Anti-Government Rally in S. Korea Attracts 200,000

Thousands of protesters clashed with riot police after a huge anti-government rally Saturday that drew together South Korea’s splintered opposition and attracted about 200,000 people.

Also Saturday, President Roh Tae Woo said South Korea will push ahead with plans to temporarily open the border between the Koreas, despite objections from North Korea.

But Roh agreed to negotiate conditions set by North Korea. He told a Cabinet meeting Saturday that Seoul “must continue . . . efforts to achieve the goal, and we can actively discuss points of contention with them.”

There were no immediate reports of arrests or injuries in Seoul. The anti-government rally at a park in the southern part of the city was the first since Roh’s election in 1987.

The clash broke out as riot police blocked a column of about 15,000 radical students at a bridge leading toward the center of the capital.

In the southern city of Kwangju, an opposition stronghold, police firing tear gas stormed Chonnam University to break up an anti-government rally by about 1,000 students and dissidents.

At the Seoul rally, thousands of laborers, housewives, students with red headbands and men in business suits cheered as opposition speakers demanded new general elections.

The rally came a day after the nation’s two opposition parties--the Democratic Party and the Party for Peace and Democracy--agreed to merge into a new, unified party, to be joined by other dissidents.