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South Korea`s anti-US protesters block Roh`s path
Seoul, May 18: Riot police clashed today with about 1,000 anti-US student protesters who blocked South Korean President Roh Moo-Hyun from attending a public event in the southern city of Gwangju, reports said.
Seoul, May 18: Riot police clashed today with about 1,000 anti-US student protesters who blocked South Korean President Roh Moo-Hyun from attending a public event in the southern city of Gwangju, reports said.
A motorcade carrying Roh and his wife was prevented by the hordes of students from travelling along a main road
leading to a national cemetery, where a ceremony marking the anniversary of a pro-democracy civic uprising in 1980 was underway, Yonhap news agency said.
Roh's convoy was forced to detour several kilometres to enter the cemetery through its back gates while a deployment of 2,000 riot police moved to shut down the protest, causing injuries to several of the demonstrators.
The demonstration, which came a day later Roh returned from a week-long us trip, delayed the president's scheduled speech by 20 minutes, Yonhap said.
The ceremony was organised by civic groups in Gwangju, where the 1980 uprising against military dictatorship sparked a bloody crackdown by soldiers.
Many of the 250 victims of the crackdown are buried in the cemetery - considered a sacred place for South Korea's democratic movement.
The students from Hanchongryon, outlawed by the South Korean government as a pro-North Korea organisation, denounced what they called Roh's pro-US statements during his trip to meet his US counterpart George W Bush, Yonhap said, and criticised his face-to-face meeting with Bush as "humiliating."
Bureau Report
Roh's convoy was forced to detour several kilometres to enter the cemetery through its back gates while a deployment of 2,000 riot police moved to shut down the protest, causing injuries to several of the demonstrators.
The demonstration, which came a day later Roh returned from a week-long us trip, delayed the president's scheduled speech by 20 minutes, Yonhap said.
The ceremony was organised by civic groups in Gwangju, where the 1980 uprising against military dictatorship sparked a bloody crackdown by soldiers.
Many of the 250 victims of the crackdown are buried in the cemetery - considered a sacred place for South Korea's democratic movement.
The students from Hanchongryon, outlawed by the South Korean government as a pro-North Korea organisation, denounced what they called Roh's pro-US statements during his trip to meet his US counterpart George W Bush, Yonhap said, and criticised his face-to-face meeting with Bush as "humiliating."
Bureau Report