Farmers hurled rocks and beat riot police with steel pipes and sticks near the National Assembly, witnesses said.
Two police buses were torched and dozens of protesters and police were hurt, with many bleeding from their heads and faces. Cable news network YTN said about 80 people were injured.
The three-hour battle followed a rally by about 12,000 farmers ahead of this week’s Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in the southern port city of Busan.
Thousands of riot police were deployed around the assembly to contain the farmers who want lawmakers to scrap a bill that would open South Korea’s rice market wider.
The farmers burned a large painting showing US President George W. Bush thrusting a knife into a rice bag, and threatened to disrupt the APEC forum if lawmakers ratified the rice deal.
“We will ruin APEC if the assembly endorses the deal,” the Korean Peasants League, a militant farmers group, said in a statement.
