50,000 Seoul Demonstrators Widen Anti-Regime Protests : South Korea: Much of the capital is paralyzed by the outpouring, the largest since Roh became president. Police fire barrages of tear gas.

SEOUL — The biggest demonstrations since South Korean President Roh Tae Woo took office in 1988 paralyzed at least four major sections of the capital Thursday night in what appeared to be a widening of nearly two weeks of protests.

Students’ wrath had been focused on the slaying of one of their comrades, beaten to death by five riot police officers April 26. But with Thursday’s first anniversary of the establishment of Roh’s ruling Democratic Liberal Party as the occasion for protest, 50,000 demonstrators took to the streets of Seoul, the largest outpouring to date, according to MBC, one of South Korea’s two nationwide radio-TV networks.

The Korea Herald estimated the crowds of protesters at 70,000.

Barrages of pepper gas--a virulent form of tear gas--fired from rifles and from cannons mounted on tank-like vehicles started in the late afternoon and continued for more than eight hours, long after dark.

The current nighttime protests contrast with those in June, 1987, which usually ended shortly after sunset. Those demonstrations, which involved 100,000 people on three occasions, forced Roh, then a presidential candidate, to promise an end to authoritarian government.

About 15,000 riot police in the city center repeatedly sprayed the demonstrators with pepper gas. Thousands of pedestrians mingled on sidewalks, watching the students march, fleeing each time the police fired off volleys. More than 35,000 police were mobilized throughout the capital.

Downtown shops, restaurants and night spots closed for the evening, and traffic was diverted from the areas of Jongno, Seoul Railway Station, Myongdong and the Shinsegye Department Store.

Demonstrators filled the main street in Jongno, a major night-life section, for more than 1 1/2 miles. It was mainly in that area that demonstrators used violence.

Protests also were held in 87 other cities, drawing more than 30,000 people in both Pusan, the nation’s second-largest city, and in the southwestern provincial capital of Kwangju, MBC reported. The newspaper Hankook Ilbo estimated that 200,000 turned out throughout the country.

A year ago, two of Roh’s former opponents--Kim Young Sam and Kim Jong Pil, both of whom had run against him in the 1987 presidential election--abandoned the opposition and led their parties into a merger with Roh’s followers, who had been a minority in the National Assembly. The tripartite merger was widely viewed as a maneuver for political power that betrayed voters who had cast ballots against the ruling party in the 1988 Assembly election.

Students Thursday shouted such slogans as “Dissolve the ruling party!” and “Execute Roh Tae Woo!” as they locked arms and marched across eight-lane boulevards in the city center. They also demanded that squads of riot police skilled in martial arts, nicknamed the “Skeleton Corps,” be disbanded.

Five “Skeleton Corps” officers have been arrested for beating to death Kang Kyung Dae, 20, a Myungji University freshman, on April 26. Since then, four other persons have died, three of them in self-immolations. One, a labor leader, plunged to his death from a hospital where he had been under police detention while conducting a hunger strike.

Dissidents announced that they would stage a funeral for Kang next Tuesday at Yonsei University, a hotbed of student protest.

Although Prime Minister Ro Jai Bong called an emergency Cabinet meeting Thursday morning before the day’s protests began, no new measures were announced. Ro, a former college professor, rejected calls for his resignation and the replacement of his Cabinet.

Kim Young Sam, executive chairman of the ruling party, said he will meet President Roh on Saturday and plans to propose “a package of measures to defuse the situation,” according to party spokesman Park Hee Tae.