Thousands of South Korean riot police backed by fire engines and earthmovers stormed a Buddhist temple in Seoul yesterday to end a long dispute among the monks, provoking a vicious battle which left dozens injured.
As several monks threatened to set themselves on fire or slit their stomachs, police brandishing batons and shields moved in to Chogye Temple, the headquarters of Korean Buddhism that has been split by bickering groups.
Earthmovers tore down barricades of wood and barbed wire and two armoured trucks used powerful water-hoses to help police force their way into the compound, witnesses said.
Four riot policemen climbing a ladder to enter the five-storey building through its window lost their balance and fell 10 metres to the ground. They were rushed to hospital unconscious.
Some 100 occupants including monks and their followers put up a fierce resistance, hurling firebombs, bottles and furniture from the windows and rooftop.
Witnesses said more than 20 people were injured, including many policemen hit by roof tiles and other projectiles. Some monks seen bleeding from head wounds were taken away by police.
A few monks stripped themselves half-naked, soaked their bodies with petrol and threatened to set themselves on fire should police move in. Two slightly slit open their own stomachs with knives.
The monks inside welded the building's entrance shut, barricaded themselves behind a bus and set fire to stacks of wooden construction materials in an attempt to hold off the riot police
It took five hours for the police to evict the occupants after mobilising 4,500 officers including 80 police commandos. They took 47 people into custody.
At one stage the building caught fire but the blaze was immediately put out by fire-fighters.
A court earlier this month authorised police to take action to end a feud between the monks which erupted in November.
Two rival factions - the mainstream Constitution Safeguards Committee (CSC) and the Purification and Reform Committee (PRC) - have been bickering for months over the right to name the heads of hundreds of Buddhist temples across the country and to manage their budgets.
Chogye Temple has seen hundreds of rival monks clash repeatedly over the past few months, leaving dozens injured.
It had been occupied by the PRC since November 11th in an attempt to prevent elections for the chief administrator of the headquarters from going ahead. The PRC was apparently concerned it would lose.
The CSC won a court order to force PRC members to leave temple, but the PRC monks barricaded themselves inside and fended off officials seeking to carry out the court order. The officials asked police to help them force their way into the temple early yesterday.
Following the police raid in Seoul, some 50 PRC monks who occupied Tonghwa Temple on Tuesday left the premises after the mainstream faction called in a group of young monks to take the temple back.
Buddhism, with 10 million followers among a population of 43 million, is South Korea's most popular religion. But its modern history has been marred by factional fights over the right to control the management and budgets of hundreds of temples across the country.
The United Nations Command (UNC) said yesterday that North Korea had rejected its proposal for talks on armistice-related matters including the recent sinking of a North Korean vessel in southern waters.
The command said in a statement that the North's Korean Peoples Army (KPA) had rejected the call for talks in the border village of Panmunjom.
"Although obligated to respond favourably to such a proposal by the agreement establishing general officer talks, the KPA today rejected the meeting," the statement said.
The talks would have included results of the command's investigation into last week's firefight with a North Korean semi-submersible vessel off the southern coast of South Korea, the statement said.