In the end, South Korea’s return to martial law lasted only a matter of hours. The country’s president, Yoon Suk Yeol, announced that he was invoking the emergency measure in an extraordinary late-night address to the nation on 3 December, citing vague, ill-defined threats that included “North Korean communist forces” and the “anti-state forces that are plundering the freedom and happiness of our people”. The martial law decree that went into effect shortly afterwards supposedly banned “all political activities” and placed all news organisations under the control of “the Martial Law Command”, but it was widely ignored. Protesters rallied in large numbers outside the National Assembly, the country’s parliament, facing down heavily armed soldiers, while lawmakers rushed to the chamber – at least one of whom scaled a wall to gain access to the building – to pass a resolution demanding an end to martial law.
Remarkably, Yoon backed down, with his attempt to impose military rule proving as inept as it was short-lived. In the early hours of 4 December, having failed to gain control of the parliament or to intimidate the lawmakers who barricaded themselves inside the chamber, using furniture and fire extinguishers to fend off the security forces, Yoon announced that he had convened his cabinet to formally end martial law and withdrawn the military from the National Assembly. There were celebrations amongst the crowds who had gathered outside overnight, while deliberations began inside as to whether to attempt to impeach the president. The Korean Confederation of Trade Unions, one of the country’s most powerful unions, called an “indefinite general strike” to last until Yoon resigns.
While the 63-year-old president had based his declaration on the purported danger from North Korea, his actions seem primarily to have been aimed at his domestic political opponents in the country’s parliament, where the Democratic Party has held a majority since April and repeatedly blocked his proposed budget plans and threatened to impeach his cabinet. Even as he announced the end of martial law, the president lashed out at his political rivals, calling for them to “immediately stop the outrageous behaviour that is paralyzing the functioning of the country with impeachments, legislative manipulation and budget manipulation.” Never mind that he had just attempted to paralyze the country himself by imposing military rule.
Yoon’s actions are particularly egregious in a country that has endured long periods of martial law and military dictatorship, most recently in the 1980s, when pro-democracy protests were crushed in a brutal military crackdown. But South Korea has since worked to dismantle the remaining vestiges of authoritarian rule and emerged as one of the world’s wealthiest liberal democracies, as well as a key US ally, with almost 30,000 Americans troops stationed in the country.
“I think that young people all the way up to people in their 40s will [have been] shocked, since they have grown up in a democracy,” said Ramon Pacheco Pardo, a professor of international relations at King’s College London and the author of numerous books on South Korea including Shrimp to Whale: South Korea from the Forgotten War to K-Pop. “So they are going to take it very badly. As for older people who lived through the [earlier] dictatorial regimes, I think that this move is going to trigger bad memories for most of them. They haven’t lived through this type of decision since the 1980s.”
Senior figures in Yoon’s own People Power Party have already denounced his behaviour. Han Dong-hoo, the party’s leader, wrote on social media overnight that Yoon’s declaration of martial law was “wrong” and vowed to oppose it. Already a deeply unpopular, divisive president, Yoon’s desperate gambit appears to have sealed his political downfall. The question now is whether the former prosecutor, who rose to prominence bringing the former president Park Geun-hye to justice for corruption and the abuse of power – culminating in a 25-year prison sentence – will soon find himself facing a similar fate. South Koreans have emphatically defied this attempt to take the country back to the dark days of military rule. They are unlikely to soon forgive its architect.
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