South Korea: Crisis Ahead of Schedule

The first anniversary of the April 1960 riots that sent autocratic ex-President Syngman Rhee flying off to Hawaiian exile was drawing near. For weeks, Rhee’s successor, mild Premier John M. Chang, has been worrying over the prospect of nationwide demonstrations against his government on the anniversary. As one preventive, the Chang Cabinet proposed two bills to control street demonstrations and give the government more effective means of cracking down on South Korea’s illegal — -but active — Communist Party. Leftwing organizers, capitalizing on wide spread distrust of the two proposed bills, got busy without even waiting for anni versary day.

First they staged a four-hour anti-government rally in Seoul’s City Hall Plaza. Afterward, some of the assembled 8,000 headed for home, but others stayed on. Taking up torches and banners, the crowd surged through Seoul’s main streets, chanting, “Overthrow the Chang regime.” Cops in combat dress moved in and tried to seize the torches. An agitator yelled, “Kill the police,” and sticks and stones started to fly. Before the dust had settled, the mob had destroyed two police Jeeps and stormed to within 200 yards of Chang’s residence; 40 policemen and six demonstrators were injured, and 119 riot ers were arrested.

The following day there was another demonstration. More than 2,000 of South Korea’s 2,500,000 unemployed, many of them women with babies strapped to their backs, marched through the streets bearing banners: “Anti-Communism is fine, but we need three meals a day, too.”

As antigovernment rallies mushroomed all over South Korea, President Posun Yun summoned Democrat Chang and the leader of the opposition New Democratic Party to a midnight meeting at the presidential palace, and asked them to agree to a “political cease-fire” until such time as the government is free of danger of being overthrown from the extreme left. That day is a long way away in a war-weary nation where at least 25% of the labor force is out of work and where low wages, an inadequate food supply and a high birth rate compound years of economic mismanagement.