29.08.1996

Police thugs attack students

Last week students occupied Seoul’s Yonsei University, demanding that the South Korean government step up efforts to unify South Korea with the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK).

The South Korean authorities denounced the students as stooges of the DPRK. Associating any sort of protest with the other half of Korea is a well-worn trick - as if all South Koreans would be perfectly happy with their lot were it not for the malign influence of the DPRK. One South Korean university academic who, not surprisingly, declined to be named, told Reuters news agency that only a minority of the students were actually pro-DPRK, though in general they did not demonise the system in the north. Still, the South Korean security authorities dislike anything less than outright hostility to the north. Certainly they regarded the students as a threat to national security.

Our very own BBC TV echoed this viewpoint when the riot police finally broke into the university and started making mass arrests. As far as the commentator was concerned, the students were puppets of the north and were being totally irrational, as the DPRK is currently in the midst of great difficulties.

The footage shown on the BBC of riot police beating arrested students and forcing them to keep their heads bowed in submission was horribly reminiscent of the way I have seen the Turkish army treat demonstrators. Turkey and South Korea have a lot in common in terms of their attitudes to protesters, though both countries just about fit the bourgeoisie’s notion of democracy (parliament, more than one party, elections).

And what of the north? Severe economic conditions are reported there, with talk of near-famine. It is unlikely that the economy is doing well in the DPRK. These days its neighbour China seems to prefer trade relations with South Korea, and it is futile for countries like the DPRK to try and develop in isolation. On the other hand, the most lurid reports about famine mainly originate from the South Korean media, where it is illegal for them to write anything favourable about the north.

Andrew MacKay