Olympics Special Section: Olympic Shorts: Protest Pro Forma

For most of the summer, students who favor unification of North and South Korea and an end to American influence have been clashing with police. However it played on foreign television screens, in Seoul these confrontations had the feel of street theater, not revolution. Students knew just how far they could go, and the riot police knew their roles too.

The choreography became familiar. Students would throw stones and fire bombs; the police would respond by tossing back the stones along with some pepper gas. An hour later, both groups would call it quits. As if on cue, a water truck would roll in to hose down the street, as the police removed their helmets and the students strolled to their campus. The demonstrations made good, if somewhat misleading, television footage.

Last week, briefly, an exaggerated wire-service report made it seem that protest had veered into real violence and an attack on the Games. On the route of the Olympic-torch procession, outside the Seoul city limits at the gate of Kyungwon University, police and students clashed in the familiar rock and fire-bomb ritual. The students were driven back, and one bomb was thrown over the university wall. It burned out at least 15 minutes before the torchbearer passed by.

But the report that reached the world, stirring fears of more unrest, told of some 50 bombs, one coming within 10 yds. of the torchbearer's path. The Games may tell the world of South Korea's modern miracle, but the Western press seems unable to understand the realities of ritual.