Eight South Korean protesters have slashed a live pig with a kitchen knife near the Japanese embassy in Seoul.

The protesters say their action was over "Japan's failure to make amends for its war crimes."

The men, identifying themselves as former soldiers, are angry about Sunday's surprise visit by Japan's prime minister to a controversial Tokyo shrine devoted to the war dead.

"The pig represents unrepentant Japan," said Oh Bok-sung, 44, who led the protest against Premier Junichiro Koizumi's visit to Yasukuni Shrine.

Other reports said the pig, which was killed in the protest, had the word "Koizumi" painted on its side.

When the men's van was stopped by police 30 yards from the Japanese embassy, the men slashed the pig and threw it out of their vehicle.

Yasukuni Shrine honours about 2.5 million Japanese war dead, including executed criminals such as Second World War-era Prime Minister Hideki Tojo. It was used by the government during the war to promote nationalism and the conquest of Asia.

South Korea, a former colony of Japan, is sensitive to any Japanese moves that it perceives as attempts to glorify its wartime and colonial-era treatment of Koreans.

South Korea has filed an official protest with Japan over Koizumi's action. South Korean Foreign Minister Choi Sung-hong summoned Japanese Ambassador Terusuke Terada to his office and expressed "strong regrets".

South Korean officials are worried the controversy could chill the festive and cooperative mood building for the football World Cup, which the two countries are co-hosting from May 31 to June 30.

( Dogs, cats, pigs......., it doesn't seem to matter. No non-human life is given any respect or regard for suffering in this country. We are not hypocrites at ITD. We do not preach vegetarianism, but we defy anyone to justify the intentional cause of suffering to any animal as a political statement. We hoped that even the Koreans were above such Taliban-style actions. OK, it WAS naive and we should probably have known better......... - ITD)