SEOUL — Suspicion and fear of war returned to South Korea on Saturday as President Kim Young Sam put his nation's armed forces on alert immediately after hearing of the death of North Korean leader Kim Il Sung.
Daily life in both Seoul and the North Korean capital, Pyongyang, remained normal, however, and officials of the United States, which maintains 37,000 troops in South Korea, said no signs of military movements had emerged and that American forces were not on alert.
A Western diplomat in Seoul also said that fears of an imminent military confrontation, or even a significant rise in tensions, were overdrawn. Visual inspections showed that the Demilitarized Zone that separates the North and the South was "quiet, calm and subdued," he said.
"North Korean soldiers haven't even taken modest precautions to increase readiness," the diplomat said. "Across the board, we are not aware of anything being done to prepare for military hostilities."
The South Korean alert for its 625,000 soldiers was ordered in response to one that Seoul officials said the North ordered earlier in the day. North Korea itself made no such announcement.
Urging the people "to attend to your daily life without concern," Kim Young Sam said the South Korean government can "safeguard peace . . . under any circumstances. We are well prepared."
The alert underscored fears of what might happen in secrecy-shrouded North Korea now that the Stalinist country has lost the only leader it has had since separate governments were set up in the North and the South in 1948. Soviet and U.S. occupation forces divided the onetime Japanese colony after World War II.
The influence of the 1.1-million-strong North Korean military is expected to increase with the demise of the 82-year-old charismatic leader who claimed, in propaganda, to have liberated Korea from Japan and who in fact launched the bloody 1950-53 Korean War and a series of terrorist attacks against the South over the years. Kim's lifelong goal had been to reunify the country under Communist rule.
Communist neighbor China will be one of the countries most affected by Kim Il Sung's death.
Of the same generation and background as the leaders who have ruled China since 1949, Kim was personally close to the late Chinese leader Mao Tse-tung and to current senior leader Deng Xiaoping, who will turn 90 in August.
