Editor’s note: this is a developing story and will be updated as new information comes to light.
South Korea’s president Yoon Suk Yeol has declared martial law. In an extraordinary late-night address to the nation on 3 December, Yoon announced that he was invoking the emergency measure to protect the country from vague, ill-defined threats including “North Korean communist forces” and “the despicable pro-North Korean anti-state forces that are plundering the freedom and happiness of our people”.
The martial law decree went into effect at 11pm, banning “all political activities” and placing all news organisations under the control of “the Martial Law Command”. Soldiers were seen taking up positions around the National Assembly, the country’s parliament, which has been suspended, where opposition lawmakers began to assemble and appealed to their fellow citizens to join them to resist the imposition of martial law “at all costs”.
“Tanks, armoured personnel carriers, and soldiers with guns and knives will rule the country,” said Lee Jae-myung, the leader of the opposition Democratic Party, who narrowly lost the presidential election to Yoon in 2022. “The economy of the Republic of Korea will collapse irretrievably. My fellow citizens, please come to the National Assembly.”
While Yoon cited the supposed danger from North Korea, his actions seemed primarily to be aimed at his domestic political opponents in the Democratic Party who have used their control of parliament, where they hold the majority, to repeatedly block his proposed budget and threatened to impeach his cabinet. Those actions had “paralysed the administration”, Yoon said in his address. “The National Assembly, which should be the foundation of liberal democracy, has become a monster that collapses the liberal democracy system. Now, Korea is in a precarious situation where it would not be surprising if it collapsed immediately.”
“He is trying to rally his conservative base, but I don’t think that it will work,” 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. “This is a dangerous move because the South Korean population is going to oppose this move, along with the opposition liberal party as well as many in the conservative party.”
South Korea has endured long periods of military dictatorship in the past, most recently in the 1980s, when martial law was declared during a pro-democracy uprising in 1980, which was followed by a brutal military crackdown. The current system of government was established in 1988 when a democratically elected president ascended to power and sought to dismantle the last vestiges of authoritarian rule. The country has since become of the world’s wealthiest liberal democracies and a key US ally, which has around 30,000 troops stationed in the country.
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“I think that young people all the way up to people in their 40s will be shocked, since they have grown up in a democracy,” Pacheco Pardo told me. “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.”
Overnight, helicopters were seen landing on the roof of the South Korean parliament as protesters gathered outside chanting, “End martial law!” and “Arrest Yoon Suk Yeol!” Lee, the opposition leader, appealed to the military to disobey Yoon’s martial law decree. “Soldiers, the guns and bayonets you have, the power you have, comes from the people,” he said. “The owners of this country are the people. The one you should obey is not Yoon Suk Yeol but the people.”
Senior figures in Yoon’s own party have also denounced his decision. Han Dong-hoo, the leader of the People Power Party, wrote on social media that the “martial law declaration is wrong” and said he would oppose the decree. “Together with the people, we will stop this,” Han said. While soldiers with guns blocked the entrances to the parliament, some lawmakers still managed to reach the assembly chamber, where the speaker convened an emergency session and they adopted a resolution that demanded the lifting of martial law. The key question now is whether the South Korean military and security forces will obey Yoon’s orders to impose martial law and take the country back to the dark days of military dictatorship, or whether they will decide to abandon the president and defend the country’s democracy instead.
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