In Seoul, the night of December 3 was prohibitively arctic. The streets around Yongsan were eerily calm and empty, with few restaurants and bars open. Not far from the South Korean presidential office, people in office attire and tourists were hunkering down in one corner pub for late-night talks and unwinding after a long day.
At that very moment, it was surreal to discover that the South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol, a mere five-minute walk away, was declaring martial law, purportedly “to eradicate shamelessly pro-North Korean anti-state forces.”
Everyone, including this author, was engrossed in their conversations, not checking their phones and not registering this momentous, preposterous announcement. Then phones began to ping with concerned messages from acquaintances and breaking news telling of military choppers and armored vehicles and some 300 special forces bearing down on the National Assembly. Now, the uncanny sight of police patrol cars and fire trucks – their sirens and lights off – that had filed past moments ago made sense.
Following the initial visceral desperation, an unsettling subconscious conviction surfaced. We didn’t want to face it, but deep down we all knew that Yoon was capable of doing something like this. There have been plenty of indicators, both from his inveterate ideology and personality and from some shady developments on the part of the Yoon administration in recent months leading up to martial law.
Yoon admires Rhee Syngman, the Republic of Korea’s first president, who plunged the nation into dictatorship. The Yoon administration has tried time and again to build a memorial to Rhee, in spite of public outcries. It was Rhee that created such a strong presidency as the country’s executive. In 1952, he declared martial law and roughed up the legislators to change the constitution and enforce his second presidential term. Police brutality and election-rigging were the norm. He exercised absolute control over his political party. Anyone critical of his governing style was branded as communist and tortured.
Yoon grafted Rhee’s notion of government onto his administration. Abuse and expansion of government authority has marked Yoon’s presidency. Police deployment and brutality soared. Prosecutors have become Yoon’s henchmen. He throttled press freedom with sanctions and investigations. The ruling People Power Party (PPP) cowers before him.
Rhee and Yoon share the same disposition and the same sense of entitlement and self-righteousness. Yoon believes he knows what’s best for the people. No holds are barred in clinching the end results he thinks the Korean society badly needs. People are expected to be patient because it’s all for the best. Everything that he and his coterie do is sacrosanct and exonerable.
The culmination of this attitude was his insistence that his declaration of martial law, which did not meet the requirements laid out in the South Korean Constitution, was necessary “to preserve the free constitutional order.”
The first thing Yoon did upon taking office in May 2022 was to relocate the presidential seat to Yongsan based on some kooky geomancy concepts. He severely disrupted the workings of national defense by booting out defense personnel to make room for the presidential office. He manhandled the entire defense establishment in the summer of 2023 to cover for the top brass whose professional negligence caused a marine’s death. Top officials responsible for the Itaewon tragedy were acquitted. His wife is above the law, as the authorities let her off the hook for her involvement in stock manipulation, acceptance of bribery, election-meddling, influence-peddling, among other things.
Rhee isn’t Yoon’s only role model. Yoon also praised the two dictators that succeeded Rhee. This is a man fundamentally attracted and used to power. As a career prosecutor, he had locked up bigwigs, including two former presidents. It’s not a secret that Yoon is bullish and overweening, with a short fuse and the need to be obeyed right away. Hence the unbearable frustration and petulance arising from not being able to cut corners and having to compromise and to apologize as president.
Prior to the declaration of martial law, evidence has been piling up in relation to the nastiest of all his scandals: the existence of quid-pro-quo relations within the PPP revolving around Yoon, the first lady, and an expert poll rigger who manipulated state affairs for personal benefits. Just like Rhee, those deploring his senseless administration were dismissed as “pro-North Korean” and “anti-state” elements in his perception.
The opposition parties, particularly the Democratic Party (DP), tightened the noose on Yoon with their bills of impeachment against his stooges and establishing special counsels to investigate his wife. Yoon was cornered and had had enough. When power is available to him, he’s drawn to it. Martial law, as the president’s ultimate prerogative, couldn’t have been more tempting. The need to curb the ongoing medical crisis from doctors’ strikes and to fight the opposition DP’s budget cuts intended to rein in government incompetence was just a convenient pretext.
In recent months, there has been some developments highly indicative of an impending martial law declaration. We witnessed these warning signs, but still dismissed martial law as a possibility.
A few months ago there was some commotion when it came to light that the special warfare commander, capital defense commander, defense counterintelligence commander, and the head of the Presidential Security Service (PSS), Kim Yong-hyun, held a meeting. Minister of the Interior and Safety Lee Sang-min also paid a visit to the Defense Counterintelligence Command. But at the time, everyone was quizzical at best.
Something was indeed being cooked up, however. Afterward, Yoon appointed Kim, the then-head of the PSS, as defense minister. Under the Martial Law Act, only the defense minister and the interior minister can propose martial law to the president. It so happened that all three men calling the shots over martial law went to the same high school. As the cherry on the cake, the defense counterintelligence commander, who gets to direct and control investigative organs once martial law kicks in, also went to the same high school. The special forces dispatched to the National Assembly belonged to the Special Warfare Command and the Capital Defense Command.
Yoon’s declaration of martial law was premeditated. And, contrary to the presidential office’s insistence, it was unconstitutional. The president can effect martial law only under a national emergency such as war or disaster, or when there’s a pressing need to maintain public peace and order. Political vendettas and shielding one’s loved ones and lackeys from legal ramifications are clearly not national emergencies.
The Martial Law Act also requires the president to deliberate implementation of martial law in a Cabinet meeting. Judging by all the ministers’ whereabouts at the time, it seems that the Cabinet meeting didn’t meet the statutory quorum.
As impeachment articles loom, the most grievous potential charge awaiting Yoon is insurrection. An incumbent president is privileged against prosecution, barring an insurrection. South Korea’s criminal law defines insurrection as creating “violence for the purpose of excluding national power from … the Republic of Korea or subverting the Constitution.” The Supreme Court once ruled against Chun Doo-hwan, a former dictator, that his scaling-up of emergency martial law to cover the whole country constituted insurrection.
Yoon’s martial law, though short-lived, attempted to outdo Chun’s.
The first edict of his martial law banned “any and all political activities such as the National Assembly, regional assemblies, political parties, association, rallies, protests, etc.” The constitution guarantees the parliamentary right to overturn by a majority vote the president’s declaration of martial law. It’s something that can’t be violated even in wartime. For this reason, the martial law commander can’t paralyze the National Assembly, which retains the right to demand a revocation of martial law, whose intention the president must abide by. But the edict trampled it all.
After the edict was issued, the police formed a phalanx outside the main entrance to the National Assembly, preventing legislators from voting. Armed troops scuffled with civilians and barged into the assembly to force it shut. Special mission units also tried to arrest party leaders and the assembly chairman. Thankfully, enough lawmakers skirted the armed presence by jumping over fences to make their way inside and vote – otherwise, the unlawful martial law would have remained in force.
Yoon, both by word and action, tried to subvert the due constitutional process. It was an attempted military coup d’état. Yoon could be looking at a life sentence.
The nation cried the other day. Now people are keeping vigil on the streets and lawmakers in the assembly. It’s no time to rest assured, for the president is unpredictable. Yoon liked to extol the “universal values of humanity” and South Korea’s position as a “global pivotal state.” If that’s what he truly cares about, I will just leave him with an apt quote from former United States President Jimmy Carter: “The best way to enhance freedom in other lands is to demonstrate here that our democratic system is worthy of emulation.”
