Korea Police Rout Student Bid for DMZ March : Youths Defy Crackdown and Public Disapproval to Push for Reunification

Riot police firing volleys of tear gas from armored cars today crushed an attempt by a die-hard core of about 3,000 university students to march off campus to the demilitarized zone for outlawed talks on reunification with students from North Korea.

In a ritual of sacrifice, wave after wave of protesters walked in formation out the main gate of Yonsei University in the early afternoon into waiting lines of police, who quickly grabbed them, beat them with their shields and fists and hauled them away.

The students, who were largely nonviolent, had gathered at Yonsei over the weekend and clashed with riot troops Saturday and Sunday, using rocks, sticks and firebombs in defiance of growing public disapproval and an aggressive police crackdown on their plans to march to the border.

The students also confronted police Sunday in the downtown district of Taehangno, as they pressed their demands for co-hosting the Seoul Olympics and reopening the dialogue on reunification with North Korea.

The government deployed thousands of riot troops and plainclothes police to crush the rallies, conducting random spot searches at public transit stations and blocking campus gates with clouds of tear gas. More than 2,000 activists have reportedly been arrested since the disturbances began gaining momentum last week. A dozen police officers were injured Saturday by students who added iron bars to their usual arsenal of rocks and firebombs.

Although widespread violence during a similar attempt to march to the border for north-south student talks in June thrust the cause of reunification high on the nation’s political agenda, the students are receiving only limited support from the public in their current campaign.

President Roh Tae Woo apparently succeeded in stealing the students’ thunder by making his own proposals in early July on improving relations with North Korea, and preliminary talks between legislators from Seoul and Pyongyang are expected to begin as early as Friday after a hiatus of nearly three years.

Also, ordinary citizens--and many students themselves--have become weary of the disturbances and anxious about the threat of social disorder when the Olympics open here Sept. 17.

“We voted and selected members of the National Assembly with our own hands, but we never voted to have these students represent us,” said Yu Jeong Yol, a 60-year-old retiree who joined neighbors to heckle demonstrators during a riotous protest rally in the southern port city of Pusan last week.

“If we’re really going to create a democratic country and pursue reunification, we need to be concerned about the process,” Yu said. “Maybe the politicians can’t be trusted entirely, but the students aren’t going to accomplish anything with their violence.”

In Seoul, Sunday’s confrontation at Yonsei University was preceded by a counterdemonstration by local residents and shopkeepers denouncing the students. Irate citizens threw rocks at students chasing riot police during a melee Friday, according to the Chosun Ilbo newspaper. And priests at Myongdong Catholic Cathedral, a downtown sanctuary for dissidents, disarmed student protesters of sticks and firebombs and asked them to disperse.

The government, meanwhile, has signaled its intention to capitalize on the apparent rise in conservatism among the same strata of society that forced sweeping democratic reforms, including direct presidential elections, by supporting massive student protests that flared in June of last year.

In a statement that drew expressions of outrage from opposition politicians, Minister of Government Administration Kim Yung Kap told reporters Saturday that the administration would propose revising the constitution after the Olympics if radical students continued threatening to “overthrow the government” with destabilizing protests.

“The opposition even seems to support those leftist students who are pursuing Vietnamese-type national reunification,” Kim said.

President Roh reiterated on Friday his position that the government will not tolerate any student activities that might spoil the Olympics. Arrest warrants remain in effect for a number of student leaders charged with national security violations for their role in organizing an abortive march to the border in June and the one planned for today.

The students have not made up their minds on their strategy during the Olympics, but they intend to escalate anti-government protests at least until the Games begin, according to student leader Kim Joon Ki. Kim heads a 20-member student delegation hoping to reach the border truce village of Panmunjom, where 20 North Korean students are reportedly waiting to meet them.

“We don’t want our momentum to be cut off, we want it to build,” said Kim, 22, a philosophy major at Seoul National University who has so far escaped arrest under a warrant issued earlier this year.

Interviewed in the sanctuary of a university campus in Seoul on Thursday, Kim said students are aware that most South Koreans hope they will exercise restraint during the Olympics and that the public has minimal sympathy for their reunification drive.

Plans for a march on Panmunjom were timed to coincide with the 43rd anniversary of Japan’s World War II surrender, celebrated here as National Liberation Day but also observed by many as the day the Korean Peninsula was divided at the 38th Parallel by its U.S. and Soviet liberators.

The Pyongyang regime declared it would boycott the Olympics after negotiations aimed at a co-hosting arrangement broke down late last year. Seoul has said it still welcomes participation by North Korean athletes but recently set Sept. 2 as a deadline for working out an agreement for their participation.

Many South Koreans harbor a deeply emotional desire to see the country reunified and would prefer to see the Olympics promote peace, rather than animosity, with North Korea. But the fervor exhibited by student activists has failed to attract broad support.