Seoul Students Riot, Attack U.S. Embassy, Annex

Thousands of student demonstrators clashed Thursday with riot policemen in central Seoul, hurling firebombs and rocks and attacking a U.S. Embassy annex in one of the most violent protests in South Korea in several months.

As the demonstrations continued today, radical students scaled the walls of the main U.S. Embassy compound to throw at least three small bombs. Police said the bombs exploded but did not cause any injuries or damage. Five students who climbed the wall were arrested, state radio said, and two others were arrested later when they rushed through the compound’s gates.

Thursday’s fighting broke out after the police allowed about 25,000 people to join a funeral procession for a Seoul National University student who committed suicide Sunday after shouting anti-U.S. slogans and calling for the release of all political prisoners.

The protest march took on a passionate anti-American tone after the demonstrators massed in the plaza in front of City Hall, burned an American flag and attempted to deface the building that houses the Cultural Center of the U.S. Information Agency.

U.S. Denounces Attack

In Washington, a U.S. official denounced the attack on the Cultural Center. State Department spokesman Charles Redman said: “We see no excuse for it. The violence which a small minority in Korea persists in using serves no positive purpose.”

Redman said the students should recognize that political reforms are being introduced in their country and that it is possible to peacefully seek change within the system.

Many of the students boarded buses in Seoul that were to take them, along with the body of Cho Sung Man, to the city of Kwangju, 170 miles south of Seoul, for burial in the cemetery where victims of the May, 1980, Kwangju uprising are buried.

The Yonhap News Agency reported that about 40,000 people participated Thursday in rallies and demonstrations around the country to commemorate the Kwangju uprising.

In Seoul, thousands attempted to march in formation through Seoul’s shopping district. Police moved in with armored vehicles, firing volleys of tear gas and sending demonstrators and passers-by scrambling.

Police Positions Attacked

Roving bands of demonstrators attacked police positions with rocks and firebombs for several hours before order was restored. One firebomb set a garden at the Lotte Hotel on fire, but no major damage was reported during the engagement.

The student, Cho, 24, leaped from the top of a building in the Myongdong Catholic Cathedral compound Sunday after stabbing himself in the abdomen in a ritual suicide.

He denounced the United States, saying the presence of 43,000 U.S. troops in South Korea prevents the reunification of North and South Korea and props up the government of President Roh Tae Woo and, before him, that of the authoritarian Chun Doo Hwan.

Cho also demanded the immediate release of all prisoners of conscience. The opposition parties say there are about 1,000 of these, though the government counts only 342.

Hailed as a Martyr

Students hailed Cho as a “martyr for democracy and for national reunification” in Thursday’s “People’s Democratic Funeral.”

They called for Roh to step down and for an end to the “military dictatorship” with which he is closely associated as a former army general and Chun’s confidant, and for American troops to withdraw from the peninsula.

Violent demonstrations have disrupted downtown Seoul since Tuesday, when students began observing the eighth anniversary of the Kwangju incident, in which special forces brutally suppressed demonstrations in the southwestern provincial capital after Chun declared martial law and had dissident leader Kim Dae Jung arrested. The government says 193 protesters were killed in the fighting then, but according to local residents, the toll was more than 1,000.

Victims and their relatives are now demanding that Roh’s role in the Kwangju incident be investigated.