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Thousands in South Korea urge US troops to leave |
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Written by AFP
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Tuesday, 16 May 2006 |
Thousands of activists held a candlelit vigil urging US troops to withdraw from South Korea, witnesses said, a week after violent clashes left 210 injured.
About 4,000 protestors including activists, workers and student radicals occupied Chongno Street near the American embassy in central Seoul, holding candles as they chanted songs, shouted slogans and waved banners.
Thousands of riot police, backed by fire trucks with water cannons, stood guard over the protest Saturday fearing a repeat of last week's fighting in Pyongtaek.
Police buses were parked closely together to block all roads to the high-walled US embassy some 100 meters (yards) away.
The protesters carried banners calling for the withdrawal of US troops and an end to the ongoing talks to conclude a free trade agreement with the United States.
Dozens of US military bases in and around Seoul are to be relocated to Pyongtaek, 70 kilometers (45 miles) south of the capital.
Construction is to begin in October but some residents and farmers, backed by anti-US activists, have refused to vacate their houses on the site.
"No expansion of US bases," the crowd shouted. "US soldiers, your home is in America, not in Pyongtaek," a banner read.
The protests came despite an appeal from Prime Minister Han Myung-Sook, who Friday urged activists to stop violent anti-US protests and said an alliance with the United States was key to regional stability.
Han also expressed regret over last week's violence. A coalition of civic groups, however, vowed to push ahead with another massive protest in Pyongtaek on Sunday.
The protestors in Seoul also called for the release of the 16 demonstrators who were arrested over the Pyongtaek fighting.
Thousands of protesters armed with bamboo sticks fought pitched battles with police in the Pyongtaek last Thursday.
The demonstrators made holes in miles of barbed-wire fence set up around a site cleared for the new American military headquarters.
Seoul and Washington have agreed to relocate 35 US military bases across the country in a consolidation plan.
But activists say the relocation is aimed at facilitating a pre-emptive US attack against North Korea, with thousands of US troops being pulled from the front lines where they would be exposed to North Korean bombardment.
Some 32,000 American troops are stationed in South Korea under a mutual defense treaty following the 1950-1953 Korean War.
Copyright © 2006 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved.
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