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Police detained about 200 former South Korean spies who protested Sunday against the government's alleged refusal to pay bonuses for secret missions they carried out in North Korea decades ago.
A total of 218 protesters were detained for questioning after they took over two lanes of a six-lane road in Seoul, wielding metal rods and setting fire to gas canisters, said Seoul police Sgt. Lee Sang-chul.
Nineteen policemen and 10 demonstrators were injured, he said. Police quickly put out the blazes but traffic was backed up. Television footage showed four riot police taking away one bleeding demonstrator. About 1,000 policemen were used to stop the hour-long protest.
The former spies demanded the government follow through on alleged promises to give them cash bonuses, houses and other benefits for infiltrating North Korea between the end of the Korean War in 1953 and the early 1970s.
Thousands of operatives from the South were sent over the border to spy on the North during that period. Some 300 of them were killed, 203 wounded, 130 arrested, while 4,849 are listed as missing, Korean officials say.
The number of operatives sent north diminished in the 1970s as the United States became capable of spying on the North with satellites.
Last year, a law was adopted in the National Assembly to compensate families of former spies who were killed or wounded in action. They can receive up to $82,101, plus a monthly stipend of $550.
Government officials said many of the spies have already received compensation paid at the end of their missions.
(China Daily September 30, 2002)
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