Seoul Students Stage Anti-U.S. Protest : South Korea: Police clash with marchers chanting, ‘Yankee go home.’ But both sides seem restrained.

More than 1,000 students clashed with riot police Saturday as they marched to protest growing U.S. pressure on North Korea and America’s alleged role in South Korea’s brutal crackdown on a 1980 civil uprising.

The students chanted, “Yankee go home,” and sang anti-American songs as they made their way from a Seoul campus toward a nearby U.S. military base. They swung steel pipes at riot police who blocked their way, while students on a nearby rooftop hurled chunks of concrete. Police responded with tear gas.

The scene was a familiar one to those who have watched student demonstrations in South Korea over the years. But the number of students involved Saturday was comparatively small, and both students and police were generally restrained, a possible reflection of the popularity of Kim Young Sam, who took over in February as the nation’s first civilian president in 32 years.

It was the third student demonstration in a week coinciding with the time 13 years ago when soldiers put down a rebellion in the southwestern city of Kwangju. The official toll then was about 200 civilians killed, but dissidents said the number of dead was much higher.

Critics said Americans had operational command of South Korean troops at the time and the U.S. commander in South Korea must have acquiesced in the diversion of South Korean military units from near the demilitarized zone to Kwangju to put down the uprising. U.S. officials have always denied involvement in the Kwangju crackdown. But students proclaimed May 22 “Anti-America Day.”

This year, students had a new complaint. They accused the United States of exaggerating the danger of North Korea’s reported efforts to develop a nuclear weapon. “Korea was headed for peaceful unification until America raised this imagined threat,” said a student official of the Korean Students Assn.

Many students would like the 36,000 U.S. troops stationed in South Korea to leave. That sentiment was reinforced recently by the killing of a South Korean woman by an American soldier. Public opinion polls, however, show that most South Koreans still support the American military presence in the face of a heavily armed North Korea.

Two demonstrations earlier in the week demanded apologies from Chun Doo Hwan and Roh Tae Woo, two former military leaders who were involved in the Kwangju crackdown and later became president. “All this (student rioting) would settle down if those two would just apologize,” said a retired civil servant as he watched the students and riot police try to outmaneuver each other.

Although most Koreans do not believe the United States was directly responsible for the Kwangju deaths, that sentiment could change quickly if an impending government investigation shows that the American military cooperated in any way with the military government’s 1980 crackdown.

An unusual element in the recent demonstrations was that, for the first time in decades, the government was not the target of protesters. That may be because President Kim has public support ratings of 90%. “We are withholding judgment on Kim Young Sam,” one student leader said.

The past week’s demonstrations were an exception in what has otherwise been a peaceful six months at universities here. Spring festivals on most campuses during the week featured folk singing and dancing instead of the political rallies of past years.

The week’s demonstrations were also less violent than in the past because of a student decision not to use Molotov cocktails.