By Jon Herskovitz
SEOUL (Reuters) - South Korean police said about 50,000people protested in Seoul on Saturday against a U.S. beefimport deal and the policies of the new president, whosegovernment has faced weeks of street rallies.
Polls show that most South Koreans oppose a deal PresidentLee Myung-bak struck in April to open the market to U.S. beefbut about two-thirds of respondents say it is also time to haltthe rallies that have grown more violent in recent weeks.
Protest organisers, which include civic groups, religiousleaders and a militant labour group, said they expectedhundreds of thousands to attend. There were no major incidentsof violence in the first few hours of the rally.
The protests began in early May by people concerned aboutpossible mad cow disease in U.S. beef but later grew into aforum where a wide variety of people gathered to air grievancesagainst Lee, who won a December election by a landslide.
Lee has seen his support plummet and analysts say he cannotimplement reforms such as privatising state-run firms andrevamping pension systems unless he wins back the public.
Rallies last weekend left hundreds of protesters andconscripted riot policemen wounded, prompting religious leadersto join the rallies in the hope of calming things down.
South Korean and U.S. trade envoys reworked the beef dealin June with a private-sector agreement that limits trade inbeef to cattle under 30 months of age, thought to pose a lowrisk for mad cow disease, and prohibits shipments of risky bodyparts.
U.S. and South Korean leaders have said there is noscientific evidence that shows the U.S. beef headed to SouthKorea poses a risk for the brain-wasting disease.
U.S. beef returned this week to store shelves in SouthKorea, once the third-largest overseas market for the productwith annual sales of about $850 million (428.6 million pounds)before Seoul banned sales in 2003 due to an outbreak of mad cowdisease in the United States.
Major retailers refused to sell the product out of fear ofantagonising Koreans, but a few independent butchers whooffered U.S. beef quickly sold out. People lined up to buy theproduct that sells for at least half the price of Korean beef.
(Additional reporting by Angela Moon; Editing by ElizabethPiper)
