Old Hatreds, New Mobs

"Riotous demonstrations are the cancer of this society; they are driving this country to destruction," warned President Chung Hee Park last week in a nationwide broadcast. Unless the riots stopped, said Park, the nation's schools would be shut down "semipermanently."

Park's warning was in response to week-long clashes between the police and student mobs numbering as many as 10,000. With more than 400 cops nursing wounds and bruises, Park declared garrison law and rushed the front-line 6th Division into the capital city of Seoul. Several hours before he spoke, soldiers stormed the University of Korea campus, cracked the heads of rock-throwing students, routed others from classrooms and a cafeteria with tear-gas grenades. Sobbed a coed: "How can they do this? How can they treat students on campus like enemy soldiers?"

Shared Blood. Park expected student disorders when his National Assembly ratified the new friendship treaty with Japan (TIME, July 2). To forestall them, the students were sent off on vacations 20 days early, just before final exams. In their absence, the Assembly ratified the pact with Japan--which will normalize relations between the two countries for the first time in 70 years --by a vote of 110 to 0. Opposition assemblymen boycotted the session.

Returning last week for their delayed final exams, the angry students took to the streets instead, demanded nullification of the treaty, dissolution of the "one-party" Assembly, and general elections "to reflect the people's will." As the clashes increased daily in intensity, with 875 students jailed and 1,000 injured, an anti-American mood grew more apparent. A typical slogan was "Yankees Keep Silent," underscoring the student belief that Washington is behind Park's Japan policy; things were not helped by recent announcement of U.S. plans to increase procurement in Japan of military items needed in Viet Nam and readily available in Korea. "While Korean soldiers are to share their blood in Viet Nam, Japan is to enjoy the economic windfall," muttered a Seoul newspaper.

Stabbed Queen. Most opposition to the treaty stems from the belief that its provisions--especially on fishing rights--favor Japanese industry. Apart from that, all Korean youths have been brought up on a propaganda and textbook diet of hatred for Japan as Korea's traditional foe. Moved more by emotional chauvinism than by politics, the students still bitterly remember heroine Queen Min, who was stabbed to death by Japanese assassins in 1895--a film portraying her sad fate has been playing to packed moviehouses.

Opposition leaders rejoiced at Park's problems. Former President Po Sun Yun said that Park "should shed his belief in the almightiness of bayonets" before condemning "the students' belief in the almightiness of demonstrations." Nevertheless, at week's end, Park's police arrested 53 university students and three prominent retired generals, all former members of Park's 1961-1963 junta. In cracking down, Park was well aware that the regime of ex-President Syngman Rhee was overthrown by demonstrations in 1960. As truckloads of soldiers patrolled the streets to crush further uprisings, it was evident that Park intended to avoid a similar fate.

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