North Korea has decried last week’s attempt by South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol to impose martial law, claiming that the move and its aftermath have revealed the “vulnerability” of its neighbor.
“The puppet Yoon Seok Yeol, who was in a serious crisis of governance and impeachment, declared martial law without any hesitation and shamelessly pointed the guns of his fascist dictatorship at the people,” state-run news agency Voice of Korea said on Wednesday.
Newsweek has reached out to the South Korean president via the official Republic of Korea government website, and an official within the president’s office outside of business hours and will update this article if a response is received.
This marks the first time Pyongyang has commented on the events of last week, which have resulted in a crisis of legitimacy for Yoon’s presidency. The North Korean outlet said Yoon’s move had plunged the country “into a pandemonium.”
When Did President Yoon Try To Declare Martial Law in South Korea?
On December 3, Yoon announced that he would be imposing martial law in an effort to protect the republic from “anti-state forces,” thereby placing the country’s media and political institutions under executive control. Yoon’s late-evening announcement marked the first time such a declaration had been made in South Korea since 1980 when the country was still under military dictatorship.
South Korean Presidential Office via Getty Images
“As soon as this news was spread, not only the area around the puppet National Assembly but also Korea turned into a nationwide protest ground.” Voice of Korea said on Wednesday.
Despite the deployment of troops to the National Assembly that night to put down protests that erupted and prevent access to the building, lawmakers were able to bypass the barricades and cast a unanimous vote to overturn Yoon’s declaration.
“President Yoon’s reasons for declaring martial law have no real connection with reality,” Ramon Pacheco Pardo, professor of International Relations at King’s College London, U.K. and author of several books on South Korean politics, told Newsweek. “They are an accusation that some conservatives level on some liberals, dating back to the 1950s. They don’t really make sense in the South Korea of 2024.”
James Hoare is an honorary research associate at SOAS University, London, who spent over three decades in the British diplomatic service, including at postings in Seoul and Beijing. Hoare, who also helped to establish the British embassy in Pyongyang, said that Yoon’s “spur of the moment” move was motivated by his already precarious hold on power in Korea.
“I think what you have is somebody who got very, very frustrated and annoyed and didn’t think that as president he should be opposed,” Hoare told Newsweek. “I mean, no Korean president ever thinks he should be opposed. It’s a very Confucian society still.”
Yoon’s People Power Party was resoundingly defeated by the South Korean Democratic Party in the April parliamentary elections, further hampering Yoon’s ability to dictate the political direction of the country.
An official in Yoon’s office previously told Newsweek that the martial law declaration was motivated by his frustration with his inability to govern, rather than any supposed threats from North Korean-aligned actors within the country.
Hoare said that Yoon, who defeated Democratic presidential candidate Lee Jae-myung by less than one percent in the 2022 election, was already grappling with allegations of corruption, and that the repercussions from last week’s developments are likely to further undermine his premiership.
Will President Yoon Be Impeached?
“The international community is closely watching the emergency martial law and impeachment commotion in the puppet Korea,” Voice of Korea said Wednesday, adding that “Yoon Seok-yeol’s political life could end early.”
Protests have continued across South Korea calling for Yoon’s resignation, alongside moves by lawmakers to oust the president.
“He clearly totally underestimated the reaction he would get,” Hoare said. “And the dog-whistle measures about North Korean agents in the country just didn’t go down well with anybody.”
“Sufficient numbers of people in his own party seem likely now to be moving towards accepting that he’s got to go, and the way he’s probably got to go is impeachment,” he said.
Ezra Acayan/Getty Images
A bill to impeach Yoon fell shy of the 200 votes needed to pass on Saturday after several members of his own party boycotted the session. The opposition decried the boycott as “an illegal, unconstitutional second insurrection and a second coup.” Democratic Party leader Lee has vowed to hold another vote on Yoon’s impeachment this weekend.
“I think that it is unlikely that President Yoon will finish his term since both liberals and conservatives agree that this can’t happen,” Pardo told Newsweek.
Saturday’s impeachment fell only five votes short of the necessary two-thirds majority, meaning a handful of defectors from Yoon’s own party could seal his fate when another vote is cast.
Kim Yong-hyun, the former South Korean defense minister who took responsibility for Yoon’s declaration of martial law, has already been arrested in connection with the failed episode, and has attempted to take his own life, one official told parliament.
Yoon, meanwhile, has been barred by the Justice Ministry from leaving the country, and South Korean police have attempted to raid the president’s office in connection with his short-lived martial law decree, AFPreported on Wednesday.
Asked whether Yoon could step down before impeachment is carried out, Hoare said that Yoon would be “nervous” to do so, as he currently enjoys the legal protections of a sitting president, without which he could potentially face imprisonment.
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