On Wednesday night, protesters pelted police with dirt and bricks, broke the windows of police buses, and tied the buses with ropes to pull them from the barricades in scenes reminiscent of the democracy protests of the 1980s. Pushed to the ground by protesters, riot police troopers had their shields and helmets snatched and were kicked and trodden on. Some were seen pleading with the protesters, saying if they returned without their shield and helmet they would be confined in the lockup.

Protesters also attacked the conservative Chosun and Dong-A dailies, removing their signboards, urinating on the buildings or throwing garbage at them. Downtown Seoul was effectively a lawless zone until early morning the following day.

Riot police are deployed when protesters tried to march to Cheong Wa Dae during a protest against U.S. imported beef in Seoul on Thursday./AP

Earlier this week Police Commissioner General Eo Cheong-soo told the president in a Cabinet meeting that police would deal strictly with rallies to restore law and order. President Lee Myung-bak also pledged to deal firmly with illegal and violent rallies. But the same day, demonstrators shouted, "Peaceful rallies are history as of yesterday." The government and the president have become a joke to the demonstrators.

"The problem now is not the demonstrations but the Lee Myung-bak administration,” says Dr. Gong Byeong-ho, a renowned management consultant. All the government has done so far is set up barricades with police buses at the Sejongno intersection to block the access roads to Cheong Wa Dae. This shows that the government cares not about the living conditions of ordinary people but only about how to protect Cheong Wa Dae after compromising with the demonstrators.

Traffic in downtown Seoul has been blocked for more than a month, stores and restaurants have to close early, and taxi drivers can find no customers. People are unable to make a living because the government’s writ no longer runs in the city.

Park, a 67-year-old resident of Pyeongchang-dong, near the area occupied by demonstrators, says, "Pyeongchang-dong and nearby Buam-dong are completely isolated every night. Who is responsible if any of the residents in this area, where many elderly people live, becomes ill in the middle of the night?"

An office worker who lives in Samcheong-dong, near Gwanghwamun, says he has to walk home from work because no public transport gets through. “I can't understand why the government has let the demonstrators occupy roads in the downtown area for over a month, even though it is calling such rallies illegal."

In 2006, the Korea Development Institute estimated the social costs -- including costs from traffic jams, losses to stores and restaurants in the downtown area, expenses for the mobilization of riot police troopers, and people's psychological burdens -- incurred by a single illegal rally at the Gwanghwamun intersection at W77.6 billion (US$1=W1,037). In other words, the country has wasted more than W2 trillion due to the government’s failure to act amid already difficult economic circumstances.

Just like the protesters who shouted antigovernment slogans in downtown Seoul, even the normally patient ordinary citizens are now asking if the Lee administration has the raison d'etre if it is unwilling or unable to take action.

(englishnews@chosun.com )