[929] May 27, 1980, Tuesday, AM cycle - The Associated Press

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Document 929

The Associated Press

May 27, 1980, Tuesday, AM cycle

SECTION: International News
LENGTH: 773 words
HEADLINE: Paratroops Patrol Kwangju; Roundups Continue
BYLINE: By TERRY A. ANDERSON, Associated Press Writer
DATELINE: KWANGJU, South Korea
BODY:

Paratroopers patrolled the dark streets of this city of 800,000 Tuesday night, enforcing strict martial law after government forces brought a nine-day rebellion here to a bloody end.

Government officials put the death toll at 19 -- two soldiers and 17 civilians -- in the pre-dawn attack that wrested control of the city from the student-led insurgents. It pushed the unofficial death count in Kwangju since May 18 to 280, with hundreds wounded.

Authorities gave no overall count of the wounded in Tuesday's battle but said 12 soldiers had suffered wounds.

The uprising was the climax of a month of protests against national martial law and of demands for a return to democratic rule. It was the bloodiest civil disturbance in South Korea's modern history.

In Washington, the State Department issued a statement saying, "We regret that the situation reached the point that it did. Now that relative calm is returning, we believe that it is most important that underlying issues be addressed in a spirit of reconciliation by all elements in Korean society, and that progress be resumed toward establishment of a broadly based civilian government."

South Korean government officials, expressing relief that the final assault had not caused more bloodshed, called on "all people to help heal the tragic scars" and said President Choi Kyu-hah had ordered relief efforts to begin immediately to help residents recover from more than a week of violence and economic disruption in the city 150 miles south of Seoul, the South Korean capital.

"The Kwangju incident should serve as an occasion for all the people to reflect on their actions so that such a tragedy is never repeated in this country," said Culture and Information Minister Lee Kwang-pyo, the chief government spokesman.

"There still exists a constant threat of communist invasion from the North," he said. "Under these circumstances, we should endeavor to overcome and settle any problems in a spirit of harmony and compromise."

Officials said 295 persons had been arrested as suspected instigators and participants in the revolt. Groups of captives, most apparently university students, were seen being led away from the shell-pocked headquarters of the Cholla provincial government in downtown Kwangju, South Korea's fourth-largest city.

The country's top martial-law commander, Gen. Lee Hee-sung, ordered his troops to ferret out the "radicals" among them and handle the others with "maximum magnanimity."

The government insisted the revolt was instigated by North Korean communist agents, but student leaders and sympathizers among Kwangju's citizenry denied this. They said their cause was the same as that of students who had demonstrated elsewhere in the country since May 1 -- an end to seven months of martial law and a speed-up in promised democratic reforms.

They said the violent uprising was a reaction to brutality used by paratroopers in quelling what had been peaceful protests. The students and their followers rioted last week and seized an estimated 4,000 rifles and other weapons from police and military posts.

Government troops then withdrew from the city and the rebels demanded that the government acknowledge the paratroopers' excesses as a condition for ending the uprising.

Student leaders Monday called on the United States to mediate but the State Department did not respond.

The standoff finally came to a showdown in the early-morning darkness Tuesday when the soldiers, giving the rebels two hours' warning, charged into the central area of Kwangju. In a firefight that lasted almost three hours, the troops recaptured the provincial headquarters, which the rebels were using as a stronghold.

Some of the soldiers said later they had been told they were being sent to put down a "communist rebellion."

Later Tuesday as hundreds of soldiers and 15 tanks stood guard in the debris-littered plaza outside the headquarters, others were still rounding up suspected rebels. Troops were seen dragging two men from a shabby hotel and marking their chests and backs with large "X's" with a red marking pen.

Reporters counted 16 bodies in and around the provincial headquarters compound, all of them apparently students. Several dozen coffins holding bodies collected from the fighting last week had already been in the compound awaiting identification and burial.

Reserve troops and police helped patrol the streets. Provincial officials, most of whom had fled the violence last week, returned to their offices. Most Kwangju residents heeded the martial law authorities' warnings to stay indoors, and a curfew remained in effect.