicked successor, Roh Tae Woo, as the Democratic Justice Party’s candidate for president. Chun is limited by the constitution to one term in office and will step down as president Feb. 24.

Diplomats had feared that Chun might resort to using troops if violence had gotten out of hand in Friday’s protests.

An apparent drop in the number of protesters in Seoul, compared with street protests June 10 and June 18, indicated that Chun’s order closing colleges early for the summer vacation may have had an effect, the diplomat said.

Protests May Decline

This foreign official predicted a downturn in protests, but even so, “more disturbances over the summer than ever before.”

In previous years, protests by radical students, who use campuses as rallying points for demonstrations, have all but evaporated during summer months after schools close.

“But I’d keep the calendar open for the fall,” the diplomat quickly advised visiting correspondents.

Korean newspapers reported today that the ruling party was considering--but only as a last resort--dissolving the National Assembly and holding an election in which the campaign would focus on the issue of whether South Korea should have a presidential form of government, with direct elections, or a parliamentary form, which the ruling party favors.

Kim Young Sam declined to comment on the reports.

An announcement of a package of reforms by the ruling Democratic Justice Party, which Roh, in his post as party chairman, had initially planned to make last Monday, is now expected sometime this week.

Announcement Delayed

The announcement was delayed, the diplomat said, because the party apparently has not made up its mind how far it will go in meeting opposition demands to implement constitutional changes that would allow free elections.

The diplomat acknowledged that attempts to reach a political solution to South Korea’s troubles “won’t be a very neat process.”

Lim Bang Hyun, chairman of the central executive committee of the ruling party, said Saturday night on government television that his party is willing to renew negotiations with the opposition without insisting, as it has to date, on a parliamentary system of government.

Lim added that if an agreement is reached to implement a parliamentary system, the Democratic Justice Party will rescind Roh’s presidential nomination.