SKorean activists protest NKorean nuclear weapons

SEOUL: Tens of thousands of activists and veterans staged a protest Wednesday against North Korea's nuclear weapons as South Korea observed Memorial Day to honour those killed in the 1950-53 Korean War.   

The demonstrators demanded the United States and South Korea punish the communist North for refusing to honour a six-party nuclear disarmament deal. "North Korea must immediately and completely dismantle its nuclear programme!" they shouted, waving US and South Korean flags during a rally outside Seoul's City Hall.

The protest was sponsored by Christian groups and the Korean Veterans Association. Police said it drew about 30,000 people.   Association chief Park She-Jin accused North Korea of developing nuclear weapons with money and supplies from South Korea while starving its people.

"With those nuclear weapons, it is now taking South Korean society hostage and threatening and blackmailing us for more support," he said in a speech. 

The former general drew an enthusiastic response when he said South Korea should develop nuclear weapons 'for our survival' unless its neighbour gives up its atomic programme.

The South dropped its own nuclear weapons programme in the 1970s under US pressure. Some veterans burnt a North Korean flag, chanting "Down with (North Korean leader) Kim Jong-Il!" They also urged South Korea to strengthen an alliance with the United States and suspend aid to the North until it honours the February accord.

"No aid to North Korea without the dismantlement of its nuclear weapons," read a banner during the three-hour rally. At ministerial talks in March the South promised to resume its regular annual food aid after the North begins honouring the disarmament agreement.

The first shipment out of an annual total of 400,000 tons of rice worth 170 million dollars was to have been made in late May. But South Korea postponed the shipment until Pyongyang makes a start on shutting down its Yongbyon reactor.

Under the six-nation deal, the North was to shut down the reactor as the first step in a full nuclear disarmament process in return for massive aid and diplomatic concessions. But it has refused to budge until it receives 25 million dollars which had been frozen in a Macau bank since 2005 under US-inspired sanctions.

Washington said the accounts were unfrozen in March but the North has had problems finding a foreign bank to transfer money seen as tainted. An air raid siren sounded across Seoul Wednesday morning to mark the start of Memorial Day, which remembers those killed during the Korean War and in other encounters with the North.

The defence ministry says some 130,000 South Korean troops including police were officially listed as dead in the three-year conflict. North Korean military deaths are estimated at more than double that figure.

About three million civilians on both sides were killed, wounded or went missing and another five million became refugees, according to several estimates.