LEE MYUNG-BAK, the South Korean president, faces public protests after six people died during a confrontation with police yesterday, putting the government on the defensive once again.
While clashes between police and protesters are common in South Korea, fatalities are surprisingly rare. Those yesterday will give ammunition to critics of the police already angry at the handling of protests last year against beef imports from the US.
Opposition groups were planning last night to mount candle-lit vigils for the dead, a common way of galvanising political sentiment in Korea, while Han Seung-soo, the prime minister, delivered a message of regret to the nation.
Mr Lee demanded an enquiry and called an emergency meeting of senior officials. The confrontation began after a group of more than 30 traders from the central Yongsan area of the capital occupied a four-storey building on Monday morning to stage a sit-in protest over the demolition of their business premises to make way for apartment blocks.
With tragic prescience, they had hung out a banner that read: “We are willing to die.”
The police said a commando unit had to storm the building because the protesters were hurling Molotov cocktails, bricks and golf balls, squirting hydrochloric acid and firing broken mirror shards from catapults.
While cranes were lifting the police to the roof in an armoured black cabin, a blaze engulfed the protesters, probably from the flammable spirit being used to make the Molotov cocktails, the police said.
The full circumstances of the deaths are unclear. Four protesters and one policeman died. The sixth body was still unidentified. Seventeen policeman and six protesters were injured.
Disputes over urban redevelopment have become common in Seoul, with many small business owners and poor residents furious at being pushed out by powerful construction companies with political ties.
Seoul’s most famous landmark, the Namdaemun gateway, was burned down last year by an old man who received paltry compensation from developers who had forced him from his home.
Last weekend, Mr Lee replaced his police chief, who had been perceived as being too repressive during the beef import demonstrations. – ( Financial Timesservice)