S. Korea Police Fight Students Heading to North

Radical students attacked riot police with firebombs and clubs Friday as they battled to reach the North Korean border for reunification talks with students from the Communist north.

Police in the center of Seoul chased thousands of screaming students trying to reach the main train station for rides to the border. About 5,000 students bottled up by police in Yonsei University tried to force their way out.

“We fight for unification,” students chanted as they tried to break through police lines to make their way to the border 30 miles north of Seoul for talks with North Korean students.

Police hit by firebombs screamed with pain as they were covered in orange flames in the fighting around Yonsei. Students wielding wooden and iron clubs beat troopers trying to ward off blows with shields. Both sides pelted each other with rocks and bricks.

Choking Tear Gas

Police armored cars fired volley after volley of choking tear gas at the charging students, and police martial arts squads counterattacked. Students tried to immobilize the vans with firebombs and clubs.

Protesters at one point dragged a 20-foot baseball backstop to the main gate at Yonsei to deflect exploding gas bombs fired by police. But riot troopers attacked and dragged it away.

Dozens were injured at the university, but authorities had no overall figures. Police officers and students with burns or blood pouring from cuts were carried away or staggered to safety.

Radical students called for the march to force reunification of the Communist north and the pro-Western south. Radicals claim the United States enforces partition of the Korean peninsula to rule the south, and the protests were vehemently anti-American.

‘Yankee Go Home’

“Yankee go home” and “Skin the Yankees,” screamed the students.

About 60,000 riot police in green combat fatigues and helmets were deployed in Seoul and on roads leading to the border to block the march, banned by the government as a national security risk.

Police guarded train and bus stations to stop students from slipping through to the border. Riot squads ringed government buildings and U.S. diplomatic facilities to prevent attacks.

Riot squads seized dozens of students in clashes around the railway station. Some students hurled rocks, but most did not fight back as charging police roughly scattered marchers.

Officers were seen brutally punching and kicking students as they dragged them away. Blood poured from faces of beaten students.

Pedestrians Flee

Pedestrians ran for cover or choked and coughed from swirling tear gas. The running clashes brought traffic to a standstill on many main streets.

Fighting erupted around Yonsei on Friday, when students attempted to march out after a rally at which speakers called for reunification and denounced the United States. A giant picture of an enraged student slashing a U.S. flag was used as a backdrop.

“We call for struggle of the masses for unification and against dictatorship,” a speaker shouted as cheering students waved red, blue and black anti-government and anti-U.S. banners.

Students attacked riot police with firebombs as they marched out of the sprawling campus in the west of Seoul ringed by about 8,000 troopers. Other students in nearby side streets tried to attack police from the rear and seized several high rooftops.

Overnight Vigil

The students held an overnight vigil at the school after fierce fighting Thursday. Many students appeared to have slipped away overnight, apparently to try and reach the border.

Radical leaders said two representatives were sent to try to slip past police blocks and reach the border truce site of Panmunjom to meet with the northern delegates. The heavily militarized border is off limits to civilians.

North Korea’s Korean Central News Agency said in a report monitored in Tokyo that the north’s delegates and many students had reached Panmunjom and were waiting. The delegates would be government appointees.

“The student delegation from our side is now waiting for the moment when it will have an emotion-charged meeting with fellow students from the south,” the report said.

Most South Koreans oppose the radicals’ reunification drive. People fear the totalitarian north is as determined to conquer the south as it was when it invaded in 1950 to start the Korean War.

The radicals, a small but powerful minority on campuses, claim reunification overrides any ideological considerations. Radicals demand expulsion of the 42,000 U.S. troops based in the south under a mutual defense treaty.

The South Korean government says the radicals are pro-Communist or idealists who risk being used by the north. It insists it alone should handle contacts with the north, and mainline opposition parties opposed the student march.