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Kim Dae Jung Hailed as Hero at Uprising Site

September 09, 1987|DAVID HOLLEY | Times Staff Writer

Tuesday afternoon, as Kim headed back downtown from the cemetery, several hundred riot police lined one side of the central plaza as about 6,000 students and twice that many onlookers listened to anti-government speeches under a banner bearing the message: "There cannot be democratic government without execution of the murderers of the Kwangju massacre."

The riot police were nowhere in sight by the time the crowd grew into the hundreds of thousands.

While students across the country share the sentiments displayed on the banner, Kim has pledged that there will be no political revenge if the opposition comes to power.

Many South Koreans question whether reconciliation is possible. But Kim insists that it is.

"The main purpose of the Kwangju people when they opposed the military junta was to achieve democracy," Kim said in an interview on the train. "If we can achieve democracy, that fully meets the Kwangju people's aspirations. To punish people is not necessary. Rather, that would be harmful to political stability and to the realization of reconciliation." Kim will visit his birthplace on the island of Haui today and return to Seoul on Thursday.

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