THOUSANDS of student radicals, screaming "Yankee Go Home" held mass anti US and anti government demonstrations yesterday to mark the anniversary of a 1980 massacre by martial law troops.
Some 500 rock throwing radicals attacked the US Information Service and ruling party headquarters buildings at dawn, but were beaten back by riot police using tear gas, residents and TV reports said.
The radicals say the US military command in South Korea condoned the 1980 massacre.
Towards evening thousands of students and civilian supporters, waving placards reading "Down with the government", "Yankee Go Home" and "USA get out" poured into Kwangju's Keum Nam street, the scene of the worst firing in 1980.
Riot police kept out of sight as the protesters, estimated to number between 8,000 and 9,000 marched in ranks past banners reading "Kill the murderers.
Many of the marchers slashed posters showing the then security commander and later president, Mr Chun Doo Hwan, whose extension of martial law in 1980 provoked the Kwangju uprising and whose troops quelled it with automatic weapons fire. The official toll was 200 civilians dead and some 1,000 injured.
Mr Chun and his military classmate and successor, Mr Rob TaeWoo, are now both jailed in Seoul, on trial and facing the death sentence for their alleged key roles in the massacre.
In a separate development, South Korean troops fired warning shots to force five North Korean soldiers back to their own side of the demilitarised zone dividing their hostile nations, a UN joint command spokesman said.
The North Koreans reportedly fired shots before they were seen, but no casualties were reported, said the UN spokesman, Mr Jim Coles, who played down the significance of the alert.
The incident happened around noon (local time) in the northeast sector of the tense zone, which has separated the Korean peninsula since the end of the Korean War in 1953, Mr Coles said.
In April, North Korean troops made a series of armed incursions into the demilitarised zone, near the truce village of Panmunjom, in breach of the armistice, to demonstrate the North's repudiation of the accord.
Mr Coles said reports from the line indicated that South Korean border guards first heard four rifle shots and then a short time later a single shot.
The North Koreans were said to have crossed 20 metres south of the midpoint in the zone before turning back after the warning shots were fired.
North Korea last month repudiated rules governing troop behaviour both sides of the zone. Pyongyang called for a new peace arrangement for the peninsula. However, North Korea has also has said it is considering a proposal for peace talks put forward by President Clinton and President Kim Young Sam of South Korea to replace the armistice which ended the Korean war.