home
***
CD-ROM
|
disk
|
FTP
|
other
***
search
/
TIME: Almanac 1990
/
1990 Time Magazine Compact Almanac, The (1991)(Time).iso
/
time
/
051589
/
05158900.026
< prev
next >
Wrap
Text File
|
1990-09-22
|
1KB
|
26 lines
WORLD, Page 51World NotesSOUTH KOREADisaster at Dongeui
The negotiations had dragged on all night at Pusan's Dongeui
University, but by dawn the 100 students on the seventh floor of
the school library still refused to free the five policemen they
held hostage. When 20 policemen tried to break into the room, the
captors tossed fire bombs at a hallway barricade that they had
soaked with kerosene and paint thinner. The raiders were not lucky:
six policemen died, and ten were seriously injured.
The police soon freed their five colleagues and arrested 94
students, but the incident shocked South Koreans. Despite almost
daily clashes with student demonstrators, until last week only two
policemen and two students had died since the country announced
democratic reforms in 1987. Though the list of student grievances
has changed over the years, one demand has not: the overthrow of
the government.
The Dongeui University incident may give new thrust to
conservative demands for a clampdown on antigovernment activities.
At the least, the deaths have forced Koreans to re-examine how
their budding democracy is faring. In a rare front-page editorial,
the moderate daily newspaper Chosun Ilbo exhorted, "We can no
longer let things go this way. The current disorder in society
seems to be accelerating a doomsday for the nation."