S. Korea Cabinet Offers to Quit Amid Beef Protests

By CHOE SANG-HUN
Published: June 11, 2008
SEOUL, South Korea — South Korea’s entire cabinet offered to resign on Tuesday and tens of thousands of people filled boulevards in central Seoul in the largest demonstration to be held against President Lee Myung-bak and his young but increasingly unpopular government.

The cabinet’s offer to resign came as Mr. Lee struggled to find a breakthrough in the biggest political crisis to face his 107-day-old government, one set off by fears that an agreement to reopen markets to American beef could expose the public to mad cow disease.

For the past 40 days, central Seoul has been rocked daily by demonstrations. What had started as a rally by hundreds of teenage students, singing, dancing and holding candles to protest the importing of American beef, has evolved into a broad protest against government policies on education, health care and consumer prices.

Once hailed as a potential savior of South Korea’s troubled economy, Mr. Lee has lost public confidence in his leadership over a broad range of policies at a time South Korea is grappling with a slowing economy and a prolonged crisis over North Korea’s nuclear weapons programs, political analysts said.

"Lee Myung Bak, OUT!" the protesters chanted, brandishing yellow and red cards carrying the same message.

The rally almost had a mood of festivity, with the city center reverberating with anti-government slogans and people dancing to the tune of songs blared from loudspeakers.

Overhead, large balloons carried banners that read “Judgement day for Lee Myung Bak" and "Re-negotiate the beef deal." One widely distributed leaflet said: “Mad cow drives our people mad!”

The protesters appeared to encompass a broad spectrum of South Korean society: teenage students, union members, Roman Catholic nuns, office workers in neckties and mothers and fathers holding hands with small children.
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Also on Tuesday, thousands of conservative activists supporting the beef and free trade deals with the United States staged a rival protest in a plaza in the center of Seoul. But their rally was eclipsed by the much bigger rally by anti-government protesters.

Mr. Lee’s blunders in appointing people with doubtful ethical standards to his presidential staff only compounded his troubles. He himself was dogged by allegations of corruption during the election campaign, but voters largely overlooked the claims, betting instead that Mr. Lee, a successful business chief executive, would be able to revive the economy.

But his current trouble shows that South Koreans’ patience was wearing thin.

"South Koreans had a lot of doubt when they elected Lee, but they hoped he would save the economy," said Choi Jin, director of the Institute of Presidential Leadership. "But this doubt deepened when Lee failed to demonstrate any immediate improvement of the economy. The beef debacle was the trigger to explode the undercurrent of doubt."

But both Mr. Kang and Mr. Choi said the current demonstrations were not anti-American but rather protests against Mr. Lee’s performance. Many of the demonstrators said they supported a free trade deal with the United States.